The Home Study Visit.

What is more terrifying than a stranger coming to your house to evaluate whether or not you would be or are a good parent?  In my mind this is what an adoption home study was.  I started to question my parenting and even more my housekeeping skills.

As a reference we were able to schedule our home study as soon as our background checks and fingerprints went through and the majority of our application had been scanned and sent to our case worker at the agency.  We scheduled it for two weeks from that date.

During the entire weekend before the Monday of the home study we cleaned, arranged furniture and bought extra baby safety equipment for the cabinets.  We were ready to show how clean and safe our house was...or could be.

When Jennifer, the case worker arrived she asked for a quick tour of the house.  She asked where the baby would sleep and what the sleeping arrangements would be for the rest of the family.  While holding my breath I showed her a cluttered storage room that we would soon convert to our daughters bedroom and my daughter's current bedroom where all three of my children were sleeping.  She didn't seem to care at all.  All she wanted to know is that there was adequate and considerably clean living space for each child.  She cared more about the fact that there were three available bedrooms (one is currently a play room, one a storage room, and one the bedroom) for the children than the current actually arrangements.

She then asked if our fire detectors worked.  Of course this is the one project Sam forgot to complete.  He went to change the batteries in preparation for the visit and ended up forgetting and leaving the fire detector wires dangling from the ceiling without the batteries or lid!  She asked if our dog was up to date on her rabies shots and I showed her the dog tag.

Then Jennifer talked to Sam by himself for about 30 minutes and then with me alone.  During this one on one time she asked about our upbringing- about how our parents disciplined us and how we planned to discipline, about our marriage, about our strengths and weaknesses and why we wanted to adopt.

We then came together with her as a family and she asked us more similar questions while my daughters showed off and drew her pictures.  During this time I also asked Jennifer a million questions about what to expect and she helped educate and guide us through the difficult forms that asked us about the alcohol and drug use of the birth mom.  She explained that based on our application and home study, when they had a birth mother they felt that might be a good match but maybe had a health history or substance abuse history that was more than what we had indicated on the form that they would call us and inform us of that specific situation and ask if we were comfortable with them showing the mom our Dear Birthmother book.

Having Jennifer come for our home study was like hearing a baby's heart beat for the first time.  I have no idea what other people's home study process was like but for us it was an amazing and encouraging process.  It was one more confirmation that we had chosen the right agency.