The Home Study Process, otherwise known as, Dear Bard, your wife has gone mad, she will likely return sometime next year. . .

And we're off, like a herd of turtles!  We have filled out the form for our home study application and should mail it back today, along with our non refundable deposit!  Although we have not officially chosen or signed with an agency-due to some variables that have to be worked through-starting the home study process is a good step and begins what is known as "the paper chase."  Oh yeah, we're learning adoptionese which is a confusing and expensive language, known only to those wonderful, crazy people who pursue adoption. I was made to do this.  And it will be my great white whale!  There's honestly nothing I love more than project management, especially one that culminates in an event, and if it involves spinning a bajillion china plates in the air all the better.

So, what plates am I spinning?  Well, Friday I created a calendar of projects for Bard and I to complete over the next six weeks-probably about the time a social worker will come to our house for a three hour tour and interview process.  Some of the projects are simple-updating, re installing baby proof locks on our cabinets and putting on more outlet covers.  Some are complicated-organizing the basement and creating an area for the baby (side note-the baby will not be in the basement, those are two separate tasks!)  Today I go to buy a white  board that will be the new featured artwork in our home.  Forget family pictures and oil paintings!  Bring on the color coded (one for me, one for Bard) weekly task list of "paper" items. This week, renew Bard and Evelyn's passports and apply for Cici's-Bard, mail home study application-Kristin, call counselors for letters-Kristin and Bard, make physical appointment-Bard, etc, etc, etc.  Over the next 6 months we will get physicals, proof of life insurance (for both of us), references from several friends/co workers, background checks, letters from our physicians, letters from our financial institutions, copies of birth/marriage/divorce certificates, apply to the government to adopt a child from a Hague Convention country (I-800), proof of home ownership, FBI finger print cleared, employment verification, go through dozens of hours of adoption education, psych evaluations, and interviews.  And that's actually the short list.  Then everything is notarized.  And then it's apostilled-which basically means that the notarization is notarized.  Ahh, government :)

How many plates was that?  I lost track!  And everything is a delicately connected timeline-the finger prints alone can take 4-12 weeks so if you wait to do that til the last minute, then you're stuck!  All of this, and then some, is part of the dossier, which can't be completed without our agency, but the home study is one of the biggest components of that so we are beginning it now.  The dossier typically takes about 6 months to complete and must be sent to our government and the adopting country's government-it's basically our request to adopt, and proof that we are capable parents.  Then, the ball is pretty much in their court, so we sit and wait.  I'm not sure which is worse, the several months of mad craziness involved in getting our dossier together, or the several months of waiting for approval and to hear about our potential child.  They are probably about equal in their stress level :/

But, it feels good to have begun, slightly exciting, slightly terrifying, and a whole lot of nervous energy thrown together.  Next time you see me, just back away slowly. . .

Next blog. . .a country for our child. . .