Treat Yo Self!

Last week was October 13th, so we all know what that means. It's time to...

If you aren't familiar with the comedic masterpiece that is Parks and Rec, there is no time like the present.  Sit on the couch and binge away.  Then next year, you too can treat yo self.

In honor of the beloved holiday, we decided to treat ourselves by completing our finally home study visit!  We are officially done with things that we have to do for our home study.  All we are doing now is waiting for our social worker to finish writing it, and then we are in the dossier and government clearance phase.

This visit was nice and simple, a whole lot less stressful than the last!  Since our home inspection had been completed the visit before, this was just to talk and interview us, I was able to clean to house in my usually way.  Stuff everything behind a closed door somewhere, and make sure the 10 square feet where we were actually sitting in looks spotless.  We were first interviewed together, and then we each had individual interviews, and then we had another interview together.  The entire visit took almost 4 hours, but everything went smoothly.

When I would read things about home study processes, everyone warned that you'd be putting everything on the table.  They weren't kidding.  Before this interview, I thought we had escaped talking about obscure and past stuff, but I was wrong.  If you are related to us, have no fear, you are probably in our home study somewhere.  We had to go through everything from mental health issues, to drug and alcohol consumption, to people we love that aren't related, and those who will be in contact with our child.  All of these things had to be listed all the way back into our aunts, uncles and cousins.  If you ever decide to do a home study, and you come from a big family like we do, start taking notes now! We also had to individually talk about our experiences growing up.  How our parents disciplined us, celebrated us, and taught us.  We had to go over how our views align differently from our parents, and what we want to do differently with our children.  Nothing is harder than trying to explain to someone how you're going to raise and parent your children, when you feel like you know absolutely nothing about being a parent and have never done anything like it before. Though I'm sure all knew parents feel this way!

Believe it or not, one of the hardest questions we were asked was "What do you love about your partner."  It should be simple questions, but we both just stumbled a little.  Cory and I have been together over 8 years, and usually when asked I just say "everything" or if I'm feeling sassy "he pays my bills" but that wouldn't cut it in this case. We tell each other we love each other all the time, and I have no doubt in my mind that he loves me, but having to pick out individual things catches you off guard.  Even harder was having to say these things directly to his face and in front of someone who is essentially a stranger. Once you're out of the wedding and honeymoon stage, life moves on.  You still love each other, but gone are the days of writing vows and explaining to all your friends why your partner is the best person in the world.  It was nice to have to take that time to stop and remember all the things we really do love about each other, for better or for worse.  Above all, I love that I married my best friend.  There are very few people I can be 100% myself with, and he accepts my weird off key singing, excessive number of high kicks, and love of puns.  So I challenge all of you who are married, or in relationships new or old, to force you and your partner to tell each other how much you love them. Even if it means tying them to a chair until they talk.  Not that it's what we had to do or anything.

We are in the finally few months of our adoption journey that require us to "do something."  Once our home study is completed, we can submit for our I-800a which is "application for determined suitability to adopt a child from an international country" which can take a couple months for the government agency to complete.  In the meantime we'll be working on our dossier.  Our dossier includes everything about us.  It's our home study, our reference letters, our income, everything.  Once we have approval through our 1-800a our dossier gets sent to Hungary, translated, and approved.  From there we just have to wait to be matched with our sweet child or children!  It's a slow process, but getting closer and closer everyday.  We can't wait.

When Social Workers Come Calling.

This week has been stressful and irritating, but filled with a huge milestone in our adoption journey!  This week we had our home inspection visit as part of a home study.  A big part of the home inspection is baby proofing your house for a baby that probably wont be there in a year and will probably come as a 4 year old. Here is a list of some typical things we were told would be checked in a home inspection:

• Working smoke detectors on every floor and near child's room
• Covered kitchen trash.
• Evacuation floor plan and emergency contacts visible. 
• Covered outlets
• Medications and vitamins in locked cabinets.
• All cleaning products in locked cabinets, or placed at least 5 feet up
• All soaps, lotions, and shampoos over 5 ounces must be locked up, or placed at least 5 feet up. 
• First aid kit and fire extinguisher easily available
• House clean and free of mold or harmful bacteria. 
• All blind cords and cables wrapped and hanging no more than one foot. 

This is just a small sampling.  It's pretty safe to say that I've been a nervous wreck since the date was set.  We know it was coming, but it didn't get real until we had the date on the calendar.  Lucky for us we live in a newer one story home and don't have a pool. That took out a lot of the others things we would have had to stress about.  I have to give a huge thank you to my mom and sister.  Not only did they help me obsessively decorate (yeah, probably not the best time to do that.) They spent so much of their own time cleaning and making sure my house was safe. I couldn't have done it without them.  

The only other time our home has been this clean, is when we first moved in and it had no furniture in it. 

The day finally came for her to come.  I was still walking around finding things to clean.  I Vacuumed the floors 3 times and started picking up individual cat hairs off of things. I was ready. The visit went really smoothly.  Our cats were even well behaved enough she thought we only had one.  You should have seen her face when we told here there were actually three running around here! It was mostly interviews and a little home tour.  The entire visit took about 2 hours, and we passed. Here are a few tips to help you if you every decide you want to be insane and complete a home study too. 

1. Know where your family lives, where they work, and what their job title is.
• We didn't expect this one.  It sounds simple, but we truely didn't know the job titles or actually locations for work of some of our siblings.  Facebook to the rescue! 
2. Have a snack prepared.
• Our social worker didn't have any of my purchased with love cookies (even gluten free ones!) but Cory and I did.  We had been such obsessive wrecks, we had essentailly starved ourselves. It was nice to have a little something to fill our nervous stomachs
3. Use quirky decor. 



Who wouldn't obsess over these? They're adorable. 

• Maybe this isn't a real tip, but one of the first things she said when she walked in was "Wow, you guys really like Disney." Followed by a "Me too!!"  She then spent a good 10 minutes obsessing over these Disney are postcards my sister helped me put onto canvases. She was even trying to convince us we should sell them for a fundraiser.  Sure, it's not essential to the process, but it was a fun distraction.
4. Don't obsess over showing them all the work you've put in.  
• Our home tour and walk through took literally 5 minutes of the entire visit.  She walked into each room, asked what we used it for, and moved on to the next.  As much as I wanted to follow behind shouting "shake that bookcase, feel how stable!" and "Just try and find the chemicals in the room!" I didn't do it.  Did i feel a little cheated for all the hard work we did, of course.  In the end was it a relief because we were actually short one blind cord wind and I just hoped she wouldn't notice? Of course it was!
5. Relax
• They want to help put children in good homes. They aren't there to stop you, but to help you.  I was so worried about failing our first one, and in reality we just needed to have a few things around the house done. Most of the meeting was just getting to know us more.  So remember to stay calm, and remember, your social worker is on your team!

Now that it's all over, i'm thinking "this isn't too bad." though I definitely wouldn't want to do this again in the near future! We have one more visit scheduled for next week, and we'll be done with our home study.   Despite all of the stress, our social worker left us with great news.  Our home inspection has passed, and we have been approved to bring 1-2 children, between the ages of 0-7 into our home! Just to know that we have taken another huge step in the process makes all the work worth it.  We're hoping for a child that's more toddler age, but now we've been approved to accept a sibling group.  Some days I can barely imagine bringing one child into our home, but the thought of possibly two has me all kinds of excited.  To get to start our own family, while still keeping another together seems like such a beautiful prospect.  In the end, whomever and however many children we get, I know they will be the ones that are perfect for our family!