Wow. My last post was the 16th of March, and here it is the 17th of April. But there's good news! Bert took two days last week to focus on our homestudy, one of which she worked from her home office so as to avoid distractions. While going through our file, she did find questions she wanted to ask, something that was marked off as received but had NY information, and discovered that she hadn't received a recommendation from one source and that our physical exams were soon to expire.
So yesterday we went in to the doctor's office and got our physicals done again (3rd time's the charm?), and the recommendation is currently in progress (the person writing it IMed us mid-writing, so we know). As of this moment the homestudy is 99% complete; as soon as these items get to the office and she plugs in the text, we're ready to roll!!
What's next? When it's ready, we drive to the agency office, read it over and make any corrections or changes, and she'll work through a timeline with us. I have no idea what this timeline looks like yet, but we'll let you know.
Showing posts with label agency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agency. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Home Visit
It's been two days since Bert was here for the home visit, and I think I'm still processing everything. I have had some sort of resistance to posting about it; I hope it's just because I'm still thinking it over.
The fact that we are going to be parents sometime soon is starting to feel much more real, and kind of suddenly... something will come to mind and just bowl me over emotionally. I'm feeling very stressed out, but not because of any specific event or job that needs doing, but more at the fact that it's Soon. On Wednesday night we were cleaning out and straightening the back room. That room originally had all our child related stuff (I have a lot of toys and books and things from the school I taught at), and it was neat and organized, and we used it as a guest room with the air mattress. Then I needed a place to move my sewing stuff, so we put the toys in the attic and then we needed a better bookcase in the office, so all the furniture moved around again, and it was my sewing room/guest room. (I'd called it my Playroom). Wednesday night we went in to move things around again, and realized this is it. We brought the toys back down to be used and figured out where the bed might go. A friend of ours calls this kind of thing, "Weird head space", like momentous stuff is going on and we just can't wrap our brains around it.
So then, on to the official report. Bert arrived Thursday morning a little before 10:00, and we all got some coffee and sat down to talk. Colin gave us a lovely show, playing with the jingly toy mouse, throwing it in the air by its tail and doing flips to grab it again. That was fun. :) Anyway, first she addressed our concerns and questions, most of which revolved around the inspection. So we got up and did the tour of the house, explained the areas we were concerned about, talked about the furniture and so forth, she gave us some suggestions on things we may want to take care of before the state inspection. There's not many of them, and most of them we were already aware of, which is good.
Then we sat and talked for about an hour, maybe a little more. She'd received our referrals (Thank you, References!) and there was an area on the form for weaknesses as well as strengths,
so we discussed those (don't worry, she didn't tell us who said what). We talked a lot about things that had been covered with our case worker in NY; not for the paperwork, since she had it all written down already, but so that she could get to know us better. We discussed LPA and the pregnancy rates and mixed marriages and how I deal with kids in difficulty areas. We talked about our history, where certain tendencies came from, our marriage and struggles early on and how we dealt with them. Basic important life things.
We've officially had recorded that we're also open to siblings, just two... but one or more than one. We think we've figured out a reasonable way to arrange the house, and we're asking that if we are blessed with two little ones, they'll be close in developmental age so they can share toys and things. Within reason, obviously. We will accept either gender if we feel that we've found The Ones, in any combination really... though we both keep having dreams (at night) that we're having a girl, so we're hoping God will lead us to that. If not now, maybe later. For siblings, Lanse prefers a boy/girl or girl/girl, whereas I prefer a boy/girl or boy/boy, even though I don't know that I can handle two boys. For some reason I just can not picture two girls in this house, I don't know why. But I know that both of us are excited and thrilled to have ANY kids, gender doesn't matter.
As soon as we've finished the things with the house, we'll call Bert and let her know and she'll file for the fire inspection. She's already filed for the Health and Safety, and was surprised they hadn't called us yet. So we'll see how that ends up. Unfortunately, she has to go back into surgery and will be recovering for another six weeks or so. Her previous surgery ruptured, or something nasty like that. Prayers for Bert are appreciated; partly because we don't want her to be in pain, but also because selfishly we want her to be able to get stuff done quickly for us, and we know that she's vital in the lives of a lot of kids right now.
