Homestudy Update

The home study is the first major step of the adoption process.  I like to think of it as part of an adoption's first trimester.  Just like pregnancy first trimesters, an adoption's first trimester is when a lot of things that have to happen for the rest of the process to run smoothly.  Typically a home study takes about 1-3 months to complete. We gathered passports, birth and marriage certificates, background checks, child abuse clearances, family well-checks, a vet visit, tons of financial information, letters of recommendations, adoption education, four social worker visits... and almost every piece of paper has to be notarized.   I don't know how we did it, but we got the majority done within the first few weeks!  Despite our best efforts, it looked like our home study was going to take a looooong time.

 The first issue was that my agency (out-of-state) required a federal background history which meant I had to get fingerprinted.  My heart sank when I heard this because this lady does not have great prints... in fact, they are horrible!   I went through the fingerprinting drama ten years ago when I was getting my teaching certificate.  The process took three months, three failed prints, and a visit to the OSBI office to use their super printing computer.  While I was slaving as a barista through my high school and college years, the hot drinks and steaming pitchers slowly burned off the prints on my fingers.  Yikes!

Sure enough, when I went to get my prints at the sherriff's office last month, the computer HATED my prints.  After at least 25 tries and two different officers rolling my fingers, the computer still wouldn't accept two of my prints.  The officers said they did they best they could and printed them out anyway.  The next step was to mail them to the OSBI office.  If the little computer in the sheriff's office didn't accept them, I knew the OSBI office wouldn't either. I called the OSBI office and asked if I could just come in now and get my prints through their super printing computer, so I wouldn't have to waste months to go through the process.  They told me no.  They said I must have my prints rejected at least twice before I could come do them in their office.  I got off the phone and cried because I could not complete the homestudy without my prints, and this would push back our adoption process by at least a couple of months.

 This is the cool part...

 Two weeks later, our social worker emails me and says DHS shredded our prints because they DO NOT process them for international adoptions (federal background checks are typically done during the Immigration process).  What did this mean for me?  In the end, my agency decided that we could SKIP this step!  How cool is that!?!  We had been praying for prints to be accepted and didn't even imagine DHS would not take them at all!  We will still have to get printed at the Immigration office, but I hear they have one of those super printing computers too, so we should be good to go! 

Another major hurdle was my social worker waiting on her accreditation.  We had no idea how long it would take, and we were prepared to wait it out, but last week she got notice that she has her official accreditation!  This was a MAJOR answered prayer! 

Our last hurdle was Texas.  We had been waiting on our Texas child abuse clearance for over a month.  I had no idea how long it was suppose to take, but this was the only thing holding us back.  I called yesterday to check on it, and they said they had emailed the clearance over a month ago!?! We never got it, so they emailed out another one yesterday!

We officially have everything we need to complete the homestudy!!!
  It is already written up and the agency is reading through it this week!  I'm hoping to hear the words 'Homestudy Completed' next week, and we can be one step closer to Baby McD#3!

Edited to add:  We have a date set for the Garage Sale! April 27-28!!!  If you have stuff you want to get rid of, let us know!  We'll even pick it up!