April 3rd: Grant and I agreed to start the adoption process and find an agency
April 4th: Talked to several agencies on the phone and researched online
April 11th: Completed our Application for Child Placement (state form), Signed the Adoptive Parent Contract, Signed the Adoption Fee Agreement, and Filled out our Self-Study Documents at Grant's birthday dinner at Biagio's :)
April 12th: Dropped off all of the above forms at Adoption Professionals, provided drivers licenses and social security cards, and received our first home study book to read ("Dear Birthmother").
April 23rd: 1st Home Study visit with our social worker, Laura. (3 hour interview about our marriage, our relationship, our families, work history, education history, residential history, finances, etc. and a walk-through of our house)
April 30th: 3 hour Cultural Class at Adoption Professionals
May 12th: 2nd Home Study visit (1.5 hour individual interviews with both of us)
May 26th: 3rd Home Study visit (Safety Audit)
June 1st: Dropped off our Profile books to Adoption Professionals
The documentation we had to provide during the Home Study process included:
~Copy of our marriage license
~Copy of our car insurance cards
~Financial Statement
~Ohio BCII Fingerprints and FBI fingerprints
~Local Criminal Background Check
~Medical Statement for all 4 of us
~Fire Inspection
~Fire Evacuation Plan and Emergency Numbers posted in our house
~Discussion questions for 3 books (Dear Birthmother, Raising Adoptive Children, Being Adopted)
~Child Characteristics Checklist (a 5 or 6 page list of what we will consider for our child to have, such as medical conditions, family medical conditions, fetal alcohol syndrome, age, gender, etc.)
So now, we wait. Our social worker is supposed to finish typing up our home study this week and mail it in to the agency. They have to send our information off to a certain state registry to check on us, then we will be approved. Our profile books can now be shown to birthmothers, we can meet with birthmothers and even be chosen by a birthmother. We just can't actually be placed (as in take a child into our home) until the official approval comes through.
It has been a quick, crazy, emotional, detailed process so far. In some senses, the hard part is over. We've been interrogated, inspected, documented and examined. All of that is over. But, in another way, the hard part is starting. Just waiting for the phone to ring. Hoping and trusting God that baby sister is going to come at the perfect time.
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