Home Study Part III - Home Visit

Last night I had a dream that we adopted a little girl....my first adoption dream. In the dream, Tim and I were holding and loving on our new daughter and there were 2 female friends there who kept trying to put little knit caps on her. Whenever I would pull one off, I'd discover 3-4 more underneath it. Hmm...what do the dream anaysis books say about that?

Yes, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned before our social worker Amanda came over for the home visit. How could I not? I was feeling actually pretty calm about this part of the process. Amanda came over about 9 a.m. and stayed for about 3 hours. We liked her alot! She was very comfortable to talk with and I could easily see why the birthmothers she works with come to trust her and talk with her. She asked about things we'd been asked before like our families, education, income, interests, etc.

She asked why we've chosen domestic adoption. I knew next to nothing about my birthfather until I was 38. Tim and I were planning on starting a family and I realized I really wanted to know my health history on my father's side to understand what genetic makeup I could pass along to a child. Amazingly, I learned that my mother and my birthfather's family had grown up next door to each other and an uncle from each side had been friend's since they were children. The one aunt got in touch with the other aunt and one day, much to my surprise, I received an envelope in the mail. I opened it and saw my father's face looking back at me. There was completely no doubt that I am his daughter as I look just like him! The pic above is the one I saw first. Since then, I've had the opportunity to get to know some of my family on my dad's side. He passed away when I was about 8 but he came from a family of 10 and also had 7 other children so my extended family is VERY extended now! I am so thankful to my aunt and uncle for introducing me to this side of my history! It is so amazing to see people who look like me and also to have access to health history info. So....that is why we have decided on domestic adoption. It feels like a natural choice for us to make. We want our child to have that same opportunity if possible one day.

Back to the home visit....she also asked about what we thought made a good parent, how we would discipline and took a walk through the house which took all of about 3 minutes. I felt that everything went very, very well and was on floating all day. It is becoming more and more real that we are really going to be parents...wow! I guess you could say that we are officially pregnant at long last. :-) Next, the agency will meet on Monday to review our file and will send us a letter letting us know if anything is missing or it'll be a Home Study Approval letter. After that, we'll just need to wait for them to put together our bio sheet and post our info on their website. Then we officially begin looking for our little one....where, oh where is he or she? Please help spread the word...you never know when someone has a cousin, neighbor, friend, coworker, sister, etc. who is considering adoption. Your doctor and church are 2 good places to put in a good word for us as well. You could be the one to connect us with our child!