Caseworker Meeting Report

Our case worker meeting is finished! I was surprised that I slept so well last night because normally this kind of important meeting leaves me with fitful sleep the night before but I managed to sleep well. I thought we were both doing well until we managed to forget DH's cell phone at the adoption agency and my day planner at the finger print agency! Guess we were subconsciously a little more preoccupied or stressed than I thought we were!

The meeting went well. It was a few hours long and consisted mainly of more interview questions of us about who we are, our personal testimonies, why we want to adopt, what we have to offer a child, etc, etc, etc. We are very thankful that the caseworker seems to have no biases or prejudices for or against any one form of adoption, so we detected no hint of displeasure at our choice for EA, which we were afraid of encountering.

She did give us our big packet and reviewed it briefly but I haven't really had a chance to look at it yet. Between the meeting this morning, going back to fetch the phone (we of course had to get all the way home before we discovered its absence!), then going to get fingerprinted, having lunch and then going back for my day planner, I'm really just getting home and I'll have a chance to review the documents. But from what I can tell basically what is entailed is 30 pages of detailed questions about us, various beliefs we hold about parenting, our faith stories, etc. We also have to take a personality test for ourselves and then answer it again for each other. We also have to pass a CPS check, a criminal background check and our fingerprints have to check out. We have to get physicals and submit 6 references. Once all the paperwork is turned in, we have our first of 4 remaining meetings with her. The meetings are 2 weeks apart, and the last one is the visit to the home. We were thankful to find out that the only thing we need to do is fence the pool and lock up DH's guns. We'll eventually want to do other babyproofing too but it's nice that we don't have to expend time and funds on it now, so far in advance. So, we really could be done with our part of things in the next 12-14 weeks! Once our caseworker submits things, it takes the court 3-6 weeks to approve things. Assuming they do, we would then be certified to adopt and could transfer our info to Nightlight to being the waiting process for matching.

It's so nice to feel like we really have a handle on what exactly is expected of us and what we can hope to expect for the immediate future. I am surprised at how much I must have been stressing about this because just like our meeting with the doctor last week, I came away from it utterly and completely exhausted. Adrenaline is a powerful fuel source!

I'm excited to tackle a lot of this paperwork, especially because DH will be away on business so I'll have lots of extra hours alone. Thank you for your prayers. We think that this will be a really good fit and we're looking forward to working with her.