20 June 2007

First Home Study Meeting

We just had our first home study meeting with our social worker, Diane. She was really nice and we had great conversations. She seemed impressed by how much paperwork we had completed. But needs the rest of it before our third meeting. Some interesting things she told us: We are by far the youngest couple she's done a home study for (and she's been doing it 18 years). Also she told us a couple times that we were really "bright" and "smart" and had thought through a lot of the adoption issues well. What a complement especially since we are the youngest adoptive parents she's interviewed! Also at the very end of our meeting when she was getting up to go, she told us that some couples she meets with she can tell right away that they will be great adoptive parents and she really feels that with us! She said she's honored to work with us.

Wow!

So we set up our second meeting with her for next week and I can't wait!

Update

So much for keeping this blog updated! We've been so busy in paperwork I haven't shared so much great info.

We received our Home Study paperwork and Dossier paper work a couple weeks ago and have been fervently working on them.

The home study is a combination of paperwork and interview meetings with a social worker so that she can learn about us, our parenting style, etc. In the end a "home study" document is written up about us and we (hopefully) are aproved to adopt by the social worker!

The Dossier (pronounced with a silent "r") is a packet of documents that are required by Ethiopia to adopt in the proper layout and order. One of the main items of the dossier is the USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) aproval. This consists of getting an appointment for fingerprinting and submitting a completed copy of our home study and can take a few months before the approval is received. While we wait for the USCIS approval we can fininsh the rest of the paperwork for the dossier. Once we receive the USCIS approval and have completed the dossier then we get placed on the waiting list for a child.

The home study needs to be completed before the Dossier so that is our first priority although some of the paper work overlaps. There were medical forms for both home study and dossier and so I wisely made one doctor appointment and had both filled out at the same time.... and also got a tetnis shot to my surprise!