I was hoping to have my homestudy in my hot little hands by Thanksgiving, but it didn't happen. I called the homestudy agency and they kept giving me excuses. The social worker had the flu. Its almost done, just proofreading etc. Finally they told me it was done. I sent AR to go pick it up because mailing it would just delay us further.
As AR flipped through the homestudy in the office, he noticed that my last name was misspelled and told them. They edited the document and re-printed it while he waited. As soon as I got home I looked through it and it all seemed okay to me, so I faxed it to CHI in NY to have Carrie look it over. She called me a day after I faxed it and said that they left my father off of the Child Abuse Report Incident, which is a major big deal! Carrie also didn't like te way some things were worded either.
I called the homestudy agency on the phone to discuss the issues. I spoke to Marie, the director. She was pissy with me. I couldn't believe her attitude. She had the balls to say, "Your husband looked at it in the office and said it was fine!" Yeah, I told her after we waited 6 weeks for the damn thing, he flipped through it quickly and saw that you misspelled my last name. You certainly didn't think that was our approval, did you???" She was snippy with me and I told her that Carrie from CHI would be calling too because they wanted a few things re-worded. She was just annoyed and thought I was a pain in the ass. Yeah, but you took my $1,200 for the homestudy so you'd better believe that it has to be correct!
I just knew she was going to make me twist in the wind waiting for the corrections. Carrie called me later in the day to say that she told them of the changes that she wanted. They weren't too nice to her either. We were both pretty sure that they were going to make us wait for the correction, which easily could have been done in 10 minutes. I called them every day to see if it was done. Finally they told it was done and I got it on December 9th.
I had hoped to be DTC by the end of the month and now it just wasn't going to happen. With holidays upon us, I figured we were looking at late January to be DTC. CHI approved the homestudy and I sent it off to Newark on December 11, 2003 with my FINAL form, the 600-A. Once Homeland Security had my homestudy and the 600-A, they would ask give us all an appointment for fingerprinting. Once the fingerprints cleared, we would get the last piece of paperwork that we need for our dossier, the 171-H. The 171-H form means that we are approved by the Federal government to bring an orphaned chilld from another country to the United States.
More waiting....
Showing posts with label home study. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home study. Show all posts
Thursday, November 27, 2003
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
The Home Study
So, what exactly is a home study anyway?
The state of New Jersey requires that all prospective adoptive parents have a home study prepared by a licensed social worker from a non-profit adoption agency. The home study is a written report about your family done by the social worker. The intent is to assess the home and see that it meets the state standards for the child’s safety and assesses available space.
As part of the home study, we had to gather lots of documents and answer a million questions. China requires that we must have a minimum of 4 visits with the social worker. The first meeting was at the adoption agency. Our social worker was a guy, and that seems to be unusual from what others have told me.
I really had no idea of what to expect at this meeting. He really started off by asking where I was born, and where did I live after coming home from the hospital after being born (oh, yeah, this was going to take a LONG time to get through). I also came home with a list of documents that I had to gather. In addition, because we lived with my dad, I had to gather almost all of the same documents for him.
Birth certificates for three of us
Marriage certificate
Medical report for three of us
Fingerprinting for all three of us
Letter from the police department stating that none of us had a criminal record and were citizens of good standing in the community
Appointment of a guardian for our child
Financial documents
Three letters of reference.
The letters of reference killed me because none could be written by a family member and one had to be written by a neighbor. A NEIGHBOR. I barely speak to any of my neighbors and I don’t even know their last names. Can you just imagine knocking on your neighbor’s door standing there with a checklist of what needed to be covered in the letter and having to explain that you are adopting and you need a letter of reference from them to convince the state that we were qualified to be adoptive parents?
Yeah, neither could I. That’s why I made AR do it. Hey, I was doing all of the frigging paperwork and all he really had to do was sign on the X whenever I shoved a piece of paper in front of him. It was the least he could do. I asked my best friend and a close family friend to write the other two letters. The letters had to be notarized too.
