Homestudy Done!

We had our final homestudy visit today! We had completed about half of the interview about a week and a half ago, and this was the second part, which involved the social worker coming to our house.

It was a little intimidating having her come to the house for the purpose of evaluating it and us, to make sure we were suitable for a baby. She checked out the yard (the backyard right now has a huge pile of debris from the remodel!) and said that we need to get the fence finished in the back but other than that it was fine. The house was fine, even with the remodel halfway done, and she just asked us to put latches on all the cupboards in the kitchen, even though we have a baby gate that we use right now to keep Bridget out.

We also finished up the interview, which took most of the time, and she talked to Aidan about his feelings toward the adoption. She ended up being here for over 2 1/2 hours! It was a great experience though, and she was really positive about everything and gave us some good advice and resources.

As you can tell, Bridget was really enthralled with the whole process. Actually, she wouldn't stop talking and we had to put on a movie so we could do the interview without interruptions, and then this happened:


We're really glad to be done with that part of the process, and we're ready to move on! The next step is for her to write everything up and get it checked by us for accuracy, and then finalized and notarized and sent to us. We can then take that and file our I-600A at the USCIS (immigration) office in Yakima, where we will also get fingerprinted. The government then processes that and gives us our approval to adopt an orphan, and then we will be able to submit our dossier and get on the referral list!