So that's where we are at the moment. Her visit went well, she personally approves of the house and seemed to be very agreeable to our viewpoints in discussion. We get on the ball with the final safety items, call her, she calls them, we wait. They inspect, we get the papers filed, get the vet stuff in, and wait. Once the red tape's all cut and burned, we start the search for our kid(s). And wait. She said it could be anywhere from 6 months to a year or more, it just depends on how on the ball everyone is, and where the child lives right now. I know people who have really on-top-of-it people who get things done sooner than 6 months, but that's not very common. So that's what we're looking at.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers; we can feel them working!
The fact that we are going to be parents sometime soon is starting to feel much more real, and kind of suddenly... something will come to mind and just bowl me over emotionally. I'm feeling very stressed out, but not because of any specific event or job that needs doing, but more at the fact that it's Soon. On Wednesday night we were cleaning out and straightening the back room. That room originally had all our child related stuff (I have a lot of toys and books and things from the school I taught at), and it was neat and organized, and we used it as a guest room with the air mattress. Then I needed a place to move my sewing stuff, so we put the toys in the attic and then we needed a better bookcase in the office, so all the furniture moved around again, and it was my sewing room/guest room. (I'd called it my Playroom). Wednesday night we went in to move things around again, and realized this is it. We brought the toys back down to be used and figured out where the bed might go. A friend of ours calls this kind of thing, "Weird head space", like momentous stuff is going on and we just can't wrap our brains around it.
So then, on to the official report. Bert arrived Thursday morning a little before 10:00, and we all got some coffee and sat down to talk. Colin gave us a lovely show, playing with the jingly toy mouse, throwing it in the air by its tail and doing flips to grab it again. That was fun. :) Anyway, first she addressed our concerns and questions, most of which revolved around the inspection. So we got up and did the tour of the house, explained the areas we were concerned about, talked about the furniture and so forth, she gave us some suggestions on things we may want to take care of before the state inspection. There's not many of them, and most of them we were already aware of, which is good.
Then we sat and talked for about an hour, maybe a little more. She'd received our referrals (Thank you, References!) and there was an area on the form for weaknesses as well as strengths,
so we discussed those (don't worry, she didn't tell us who said what). We talked a lot about things that had been covered with our case worker in NY; not for the paperwork, since she had it all written down already, but so that she could get to know us better. We discussed LPA and the pregnancy rates and mixed marriages and how I deal with kids in difficulty areas. We talked about our history, where certain tendencies came from, our marriage and struggles early on and how we dealt with them. Basic important life things.
We've officially had recorded that we're also open to siblings, just two... but one or more than one. We think we've figured out a reasonable way to arrange the house, and we're asking that if we are blessed with two little ones, they'll be close in developmental age so they can share toys and things. Within reason, obviously. We will accept either gender if we feel that we've found The Ones, in any combination really... though we both keep having dreams (at night) that we're having a girl, so we're hoping God will lead us to that. If not now, maybe later. For siblings, Lanse prefers a boy/girl or girl/girl, whereas I prefer a boy/girl or boy/boy, even though I don't know that I can handle two boys. For some reason I just can not picture two girls in this house, I don't know why. But I know that both of us are excited and thrilled to have ANY kids, gender doesn't matter.
As soon as we've finished the things with the house, we'll call Bert and let her know and she'll file for the fire inspection. She's already filed for the Health and Safety, and was surprised they hadn't called us yet. So we'll see how that ends up. Unfortunately, she has to go back into surgery and will be recovering for another six weeks or so. Her previous surgery ruptured, or something nasty like that. Prayers for Bert are appreciated; partly because we don't want her to be in pain, but also because selfishly we want her to be able to get stuff done quickly for us, and we know that she's vital in the lives of a lot of kids right now.
So that's where we are at the moment. Her visit went well, she personally approves of the house and seemed to be very agreeable to our viewpoints in discussion. We get on the ball with the final safety items, call her, she calls them, we wait. They inspect, we get the papers filed, get the vet stuff in, and wait. Once the red tape's all cut and burned, we start the search for our kid(s). And wait. She said it could be anywhere from 6 months to a year or more, it just depends on how on the ball everyone is, and where the child lives right now. I know people who have really on-top-of-it people who get things done sooner than 6 months, but that's not very common. So that's what we're looking at.
Thanks to everyone for your prayers; we can feel them working!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
December 11, 2007
Well, I talked to the SC office, and they have our records, and have assigned us to a case worker. Yay! Apparently, though it did take them a couple months to get it done, the biggest problem was that when we gave our change of address and phone number to the person in NY, she changed it in their office rolodex but not in the computer directory, so the SC office has been trying to call us on a discontinued phone number. Siiiiigh. She also told me that our case worker has been out somewhat severely ill the last couple of days, so when she's better and back on her case load, we should be hearing from her. So this is good.Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.
