Home Study Complete, And Now We Wait

Well folks, we have done all that we are supposed to do to become licensed foster-to-adopt parents.  Our home study interviews last Monday were the final step.  And now we wait.  The lady who did our interviews has two weeks to do her giant write up about us, then she'll turn that back over to CPS where a supervisor will review our entire file.  So we're getting really, really close to being licensed.

Let me tell ya, being grilled for 5.5 hours by a stranger about your marriage relationship and hopes for family is a pretty good way to see if you and your spouse are on the same page or not.  Newsflash: we are.   I know the point of the interviews was for this lady to glean information about us, but it was also a really good opportunity for us to glean information about ourselves and bring this whole past year of processing, discussing and learning to a culmination.  The home study visit was exhausting, voice straining and brain smushing, I was pretty useless when I headed back to the office afterwards and I couldn't muster up any energy for Jazzercise that evening.  But, it was worth it.

She asked us what our strengths and weaknesses are as individuals and as a couple.  She asked us how we handle disagreements.  She asked us how we were raised and disciplined, how our relationships with our families are and how each of us gets along with in-laws.  She asked us about our finances, our health, our neighborhood, our friends, our stresses, our outlets for fun, and our love life.  She asked us how we plan to protect, nurture, discipline, teach and love on the kids that would come into our home.  She asked how we feel about birth parents, social workers, lawyers and the CPS system in general.

She asked us "If you could change something about your marriage, what would it be?"  We had to sit for a minute to think about that one and all we could really come up with was maybe that Trent be better about putting his dirty clothes in the hamper...  If dirty clothes are our biggest worry...I think we're in good shape.

And so we wait, for just a few more weeks.   Then it could be "go time" at any moment.