Homestudy
One of the reasons I'm writing this blog is to share our adoption process with people who might be considering adoption themselves (or actively working on adoption). I love to read other adoption blogs to find out what the process was like for other people. I always get jealous if their adoption went really fast! So anyway, this post is about the obligatory homestudy.
Once we decided to adopt, I did tons of research. As a librarian, that is usually my first step. I read books, searched online, and talked to people. I discovered that the first step is to do a homestudy. This is a series of interviews with a social worker where they try to determine if you are fit to parent a child. We chose an agency that was semi-local. We live in a rural area, and the closest agency we could find was an hour and a half away! Now I know that we could have worked with an agency farther away and found a social worker near us to do the actual homestudy.
Anyway, we were very happy with our agency. Our social worker was a really nice woman but it's hard to get too comfortable with anyone when you feel that she holds your fate in her hands. I remember wondering if I was making too much eye contact, or nodding too much when she talked. I really wanted to make a good impression and prove myself fit to be a mother.
We met with the SW 6 times in all. First we had an informational meeting where we found out about the agency. That was in November of 2005. It took us a few weeks to decide that we wanted to go ahead with the adoption and work with that agency. The next meeting was in January of 2006. We talked about our reasons for adopting and discussed the different countries we could work with. At the next meeting we talked about our style of discipline. After that we each met with the SW separately to talk about our relationship and childhood. The final meeting was in our house. That one was the most nervewracking. Our house has never been so clean. After it was over though, I realized I had been so obsessed with cleaning the house that I hadn't cleaned the kitty litter in at least 3 days. With two cats, that made for a smelly box! Luckily, the SW did not look at our basement where the kitty box is kept. I don't think that one thing would have prevented us from being approved as adoptive parents, but you never know...
In all our homestudy took about 4 months and it took the SW another month to write up the report. We finally got our final homestudy report in June 2006. It took an unusually long time. I've seen other people who had theirs done in 6 weeks. Our agency was small, and they had a lot of people wanting to adopt at the same time. Jack was very forgiving and understanding, but I found it harder to be patient.
Some people who adopt feel that the homestudy is really invasive and they feel that it's unfair that they have to go through it when other people can just have a kid. I didn't really feel this way. In fact, I liked the fact that I was approved by a social worker. I really think it would be good if everyone had to talk about discipline and other issues before they had kids. I feel like Jack and I are slightly more prepared to deal with kids than some people are.
Once we decided to adopt, I did tons of research. As a librarian, that is usually my first step. I read books, searched online, and talked to people. I discovered that the first step is to do a homestudy. This is a series of interviews with a social worker where they try to determine if you are fit to parent a child. We chose an agency that was semi-local. We live in a rural area, and the closest agency we could find was an hour and a half away! Now I know that we could have worked with an agency farther away and found a social worker near us to do the actual homestudy.
Anyway, we were very happy with our agency. Our social worker was a really nice woman but it's hard to get too comfortable with anyone when you feel that she holds your fate in her hands. I remember wondering if I was making too much eye contact, or nodding too much when she talked. I really wanted to make a good impression and prove myself fit to be a mother.
We met with the SW 6 times in all. First we had an informational meeting where we found out about the agency. That was in November of 2005. It took us a few weeks to decide that we wanted to go ahead with the adoption and work with that agency. The next meeting was in January of 2006. We talked about our reasons for adopting and discussed the different countries we could work with. At the next meeting we talked about our style of discipline. After that we each met with the SW separately to talk about our relationship and childhood. The final meeting was in our house. That one was the most nervewracking. Our house has never been so clean. After it was over though, I realized I had been so obsessed with cleaning the house that I hadn't cleaned the kitty litter in at least 3 days. With two cats, that made for a smelly box! Luckily, the SW did not look at our basement where the kitty box is kept. I don't think that one thing would have prevented us from being approved as adoptive parents, but you never know...
In all our homestudy took about 4 months and it took the SW another month to write up the report. We finally got our final homestudy report in June 2006. It took an unusually long time. I've seen other people who had theirs done in 6 weeks. Our agency was small, and they had a lot of people wanting to adopt at the same time. Jack was very forgiving and understanding, but I found it harder to be patient.
Some people who adopt feel that the homestudy is really invasive and they feel that it's unfair that they have to go through it when other people can just have a kid. I didn't really feel this way. In fact, I liked the fact that I was approved by a social worker. I really think it would be good if everyone had to talk about discipline and other issues before they had kids. I feel like Jack and I are slightly more prepared to deal with kids than some people are.
posted by Jill @ 5:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home