Well, we are all done! No more lists of what we need to do for our homestudy because we just had our last one. We met at Starbucks yesterday, and proofread our mini biographies and gave the go ahead for her to turn everything in to our agency on Monday!
We did ask her what a realistic time-line would be...and you may need to brace yourself here. She said about a month, two at the most! Now that doesn't necessarily mean we will have a placement in a month or two. Let me explain:
1. The time-line of 1-2 months means that we will have been approved (hopefully) by the state at that point. That means they can begin calling us with potential matches.
2. Our social worker said that they usually get referrals from the state in batches and things generally slow down in the summer time.
3. They will try to place a child/ children in our home that are about 95% likely to become legally free in the next 6 months to a year after placement. So that limits our placement possibilities a bit.
4. Also, after we are called with a potential match, we will have extensive meetings with their case workers, their therapist (if they have one), and any other resource person. I believe we also may meet with the kids in an informal setting- all of this before we make our decision.
So there you have it. It could be as early as June! But not, necessarily. We are living in limbo a bit. Trying to rest on God's timing and guidance- knowing that He will make us ready when our kids are ready to be placed in our home!
So exciting :) Thanks for everyone's prayers and support- and we will post updates when we get them!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Friday, April 08, 2011
Home Study
Well, first we dealt with a little mishap:
We were moving right along cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Then I thought, hey I haven't washed my bath mats in a while.... Well, apparently the washer and my bath mats had a fight and the bath mats lost...in a death match! So I quickly burried them in the trash and ran to Target to replace them. Those things can be expensive! Not that it mattered all that much. I think she just walked through the house in about 5 minutes and then we sat at the table for the rest of the time. She didn't even look in my refrigerator (why I expected someone to look in there- I do not know, but at least it, as well as the rest of the house, is clean and organized!:)
It went very well. I made this yummy orange cranberry sweet bread (healthy of course :)
And we sat individually around the table and talked with her for about 45 minutes each.
She was really sweet and supportive. There were a couple of surprise questions like, "How did your parents do the sex talk?", and "What schools are near by?" First, I understand that they have to ask that question, but I was not expecting it (neither of us really remember that much about our birds and bees lessons anyways)! And I had no idea what school we are zoned for. But she didn't count off for not knowing. Then, after quickly looking it up on the internet, we found out that our school is about 1 mile away and all the Kindergarten teachers have their own blogs! When did teachers start doing blogs? I guess that's a good thing, but I'm picturing kids going wild, throwing paper airplanes and Mrs. Johnson saying, "just a minute, I need to get this post out!" :)
So, on to the next steps... which we found out aren't that many! We will have one more, our third and final, home study (actually @ Starbucks) on Friday....yes, this coming Friday April 15. Then we will just go over our report to make sure our details are accurate and hand her the remaining things we will do this week: medical evaluations, drug tests, and getting Davids verification of employment. She goes home and sends of the report within a week.
Once she sends it to the Atlanta Lutheran Services office, they take however long they need to take to let us know if we are "approved" or not. If we are, then they send off everything to the state (DFCS- Dept of Family and Children Services...the cool people call it D-Fax....it took David a long time to figure out what people were talking about when they said D-fax this or D-fax that :)
Then when "D-Fax" has our info they begin the matching/ placement process. We are hoping all of this takes longer than at least a month and a week because my work is moving and I'm kind of helping with the move- which if you have ever moved a business, you know it's a BIG undertaking.
We know there are bound to be kinks in the flow of things, and maybe they might need a couple of unexpected documents. But that might be welcomed because things are goin fast! As usual we are a combo right now of extremely excited and a little bit terrified :)
We will keep you posted in the mean time!
We were moving right along cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Then I thought, hey I haven't washed my bath mats in a while.... Well, apparently the washer and my bath mats had a fight and the bath mats lost...in a death match! So I quickly burried them in the trash and ran to Target to replace them. Those things can be expensive! Not that it mattered all that much. I think she just walked through the house in about 5 minutes and then we sat at the table for the rest of the time. She didn't even look in my refrigerator (why I expected someone to look in there- I do not know, but at least it, as well as the rest of the house, is clean and organized!:)It went very well. I made this yummy orange cranberry sweet bread (healthy of course :)
And we sat individually around the table and talked with her for about 45 minutes each.
She was really sweet and supportive. There were a couple of surprise questions like, "How did your parents do the sex talk?", and "What schools are near by?" First, I understand that they have to ask that question, but I was not expecting it (neither of us really remember that much about our birds and bees lessons anyways)! And I had no idea what school we are zoned for. But she didn't count off for not knowing. Then, after quickly looking it up on the internet, we found out that our school is about 1 mile away and all the Kindergarten teachers have their own blogs! When did teachers start doing blogs? I guess that's a good thing, but I'm picturing kids going wild, throwing paper airplanes and Mrs. Johnson saying, "just a minute, I need to get this post out!" :)
So, on to the next steps... which we found out aren't that many! We will have one more, our third and final, home study (actually @ Starbucks) on Friday....yes, this coming Friday April 15. Then we will just go over our report to make sure our details are accurate and hand her the remaining things we will do this week: medical evaluations, drug tests, and getting Davids verification of employment. She goes home and sends of the report within a week.
Once she sends it to the Atlanta Lutheran Services office, they take however long they need to take to let us know if we are "approved" or not. If we are, then they send off everything to the state (DFCS- Dept of Family and Children Services...the cool people call it D-Fax....it took David a long time to figure out what people were talking about when they said D-fax this or D-fax that :)
Then when "D-Fax" has our info they begin the matching/ placement process. We are hoping all of this takes longer than at least a month and a week because my work is moving and I'm kind of helping with the move- which if you have ever moved a business, you know it's a BIG undertaking.
We know there are bound to be kinks in the flow of things, and maybe they might need a couple of unexpected documents. But that might be welcomed because things are goin fast! As usual we are a combo right now of extremely excited and a little bit terrified :)
We will keep you posted in the mean time!
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Special Company
Whenever someone is coming over- family, friends, etc.- you tend to clean the house (either extra good or even at all :) and you want to make sure they have good eats. At least these are the two things I usually think about when having company over.
Well not this week! We have been painting, redecorating, deep spring cleaning out closets, giving stuff away, trying to come up with a yummy quick bread recipe, and so much more...all for our home study which means our home study social worker will be here on Friday! She is very special company. Special because whatever she puts in her report decides whether or not we will be parents soon. So she gets the five-star treatment :)
Well not this week! We have been painting, redecorating, deep spring cleaning out closets, giving stuff away, trying to come up with a yummy quick bread recipe, and so much more...all for our home study which means our home study social worker will be here on Friday! She is very special company. Special because whatever she puts in her report decides whether or not we will be parents soon. So she gets the five-star treatment :)
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