Homestudy, Take Two - August 9th

     Dejavu all over again is the saying, for us the homestudy process is a bit like that. For those of you who know our story we have been approved to adopt in Indiana, went through all the official stuff but then were not chosen by a birth mother. Now that we have lived in this country long enough we are able to adopt here but alas we must go through another homestudy process. This past March we almost went back to America to update our homestudy there only to recognize that we were most likely going to adopt here.

     The homestudy is a big portion of the before process to being approved to adopt. It's a series of meeting with a social worker who comes to your house to ask questions on all sorts of levels from how the normal day looks for you to what your childhood memories are. They can be inquiries that dig quite deep along with conversations that are more about hopes/dreams than anything else. Essentially the interview questioning is to mine out what we think, and what is some background as to why we think something particular. Having gone through this type of proceeding before means that we have already reckoned with much of our thoughts on parenting, use of time, looking back at how we were raised and thinking about practical things like stair-gates and child-proofing the home.
     We were over the moon on Tuesday as our homestudy started here, the next number of dates for the other meetings are set as well. For people who are usually quite planned out this has been a real bonus to know when we'll be meeting, and roughly what the conversation will centre around. There is also a homework element which includes a variety of written explanation again mostly to do with either our own past or our view on how to handle a situation. It's the kind of homework that doesn't have right or wrong answers since it's about our lives, so again we can handle that and for the most part look forward to it.

For those of you wanting firm dates on when we'll be approved and have a child/children in our house it's simply too hard to say not because the system is broken or we are being misinformed it's because there are so many factors that go into being approved, getting through panel, matching with a profile, meeting children etc... there are many other steps to go but this important one we have now embarked upon.