Last Homestudy visit...check!

Yes, we can now check off the list our last homestudy visit! The visit went really well. This was the first visit that our kids were here and I am very thankful that they didn't do or say anything too crazy. She did have to "interview" Carter at one point. She said the requirement is to talk to children in the home that are older than 3. She asked Carter, "What do you think about adopting a brother?" I held my breath. Carter replied, "I am so excited that I will have brother to play Legos with and GI Joes with and play soccer with. And I am saving my clothes to give him." (Everytime I put away clothes he has grown out of he gets excited and says it will be good to have these clothes for his little brother.) He did good =) We continued with logistical things. I finally have a better understanding of what a homestudy actually is. She had a print out of about 9 pages, detailing everything we've talked about, things that were in our paperwork. A very detailed description of us, our upbringings, our health, our families, jobs, parenting...you name it. We went over that together and made corrections.
There are just a few lingering things to complete the homestudy process. Our social worker is waiting for our FBI background checks to clear, our tuberculosis results which we have to go back for tomorrow, we have to complete our online training, and get back references. After that she passes it onto her supervisor and our agency....and hopefully we pass =)
I feel so many steps closer now that we have gotten through this huge hurdle. It was sweet to talk to my dad tonight as we tried to picture the moment when I meet my little guy. It still feels forever away, but I do feel a tad bit closer to that moment.

Update

Today's visit with the social worker went really well. Kevin and I took turns talking with her. It was really laid back. She asked questions about our upbringing, our parents, siblings (yes Audrey I told her I have an amazing sis), college, jobs we've had since, our kids....you know pretty much all that could be summed up about our lives in a matter of 45 minutes each! We handed over documents and copies we worked on and talked about what we have left to do to complete the homestudy. We are down to 4 things on the list!! Her next scheduled appointment with us will be next Wednesday afternoon. We will wrap up loose ends and she will be around us with the kids for the first time...she hasn't met them yet.  At that point she passes things on to her superviser and then to our caseworker at our agency to look over everything....and then hopefully we will pass and be able to move onto the next step!!

The next step....after completing the homestudy we can then start applying for grants. We will also be working on putting together our dossier. What is a dossier? I'll just paste a definition from adoption.com to make it easier for me to explain... "a set of legal documents which are used in international adoption cases to process the adoption of a child in its own country by the adoptive parents, or for the adoptive parents to obtain the legal custody or guardianship of the child in the foreign court, so the child can be brought by the adoptive parents to the United States for adoption," I'll be able to be more specific as I get more of an idea of what this entails for us.


And pretty soon I plan on mapping out in a post exactly what this whole process looks like for us to financially go through. On our timeline, you'll notice that I am keeping track of expenses as well as when we raise money or receive money from people. We want to be transparent with every aspect of this process especially the money part...I know several people have mentioned interest in adopting one day but like us thought financially it's impossible. I'll quote a sweet friend..."The Lord has a heart for orphans...He will fund what He favors." 

2nd Homestudy Visit

Tomorrow we have our 2nd of 3 homestudy appointments. Our social worker will come to our house in the morning and individually interview Kevin and I. From what I understand she will be following up and questioning us based on the paperwork we filled out and turned in a few weeks ago. Please pray that this time goes well. Again it is a little nerve racking to be vulnerable about your background, upbringing, parenting and whatever else with someone who's job it is to assess your adequacy in adopting a child.

Other logistical things checked of the list this week...drug screening done (costing us $90), financial forms completed which include our family budget, assets and liabilities. Our plan for this weekend is to squeeze in a few hours of online adoption training, we need 10 hours total.