"It's not a hill it's a mountain [of paperwork] as you start out the climb"

This post is long overdue. Our home study has come and gone.

The day and the days leading up to the home study made me crazier than even planning my wedding. I felt overwhelmed with not knowing what to expect. I questioned everything about our house: its drafty windows, its steep stairs, and all the pieces I thought had character but suddenly seemed like a potential hazard to children.

I eyed the 3/4-finished projects around the house critically, wondering what social worker would deem us good parents when we can't finish installing a complete set of shades.

I snapped at everyone those last few days of frantic deep cleaning. Poor Mike. Poor Mom. Poor me! (Sorry to everyone on whom I might have taken out my stress.)

I was reduced to tears several times. I try to not feel sorry for myself but as I stared at those unfinished shades, I couldn't help but feel a pang of resentment toward the birth parents who didn't go through a quarter of this scrutiny. Of course, it didn't help that while this was going on I was also closing out one big project at work, which has its own stressors.

Then the day came and all the preparation paid off. The house looked lovely and felt filled with love as our family and a few close friends joined us to meet our social worker. The aroma of pulled pork roasting in onions, garlic and root beer made me feel at home and oddly at ease. I tried to get photos throughout the day, but I'm not a photographer. I didn't get good photos of everyone, and a few guests were notoriously photo shy--including Mike.

The social worker's visit wasn't anything to be afraid of. She hardly looked at the house. She seemed impressed by all the support our family was giving us. She was 10 minutes late, but, we were expecting this. We definitely passed, and I told coworkers and friends that I feel we can finally say we are expecting in the adoption state of the word.

We couldn't be happier about it:

So what's next?
1) The social worker needs until April 1st or so to write our official case study.
2) We will approve the case study.
3) Then, we'll be placed in the matchmaking database.

It could take years to be matched--there is no guarantee that we will ever be. However, we have done everything to ensure success so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Pre-approved and ready to purchase

Where Corporate and Non-Profit Collide
Thursday's meeting with our social worker started off in a frustrating manner. We make sure to get there on time, she makes sure we have to wait at least 10 minutes before she comes downstairs. Additionally, she has to meet no later than 3:30 so on this particular meeting I was feeling stressed from leaving work early. Thursday, when she casually walked down the stairs 10 minutes late again I had to check my frustration knowing the more she likes us the more likely she'll want to work harder for us. BUT, if I could have said something, I would have said, "when I'm running late at work, I am always hurrying and apologize for making people wait."

The Ego Boost
Alas, I realize that nearly 10 years in Corporate America has made me a tad more anal so I'm letting that go because the rest of our session was so successful. That's right!

Social Worker thinks we are fabulous candidates for the program. She thinks we will be "natural parents." I love hearing that but at the same time think she must be kidding 'cause I have no idea about how to parent. She also said the answers we gave on our interviews will make us attractive to other social workers.

What's Next?
a. We need to complete our foster care paperwork.
b. We need to attend car seat installment classes.
c. Social Worker needs to visit our house, meet our support network.
d. To prepare for Social Worker visit we need to:

1. Clean up our house - kinda like we would if we were gonna sell it
2. Hang up the carbon monoxide detectors we bought
3. Finish painting the hallway
4. Take out the desk upstairs that's broken and being propped up by a chair
5. Create a page of photos of me, Mike, the dogs, and our immediate family for our case study
6. Get Princess vaccinated by a vet who can come to the house since she's terrified of leaving
7. Find a in-home vet
8. Get Eddie, Moxie, Princess licensed with The City of Minneapolis
9. Keep day dreaming about who our children will be. These are the brothers I have my eye on. They have a 1-year old brother who requires a stay-at-home parent to attend to his medical needs though, which probably wouldn't work. So this girl is also of interest. It seems crude to browse a webpage for children.

Like Buying People
As I as talking about this process with a friend, she compared it to buying a house, which is pretty much how it feels. Right now, using that analogy, we've been pre-approved to buy. We've been given access to a list of available homes. We still need to have our home inspected before we can really proceed, but that's more of a formality than anything.

She's back!

Great news! Our social worker has returned, and our next appointment is February 17th, Wednesday!!!! Hopefully it will be quickly followed by our home study and our prompt placement into the kid matchmaking database.

Oh I can't wait! Can you tell by the over-use of exclamation points?

Waiting and not knowing

While social worker is in Germany, we are forced to put our adoption dreams on hold forcing a a thought into my head: If getting these kids into good homes was so important, why would the process have to take so long?

To be fair, I don't expect social workers to skip vacations, but it's too bad there wasn't a way for a coworker to help out in the interim.

While I wait, my anxiety over the great unknown facing us builds. I want to start building a library for my future children. I'd like to start looking at furniture but it's kind of hard when you don't know if you're looking for a crib versus a toddler bed or bunk beds. Being a planner both professionally and neurotically makes the wondering more than frustrating and when it reaches boiling point, I just take a deep breath.

Right now, there are 65 kids on the Minnesota Waiting Children List. I can't wait to meet the one or two who will be mine. In fact, several people's suggestion we consider adopting a Hatian baby has made us think. Tonight over Chinese food we discussed it, and we both agreed we feel too invested in helping a child here to consider adopting from abroad--even if abroad meant a baby.

More paperwork?!?

Social worker visit number two - complete.

The appointement went well. Our social worker is very nice almost to a point of being motherly. The visit concentrated on the marriage inventory we took. The good news, we are very compatible. Oddly, the test found Mike might have more of a rose colored view of life than me but only by a bit.

Then the social worker interviewed me, which was nerve wracking but not too much. Throughout the meeting she started talking about how some adoptive children are never able to bond with their parents--usually due to the level of abuse they experienced or neglect encountered. That thought scared me, and it still does.

Coming to terms with not physically carrying a child or even taking care of our child in its infancy wasn't easy, but it finally happened. Yet, it feels like by giving up that privlege I'm now running the risk that my child will never truly love me. If that happens, we will deal, but I hope it doesn't. In fact, it scares me. So I push the fear from my mind and move on to the third packet of paperwork we need to complete.

Yep. In addition to FBI checks and everything else we've gone through to be parents now we have to fill out a whole ton of paperwork to be considered foster parents. Again, I completely understand why The State wants to protect these children as much as possible, but there are times when it feels we're being punished again and again for infertility. That feeling comes and goes. In reality I'm just venting and feel certain all the work will be worth it.

I don't want to leave the blog on a negative note so I'll say that in addition to filling out the paperwork, I'm excitedly finding ways to accomodate workouts when a child would be in bed. I've bookmarked the Minneapolis School District's "Finding a School" site. I have also started finding ways to shift some responsibility at work so I can dedicate myself to my family. It's all happening and decidedly so!