Home Study Visit #1

Our much-anticipated home study visit came and went with little excitement.  Our social worker met with Chris and me at our home, and while I had no idea what to expect, I was surprised that she asked the exact same questions Chris and I had answered as part of our home study paperwork.  At least she skipped over the questions about our experience with children so we wouldn't have to state the obvious again. 

For something that we had taken a half a day off work to accommodate, it was kind of a let-down that nothing new was really covered in our interview.  Since the adoption process is quite intrusive, I had expected more probing questions and at least some follow-up to what we had written in our essays.  Then again, the purpose of a home study is to get to know the family and make sure there's no reason to suspect the family is unsuitable to adopt a child, and while the bar is set pretty high, it probably doesn't take too much digging for a social worker to make that call. 

What I did appreciate about today's home study visit is that Chris finally met Lindsey and heard all the information about the adoption process first-hand.  Like Chris, I'm learning about adoption as I go, and it's hard sometimes to have to relay information when I'm still figuring out myself what comes next. 

Our social worker's visit ended up lasting less than two hours and was pretty relaxed.  Her time here included a tour of our house so she could officially check off that our house has room for another child and no glaring safety hazards. 

She met Soren and Oliver for the first time and Oliver showed his enthusiasm for getting a new brother.  He asked Chris where his brother is and was told we'd have to get on a plane and fly really far away to get him.  Oliver then told us he wanted to go to the airport and fly to pick up his new brother today.  Oh, I wish it were so easy! 

Our next steps in the home study process are to gather the last few pieces of paperwork, finish our first set of adoption prep courses and schedule our individual interviews with our social worker.  After all that's finished, she'll take two to three weeks to write the home study report and then we'll officially be finished with the home study.  I hope we can check this step off our list by mid-September. With the home study completed, we can move on to two more critical steps in the process, submission of our Form I-1800A to the U.S. government and submission of our dossier to the Chinese government.