The Homestudy

So I realized that I haven't posted anything for over a month and decided that it was time to start typing. A lot has gone on since the beginning of February. For starters, or last home study meeting was on February 3rd. Yay! That was very exciting to have that out of the way! Some of you may be wondering, OK that's great but what exactly is a home study? Well, before we get to the home visit, lets talk about how you start out before the visit even takes place.

Ken and I first sent in an application to the home study agency recommended to us by our adoption agency. After we sent in the application and were accepted, they gave us a list of every kind of paperwork we needed to send in. We sent in birth certificates, a marriage license, autobiography, financial information, medical information, background checks, references and a few other things. After all of that was in order, we were ready for our home visit. Now, back to the home study part.

A home study is, in my opinion, the easiest part of the whole process. It is where a case worker (already assigned to you) comes to visit your house and makes sure it is a safe environment for your soon-to-be children to live. Our case worker first visited us January 27th and asked us questions about our background, how we met, how we grew up, what we have done throughout our life, about our marriage and how we handled happy times and stressful times and other basic questions to get to know us better. I think we were only supposed to meet for an hour, but Ken and I like to talk so we accidentally talked with her for like two hours. :)

The next meeting took place a week later on February 3rd. During this meeting, we talked more about how we would raise the kids, how we would incorporate their culture into our culture (that was interesting), our background in working with children and/or being around children, and other kinds of questions on how we would parent our children. After we talked to her about the kids, our case worker did a home tour to make sure we had room for two children and that it was a safe environment. I think the only part we 'failed' was that we didn't have a first-aid kit. I think it was in the car...or we might not even have one. I can't remember. With all of that said, Ken and I thought the home study was going to be more intense than it was. After it was all over we were like, really? Was that all? I mean Ken and I even role played how we were going to answer "big" questions we thought she might ask. It was so fun and a whole lot easier than we thought it was going to be.

We are now in the process of waiting for the home study to be finalized. When the home study is finalized, it will be sent to USCIS (the US immigration office) to be approved. When they approve it, we will then begin our longer 'paper chase' for the dossier (The paperwork that we will send to the Ukraine). Ken and I are really excited about all that is going on and I hope that you will join us and pray for us as we journey through the deep waters ahead.