Ahhhh you guys!!!! We had our home study a few weeks ago and we are officially done with the adoption from foster care process (at least everything we can do on our end)!! We are SOOO excited!!!! So many of you have reached out to me about wanting updates about our process for yourself because you want to adopt or because you love us and just wanna know! So here we are to fill you in!
So we finished the adoption class through Heartland the middle of March. We were told to wait to hear back from the social worker at Heartland through email to schedule the home study with us. We really didn’t know how long that would take but first week of April she reached out and we scheduled it for April 20th. This is the last step in the process and once it’s done and written up you are put into the system and can be matched!
When people hear “home study” they think of someone coming into their home and checking outlets and child safety around the house. This does take place but it is also so much more.
Instead of scheduling multiple home study sessions, Heartland does one all day long (some agencies do 2-3 visits), which honestly I preferred, knock it out! So the social worker showed up about 8:15am and she just started asking us questions as a couple, like about schedules, work, and lifestyle. Then she had questions specific for me, which we basically went through my whole life and I answered questions along the way. Then she did the same with Tomas. It ended up being about an hour and a half for each of us. Then she went back to both of us and she asked questions about marriage, conflict resolution, our views of each other, parenting and discipline styles, school/nanny/daycare plans, ect. That was another couple of hours and then the interview portion was done!
This wasn’t surprising and none of the questions caught us off guard because they were all things we talked about through the adoption classes and during homework we were assigned. By time we got to the home study we had already figured so many things, now it was just sharing it. The classes really do prepare you.
It might sound overwhelming and borderline invasive to have someone come in an ask you a million questions about your life but it really wasn’t. You’re just talking about yourself the whole time (which people are usually pretty excited to do haha) and this whole thing kinda comes with the territory. They are screening potential parents so they can be sure they will be a good fit for a child and to write your home study up as accurate as possible when describing the couple.
Our social worker was phenomenal! She was so down to earth and really made us feel comfortable making it easy to talk with her.
Side note- Tomas is going to be the BEST Dad, just as we were talking to her I was reminded about how much he treats me like a Queen and all the little and big things he does to make me happy, I can’t even imagine how much he is going to do for his little princess! He’s the most patient and loving man in the world! He also makes these little comments all the time like we’ll be at lunch and he’ll say “if we had our daughter she would be here with us right now, I’m so excited”. *Que heart exploding*, he’s so freaking cute!
Ok back to the home study, the last twenty minutes she walked through the house and checked things out and then she left around 4:00pm! The second she left we were exhausted, I think our adrenalin was going so when she left we crashed.
After we went to Cold Stone and got ice cream to celebrate finishing the process, and just chatted about how excited we are! The experience really was great and we are so excited for what’s next!
P.S. I’m gunna do another post about the steps we have gone through in order and answer any questions or common misunderstandings about the process soon, so if you have questions outside of this post let me know so I can answer it!
Love you guys!!!!!
