Home Study Update

We had a great time with Alisa, our case worker, on Thursday. That in itself came as a relief. I was worried she would be irritable/unhelpful with us for having hounded her so much to get us on her schedule before the year's end. Turns out that wasn't the case. We think she is just one of those laid-back personalities (and therefore work styles) that you just have to keep on top of. Alisa was one of the several trainers we had during our classes, so we were familiar with her already. We all three had to keep making ourselves stay on topic because it was so easy to go off in different directions. Course, most of you already know how chatty I can be. And when you get me talking about adoption, well, there's just no stopping me.

Somewhere along the way during her visit, we enlisted ourselves to be on their next adoptive parent panel that they offer as an informative session during the training of prospective adoptive parents. So that's something we'll look forward to doing. It was our favorite of all the training sessions we did over the past few months. And I love, love, love to talk about our experience with Noah's adoption. On top of that, I love what a positive, real-life example we can speak from about maintaining a relationship with a child's birth family.

We were able to get a lot of our questions answered during the course of our 2 1/2 hour visit with Alisa, so that also came as a relief. Joshua and I both felt really good after she left. We found out the following:

1. We only need one more visit to complete our home study update. Alisa will come back out to the house Friday, January 8, so she can catch us up on a training class we missed, and more importantly, so she can meet and visit with Noah and Anna. I look forward to that.

2. The home study approval timeline is nowhere near what our experience and wait was when we went through DFCS in Georgia 4 years ago. It is simpler and quicker, emphasis on the quicker. She said we can expect our home study to be approved by the end of January.

3. The steps that come after that are for us (or our agency) to identify a child we are interested in knowing more about and have Alisa send that organization/state department our home study. She said it's a little like sending out resumes.

4. When we hear back from those inquiries, they will want more information about us as well. She said we can likely expect them to want to meet us for themselves. And that we could be asked to prepare a scrapbook-style presentation of our family and what we are about.

5. After their meeting us and our all agreeing to go ahead, a meeting with the child is set up. And if all signs continue to point to yes (including the child's reciprocal interest), visits are repeated, increased in length of stay, and the visit location gradually shifts from the foster home to our home.

6. Last up, would be placement in our home. Six months from there, the adoption can be finalized.

I just think it's neat to know this time next year we could already have been a family of 5 for awhile. Could possibly not be yet, but still, quite possibly could. Will keep you all posted.

Praying for you, Thinking of you, Waiting for you, Planning for you, little-girl-Brown-to-be.