What's Happened So Far...

Once you are hooked up with an agency, there are things to do. To bring you up to date, let me give you the run-down...

For us it started with a general information meeting. Several couples considering adoption come together for a presentation by one of the agency's representatives and hear a presentation about adoption and about the agency. We've done that.

At the meeting you receive a packet with a ton of stuff in it- one item being the formal application. If after the meeting and reading through the material provided, you feel that you are ready to jump in, you complete and submit the formal application. The formal application must be submitted with a pretty substantial application fee, so when you turn it in it is somewhat like jumping off the high dive. You're in now. Let's get the party started. We've done that.

Soon after the application is in you have to write an autobiography. I think that each of ours will be available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble sometime in July. We've done that.

Once the autobiographies are in, you are assigned to a case-worker or social worker, and the "home study" process begins. Agencies go to great lengths to be certain that prospective adoptive parents are solid upstanding people. (At this point I would like for my two brothers to just be quiet). The home study involves meeting with the case-worker at the agency office and at your home, (thus the term HOME study). Home studies can be completed in 2 or 3 meetings. We have completed two, (including the one in our home), but we have one more coming. Apparently we talk too much or something.

In the midst of all of this, you have to get physicals, which, Mother, I do every year anyway. And, you have to have blood drawn. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am a total wimp when it comes to needles. I mean, nearly pass out kind of wimp. But I will have you know that I had my blood drawn Monday and came through with flying colors- kind of a whiter shade of pale. (A nod to the older ones like me who remember that song)

We have been fingerprinted and our "FBI" background check has been run. (The Agency assured me that my previous stint as an agent would not jeopardize our adoption chances at all.)

We have attended a panel meeting during which we heard presentations from adoptive families and birthmothers which was very informative and beneficial.

Our personal references are in, (thank you if you are reading this and you are one of the families that wrote references for us).

So- what's left? Well, we do still have to meet with our case-worker one more time, (coming very soon), and we have to attend an "Education Meeting" at the agency. As of now we do not know when that meeting will be. It appears that the Education meeting will be the last item in our home study.

Once the home study is complete, then it is on into the selection process. More about that in future posts!

Thanks for coming along!

-ja-