Home Visit

The Home visit is complete, I think. Thursday we had our second contact with our social worker. The first contact was just a phone interview that lasted about an hour. Thursday our social worker came to our house. She interviewed us, toured our home, talked to our children, and (gulp) met our pets. We had a gap of about 2 weeks from scheduling our visit, to our actual visit. That left us 2 weeks to stress about the house being clean, safe, child friendly etc, etc. The week leading up to the visit was quite busy and stressful. I worried about our crazy dog meeting the social worker more than anything. Just more proof that God is in control. The dog stayed in the crate and was very doscile during the whole visit. Yes, my wild and crazy dog--that barks and reacts to everything and everybody!!

The kiddos had to have a little interview with our social worker right after they got home from school. Z and I left the room, but were listening in the next room. It is fun and quite a blessing to be in the next room evesdropping as the kids were sharing with this perfect stranger their heart for adoption. It is remarkable how trusting and selfless our kids have been about bringing another child into our home. They are so matter of fact about the issue. A kid that doesn't have a home needs a home. Let's give that kiddo a home! When do things get so complicated? As adults, we weigh all the odds, think, pray, consider is this right for our family? Can we afford it? What if this happens? What if that happens? All the stuff that we have contemplated about this adoption. My kids just made it simple for me. A good reminder of that childlike faith we should have. A kid needs a family and a home. We have a family and a home--lets share! Thanks guys! Mommy needed that reminder. I can't wait to see you loving on this little one we are going to bring into our home.

Next step, out autobiographies and then hopefully onto the next set of interviews...(hopefully at a Starbucks---far away from our wild and crazy dog)

In the Thick

We are smack dab in the middle of all the grunt work. Wow! I am amazed at all of the hoops we have to jump through to qualify for adoption. Just when I thought we might begin to share this with some of our closest friends, I began to fear we might not even get approval. I know that God is in control and if it is meant to be He will open doors but ooooh--this is tough stuff. All the stuff I hate. Make appointments, fill out forms, gather papers etc. Not to mention a home visit that is coming up soon, where our social worker will spend 3 hours with us (and our crazy dog): and our kids at the house. I'm thinking if they don't disqualify us after that-- we may be good to go. Least I get too excited I hear we have tons of reading to do, a physical we all have to pass (that includes getting the Dr to fill out the forms correctly....that in itself may take a miracle), and an interview with our kids. Maybe we should have done this before they could talk too much! Ha! I guess maybe we do all this stuff to keep our minds off of the thousands of dollars we are paying to have all this torture inflicted on us!!! I am keeping the faith that all this will someday be a distant memory and so worth it in the end. Just kind of ironic that we are having to jump through all these hoops to make sure we would be good parents, with our 3 biological children right along side us. I totally respect and understand the process and know why we have to do it, but I have to find some humor or I will never make it through. I think it's kind of funny that God would call us to do this when He knows how I stress about paperwork! Guess just one more thing to let me know He is in control. If I seem more forgetful than usual, please know that my brain is turning to mush doing all this Paperwork!!!!