Home Visit Complete!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and kind words! Our home visit yesterday went really well! Of course she looked at the house for all of 2 minutes - but I'm still glad we worked so hard to do a "deep" cleaning.

We actually had both our individual interviews and our home visit this weekend.  It was a big weekend!

On Saturday we drove out to Anaheim Hills and met our social worker at the Nightlight Office.  She had us fill out some quiz type of things about discipline and expectations of children. We weren't allowed to talk to each other or share our answers. She then met with us separately and went over our answers. Some of the questions were worded intentionally confusing so it made it a little hard to answer some of them.  I was a little worried about my answers regarding spanking and discipline, but I think that when I was given the opportunity to explain myself, it went well. Apparently, in the state of California, parents are allowed to spank with an open hand over clothing, no objects. But overall, I think we both were able to articulate clearly enough and the interviews went well.

Then on Sunday, she came over to our house for the much anticipated Home Visit. We gave her a quick tour and then we spent the rest of the time answering questions about our upbringing, marriage, what we expect of our children and things along those lines.  The time flew by and before I knew it she was wrapping things up and giving us our timeline for the next steps!

She'll have our home study report completed by December 10! We'll immediately enter the matching process at that time and a potential genetic family will get our profile shortly after that! We're basically just in a waiting game at this point. But with the last two months full of paperwork and lists, it's actually a little nice that things are now out of our hands.

I've been so focused on everything adoption related, I've neglected other things that now need attention.  One of which is my craft booth for a Christmas Boutique on December 5! All the proceeds from my sales will go to funding our adoption.  The main item I'm selling are mason jar snow globes that I've affectionately nicknamed, "Snow Globes for Snowflakes!"

But I'm also making paper garlands, chalk board bible verse signs and wooden candle holders.  I'll include little snowflake tags on everything with a link the blog to encourage people to follow along our journey. (Let me know if you'd like more information about the Boutique or if you're interested in purchasing any of the items!)

Organizing for the Home Visit

This empty wall may not look like much but it actually represents a huge victory. (Sorry for grainy phone photos).  Our spare room is FINALLY organized and ready for baby furniture! Part of the home visit process is proving that your living space actually has room for children.  I love our house, but it is pretty teeny-tiny and we do have quite a bit of stuff.  Donny was a champ and completely re-arranged and re-purposed the space about a week ago - but because it was mostly my stuff in the room, there have been bags and boxes of just odds and ends everywhere that needed homes. We're planning on putting a crib in that empty space and a rocker in the corner where the vacuum is.

We'd like to get another low dresser/changing table type of thing. (We love old, free things..hint, hint). That will go where this white desk currently is.  I'm a little sad because I do like the desk - but it's just too big of a piece of furniture for how un-functional it is. We're actually looking to sell, or trade perhaps, it if anyone is interested.  I paid $50 for it at a yard sale and painted it white and gave it cute knobs.  We'd take $40, OBO.

In my imagination we'd have a room completely dedicated to being a nursery.  Something like this gorgeous gender neutral twin nursery from Carissa Miss

But I have to be realistic.  This is the other side of the room.

\We live in a small two bedroom (that I feel very blessed to have, by the way. I know lot's of people live in much smaller accommodations and figure it out). But we have a lot of stuff that needs a place to live.  So the spare room will be half baby(s) and half office/Gabby's closet/storage/crafts/etc.  The kiddos are actually lucky to get half of the room!

It's full of stuff but at least it's all organized and everything has a home! T-Minus 6 days!

The Process

Snowflakes Embryo Adoptions follow the best practice adoption methods. Although this isn’t required by the government, they feel (and we agree) that it’s beneficial for adoptive parents to go through all of the same adoption training and education.  Which means for the last 2 months or so, we’ve been in the THICK of adoption paperwork! Anyone who has ever adopted before knows how much paperwork is involved.

We filled out a basic preliminary application and paid the first round of fees. Once that was received, we we’re accepted into the Snowflake Family Evaluation (SFE) process. Although we’re not doing a traditional “home study” our SFE has many of the same components.  We had to do a FBI fingerprint background check, driving records check, physical exams, request multiple references, send copies of our marriage license & birth certificates and much, much, much more.  Luckily (and those of you who know me in real life can probably attest to this) I kind of have a thing for paperwork. I get a little bit excited about having a list of items to check off and boxes to fill out. I mean, I am an administrative assistant after all. 

We had our first meeting with our social worker Megan yesterday afternoon.  I was a little bit nervous, but mostly just excited to keep moving forward. We met her at the Nightlight offices in Anaheim Hills.  She was super sweet and down to earth and as soon as we started talking all my nervousness melted away.  It's super encouraging that she's also a believer and someone who genuinely cares about getting embryos adopted! The time flew by and our 90 minute meeting was over.

We were able to schedule our other two meetings/interviews and Megan said that we should have a completed home study by this time next month! We'll meet again at their offices for the "individual" meetings on Saturday the 22nd, and then do our home visit on Sunday, the 23rd. 

The home visit has kind of been weighing on me ever since we started the adoption process so I'm happy to finally have an actual deadline. Megan reassured us that she's not going to be looking in closets or under the bed - rather it's just confirming that there are no obvious safety hazards in the home - but still, a home visit just sounds intimidating.  But now I officially have 13 days to do a deep cleaning, paint the kitchen sink, pull out all the weeds in the mostly dead front planter and train the cats to do a welcome song and dance when she arrives. (ok, maybe not all of those things).

Currently we are ALMOST done with the paperwork side of our SFE. We’re still waiting on Donny’s blood test results, we need to watch 3 adoption webinars and write mini-reports, and we have a little more reading to finish - but we are SO CLOSE!