Second Home Visit...Check

Our second and last home visit to be approved for adoption is done!  And we passed!  The next time our adoption specialist is in our house will be when our second child has come home with us and has been living with us for several weeks.  Our house no longer has to be a museum and we can go back to living life at home as normal.  Phew! 

We aren’t fully approved quite yet, however.  We still have to do individual interviews.  We have these interviews scheduled for January 10^th and they will be at the agency office.  I am feeling like the hard part is behind us now and these individual interviews will not be too difficult.  Over my Christmas break I will be working on our profile book and our “Dear Birthparent” letter and then we should be home free.  A giant cloud of stress has been lifted!  Now I can move on to the stress of having 9 adults and 7 children over for dinner tomorrow night!  But, that is a nice, happy stress and I am so happy to be able to have this milestone in our adoption process to celebrate with great friends!

The Next Phase, At Last!

At the end of October I wrote a post when I was very excited about turning in all of our paperwork.  I thought that we were just waiting for our background checks to come back and for my husband to get his physical sent in.  We were waiting for those things, but it also turned out that my daughter’s physical form had a mistake on it and had to be re-done.  So, now a month later…our paperwork is finally, officially DONE!  We are moving on to the next phase at last!  I am so excited because I was seriously starting to think that this day would never come. 

So, what is the next phase, you ask?  Well, we have been assigned a social worker and she will now do a home visit to make sure our house is safe for children and will interview each of us individually about our family history, our life, and our marriage.  I plan to be cleaning like a mad woman for the next week and a half.  This is also great motivation to get some projects finished around the house and get it cleaned for the holidays.  I think there is a good chance we will be officially a “waiting family” by the end of December or beginning of January!