Monday, December 10, 2007
December 10, 2007
Sorry it's been a while. I'm going to rant for a minute, because I'm pissed. We had only one short meeting left in NY for our homestudy to be approved when Lanse lost his job. We moved to SC, with the full assurances of the NY people that we could transfer things as soon as we "got settled". So, I called the NY office -and- the SC office the last week of July, and was told they'd call me back as soon as the director talked to the other director. When I didn't hear anything, I called again the second week of August. And again the third week of September. And the first week of October. NO ONE HAS CALLED US OR (I assume) TRANSFERRED OUR RECORDS. Keep in mind that I'm talking directly to the directors of the state offices, not just a secretary.
And we just got a letter - TO THE ADDRESS WE HAVEN'T LIVED AT IN SIX MONTHS - telling us that the agency newsletter, which we get as long as we're involved with the agency, will stop arriving unless we send them a donation.
THEY FREAKING WROTE US OFF! AFTER CALLING EVERY MONTH FOR SIX. FREAKING. MONTHS.
I am severely incensed. Of course, I get all riled up after business hours. *sigh* I hope I can rile myself up again tomorrow afternoon when I can call and yell at them.
I don't know whether or not to be just done with them. It could either be one of those things where we're supposed to fight for it, (I've heard that a -lot- of agencies depend on the adopting families to keep on top of things), or if God's trying to tell us to do something else, agency-wise. I'm not willing to give up kids yet. So I dunno. I give them ONE more phone call, in which I give time and date of all my other phone calls, and see if anything happens by the end of the week. Possibly.
Pray for wisdom for us, and God opening our eyes to His will.
And we just got a letter - TO THE ADDRESS WE HAVEN'T LIVED AT IN SIX MONTHS - telling us that the agency newsletter, which we get as long as we're involved with the agency, will stop arriving unless we send them a donation.
THEY FREAKING WROTE US OFF! AFTER CALLING EVERY MONTH FOR SIX. FREAKING. MONTHS.
I am severely incensed. Of course, I get all riled up after business hours. *sigh* I hope I can rile myself up again tomorrow afternoon when I can call and yell at them.
I don't know whether or not to be just done with them. It could either be one of those things where we're supposed to fight for it, (I've heard that a -lot- of agencies depend on the adopting families to keep on top of things), or if God's trying to tell us to do something else, agency-wise. I'm not willing to give up kids yet. So I dunno. I give them ONE more phone call, in which I give time and date of all my other phone calls, and see if anything happens by the end of the week. Possibly.
Pray for wisdom for us, and God opening our eyes to His will.
Friday, December 29, 2006
December 29, 2006
Well, it's December now, after Christmas (it was good!). In between now and the last post, our bathroom was redecorated and made non-moldy and safe for the inspection. Yay!
In other news, we just put our almost-last packet of stuff in the mail for Bethany. Ooooh. We finally hauled ourselves in to the police station to be fingerprinted like common... adopting parents. *hee* So those, and a bunch of other things are going in today. Yay!
Friday, September 29, 2006
September 29, 2006
Life is crazy. I don't remember what last I posted about it, but we submitted our Bethany application on the 14th, and just today received an email from our newly appointed (to us) social worker, Jacquie. We will have an appointment soon, and in the meantime have to start working on our 2-3 page autobiographies. Eep!
Monday, September 4, 2006
September 04, 2006
Well, America World can't help us. *weep* I'm really more upset about it than I look, mostly because there's way too much to do right now to deal with this. America World is a Christian adoption agency that offers programs only internationally; however, they were listed on the NYS site as a voluntary alternate agency for helping with homestudies. The lady at HQ said it would be unusual, but perhaps... and gave me the number of the local guy. He was very sweet, but very policy focused. *sigh* They just can't help us, cuz it's not What They Do. Knowing the world of adoption, I'm guessing there's probably some kind of domestic paperwork they haven't filed, since they don't do domestic adoptions.
Next up, I'm waiting for a call back from Bethany Christian Services. They also do not have anything official about domestic waiting children, but they do have a domestic infant/birthmother program, so they may be qualified to help us. We'll see. If they can't, I'm not sure what the next step is. Christian agencies around here apparently (generally) don't do domestic waiting children.
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