"Be Prepared"

One of the steps of the adoption that made me the most nervous was the homestudy. I have heard so many horror stories about how homestudies can last anywhere from 2-8 months and how the Social Workers are so intimidating. "Be Prepared" is what I heard many people say. Prepare yourself for the never ending list of personal question and a very thorough inspection of your home. Prepare to feel vulnerable and intimidated and just remember it's their job.....

Who wouldn't be nervous.

Well, yesterday I received a call from Mr. Saunders, our Social Worker. "I'll be there at 4pm, if that's ok." he says. Trying to hold in my excitement and nervousness I hung up the phone and let Dustin know we had a big day ahead of us. The next couple of hours I ran around the house cleaning up any little messes and checking and rechecking all our baby proofed outlets and door knobs. I couldn't hold still.

Mr. Saunders was right on time and we sat in our living room talking for over 2 hours. He wanted to know all about us, including the girls. What our hobbies are, what we did for work, do we enjoy our work, how was Kaiya doing in school, how do the girls get along, what schools Dustin and I went to, what did we do after High School, How long did we date before getting married, what are our finances like, how do we feel about our communication with one another, what was it like growing up in our homes, and so on.. and on and on......

After we answered every question he asked, he asked to see our home. We showed him every room, including closets. Once in our room Kaiya wanted to show him her favorite game. She took both her socks off and stood on mine and Dustin's bed. She throws her socks how ever many times are required until each sock in on a different blade of the ceiling fan. She squeals with excitement and jumps off the bed and yells "Watch this!" She turns the van on and watches as the fan picks up speed. The socks fly off one by one, the second hitting Dustin. He plays his usual role in the game and falls to the ground. Kaiya and Ryan laugh so hard that the social worker starts laughing hysterically. We should have played this game at the beginning of the visit :) Would've been a killer ice breaker.

After he sees the rest of our home, including Vika's future bedroom, he tells us that our home is great. Nothing to change. He says that we have a wonderful spirit in our home and he is very happy he gets to work with us. He told us that if we can get all of our documents in within the next week, our homestudy will be complete in 2 weeks!! 2 WEEKS!!!

I told him that he is not nearly as scary as I thought he'd be. Another round of laughter :)

So, here we go. One more step in this journey down. This week we will be working on getting together all our documents which include Birth Certificates, Letter from Doctors, financial statements, to name just a few.

Let's do this!