One-Year Post-Adoption Visit

Anniversaries of bringing a new child home is not only marked by photos popping up from prior years on your Facebook wall, but by visits from your social worker.  Ours came to our house last week for our one-year post-adoption visit. I spent much of the hour listing out all the procedures, surgeries and evaluations Kiera and Matteo have had in the six months since our last post-adoption visit as Ava, our social worker, tried to keep up jotting everything down in her notes. I talked about the challenges we've had and the unknowns we're still trying to sort out.  Since we had last seen Ava six months ago and before that, shortly after we came home, she was able to remind me of how far we have come.  Yes, we still have a longs ways to go, but look at what has changed in the last year.  I received a huge compliment when Ava said she listened to me describe a challenge, but before she could offer some suggestions, I described how we were handling it and it was exactly as she would have advised. 

I've enjoyed our post-adoption visits and was sad to learn that we won't be seeing Ava again.  Due to a change by China in post-adoption reporting, the one-year post-adoption report is the last one that must be written by our social worker and we will be allowed to write the two-year-, three-year and five-year post-adoption reports ourselves. 

Since our work with our home study agency is coming to a close, I would like to give International Adoption Services, and particularly, Ava, our social worker, a shout-out. If you live in the Twin Cities and need a home study, they're the ones to call.