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First Home Study Visit Completed!

Our first meeting with Dani was today. She was here for a long while; 3-6:30 or so. This is the first of 4-5 visits. Her next visit will be on Wed. the 28th. I don’t know if they’ll all be as long as today. What did she leave us with? More paperwork, of course! ;)

Paperwork!

She started by asking a little about our preferences about children, and from there our conversation shifted a lot. We talked about ages, our finances and why Tim left Redfin. We walked through the house, and have the official list of things to work through. She signed off on about three quarters of the list today. Surprisingly, there isn’t a lot of “fix this.” We’ll need to add hand rails and lock up medicines and knives. We had a lot of questions about specifics that Dani is looking into. Now that I’m writing this, I wish I had taken notes! =)

We’ll only be licensing the main floor (as of now). They apparently only license the floor that the children sleep on. The bedroom is just shy of being big enough for 3 kids! So, we’ll try to license it for 3. That means we’ll need to set up the room for 3 children. We’ll need a bunk bed and a pack and play. So, if anyone has any leads on kids’ furniture, let us know.

Here’s the vague timeline: Our first step is to fill out the state application and background checks. We have 90 days from the date we sign on the background check to finish our home study. Dani says it takes them at least a month after the deadline for the state to license. So, the earliest we could get a placement is 4 months from the date we sign on our form.

Home Study Appointment #1

Our first Home Study visit will be Jan. 14 and 3pm. One prayer request that we have is that Tim’s new bosses will be supportive of Tim leaving a bit early, in order to be home on time. It will be his second week of work, and Tim doesn’t want to appear flaky. It’s not a huge concern given how generously supportive they’ve been so far, but you never can be sure.

Case Worker Assigned!

Yay! We got assigned Dani as our case worker! Due the holidays, our home study will start early January. I’ll let you know when we get a specific date and more details. =)

Waiting with a little confusion

Outside of one remaining reference, our homework for Antioch is officially done. I’m still halfway expecting another “one more thing” email. For those of you who we haven’t talked with lately: we found out that they needed like 12 more documents that they didn’t tell us about before. It was pretty annoying. But now we’re moving forward. Sorta; in the “move-to-the-next-line-at-the-DMV” kinda way.

I’m still unsure whether we’ll have to do more paperwork for the state. I apparently don’t know how to ask the right questions to get a clear answer from Antioch. If there is more to do, I think it will be lumped in with our home study.

So now we wait a little bit. I’ve been told it will take about 3 weeks for our file to be looked over and a case worker assigned. I’d really like to work with Dani again, she was nice. Once we have a case worker, we can start our home study. I have a feeling things may pick up a lot of speed at that point. Kinda exciting. Kinda terrifying.

Sorry to those who were hoping, but we won’t have our children by Christmas.

On a side note: We met another family, originally from TX, who lives just blocks from us. They adopted older children out of foster care too. Hopefully we’ll become good friends. =) I look forward to knowing people, who live in close proximity, that have gone through the same thing.

Not my plan

I wrote this a while ago, but it still feels true:

I’m feeling vulnerable, so you get to get a peak at my thoughts & fears.

If I’m honest with myself there is a part of me that doesn’t want to keep going. There are days that I’m motivated and eager to move forward; to plan and do the paperwork. Then there are other days. Those days I get a lump in my throat. My anxiety level is out of control at the thought of adoption. The idea of raising children who come out of foster care terrifies me. Don’t get me wrong, I want to be momma to more kids. hI just have a hard time accepting that this is the way it will happen.

It’s so much work! I know that all parenting is work – hard work. But when you raise adopted children, it seems like the work load is heavier. I still struggle with why I have to prove my parental worth to the state, while others easily get pregnant without effort… this was not my plan.