The Home Asessment

Last Friday we had the home asessment portion of our home study.  To let you in on the lingo, the home study refers to the entire batch of adoption paperwork that must be completed in order for us to be eligible to adopt.  It includes fingerprinting, a background check (by the FBI!) financial records and a complete social history.  There are many more details to it but those are the broad strokes.  The home asessment is just a part of the process.

I have to tell you, nothing makes me more uptight than having someone inspect my home.  I keep it neat at all times but knowing that my whole entire future hinges on this! made me, let's say, a wee bit uptight.  Our social worker, Christyn, told me not to go crazy cleaning.  "I'm not coming in with a white glove!" she excalimed when I mentioned borrowing a ladder to clean my windows. 

I have really been making a conscious effort this year to base my identity in Christ and not in what people think of me, so I took her advice to heart.  I did a reasonable amount of cleaning (i.e.: did not scrub my kitchen floor with a toothbrush) and felt very proud of myself for enjoying freedom instead of fear.  That lasted until about 10:30 the night before the inspection when it all suddenly hit me and I broke out the toothbrush, going solidly back to fear .  Turns out I have not arrived, identity-wise.

Predictably, everything went fine.  Christyn did not in fact bring her white glove and she commented that we had a lovely home in a cute neighborhood.  She checked for all the required safety measures, such as a non-skid surface on the tub the baby will use, a fire extinguisher in the kitchen and emergency numbers posted by every phone.  We have lots of pictures all over our house and so we got to brag about our families, especially our nephew Zeke.  She told us that we had met all the requirements and passed with flying colors, which was a relief to hear.  None of the things I cleaned the night before even registered on her radar, which is a lesson I will try to keep in my head for as long as I can.

We have just one more meeting with Christyn and then we will be done with our entire home study, pending the results of our background checks, which we are not worried about.  In our final meeting we will go over our homework, which mainly consists of summariazing and discussing the four books we are required to read.  Actually it's three books and an online course.    The homework has been labor intensive but extremely informative, which I suppose is the point. 

 We've been learning about what it means to have an open adoption, which I will talk about in detail in another post.  It's much more complicated but much more beautiful than we had ever thought.  I won't deny that I am riddled with fear about the whole idea but we both think this will be so much better for our child.  We have to start being good parents now, even though we don't know who our baby is and when s/he will get here.  Adoption is strange that way.

Our next meeting is June 25th at 9 AM for those of you who pray.  Thanks so much for all your encouragement.  We couldn't do this without you.