On our second homestudy meeting at the office, we finished up each of our life history up to when we got married to each other. Then we started delving into why we wanted to adopt. So for us, that meant delving into the infertility issues. He spoke to us together and then each of us separately. He needed to determine whether we were entering the adoption process willingly or not. I guess speaking without the other person there would allow one spouse to say things they don’t want to say in front of their partner.
A large focus of the home study was on each of our childhoods. What was your fondest memory? Should I tell him that I thought my father was superman and swore that I saw his blue cape? No, I told him it was the big Italian Sunday dinners we had a grandma’s house every week eating pasta and brown derby cake that my uncle John always brought over.
Was I ever hit as a child? Hmmm, not by my parents but my oma hit me with a wooden spoon once because I left my records on the floor and my younger cousin stood on them and crushed them. Why was I hit??? ‘Cuz I left the records on the floor.
What were my feelings about discipline? I know the answer that the social worker was looking for here, but the truth was that if I ever had to swat my kid on the behind, I would do so. However, what I said was that I would never use corporeal punishment and signed a document to that effect. Timeouts would be the primary punishment.
What role does religion play in your lives? Oh, boy. This is a loaded question. The truth? I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in god. I questioned the belief system that the Catholic school tried to cram down my throat when I was 11. Did I get married in a church? Yes. It meant nothing to me and it meant everything to them, and my parents were paying for the wedding, so what was wrong with a bit more hypocrisy surrounding the Catholic church? My answer to this question was “I am a lapsed Catholic. I don’t feel the need for organized religion,” and he didn’t press me on it so that was that.
The last home study visit was three weeks after the first visit, so we did it pretty quickly. The last visit took place in our home. I was dreading this because even though I know they don’t do the white glove test, what was he really going to do? He came in and when he sat down, one of my dogs immediately jumped into his lap. I think he was more of a cat person, if you catch my drift, and thought he’s be mad, but he was cool and just petted my dog while he continued to ask questions.
He asked my dad if he supported our efforts for the adoption, which of course, he said yes. I told my dad not to offer any information and to just answer the questions he was asked directly. I didn’t want to take any chances. What if my dad said something crazy? It could happen, you know. Thankfully it all went well. We were hoping to have our home study in our hands in three weeks, which would put us around Thanksgiving. More waiting.
The state of New Jersey requires that all prospective adoptive parents have a home study prepared by a licensed social worker from a non-profit adoption agency. The home study is a written report about your family done by the social worker. The intent is to assess the home and see that it meets the state standards for the child’s safety and assesses available space.
As part of the home study, we had to gather lots of documents and answer a million questions. China requires that we must have a minimum of 4 visits with the social worker. The first meeting was at the adoption agency. Our social worker was a guy, and that seems to be unusual from what others have told me.
I really had no idea of what to expect at this meeting. He really started off by asking where I was born, and where did I live after coming home from the hospital after being born (oh, yeah, this was going to take a LONG time to get through). I also came home with a list of documents that I had to gather. In addition, because we lived with my dad, I had to gather almost all of the same documents for him.
Birth certificates for three of us
Marriage certificate
Medical report for three of us
Fingerprinting for all three of us
Letter from the police department stating that none of us had a criminal record and were citizens of good standing in the community
Appointment of a guardian for our child
Financial documents
Three letters of reference.
The letters of reference killed me because none could be written by a family member and one had to be written by a neighbor. A NEIGHBOR. I barely speak to any of my neighbors and I don’t even know their last names. Can you just imagine knocking on your neighbor’s door standing there with a checklist of what needed to be covered in the letter and having to explain that you are adopting and you need a letter of reference from them to convince the state that we were qualified to be adoptive parents?
Yeah, neither could I. That’s why I made AR do it. Hey, I was doing all of the frigging paperwork and all he really had to do was sign on the X whenever I shoved a piece of paper in front of him. It was the least he could do. I asked my best friend and a close family friend to write the other two letters. The letters had to be notarized too.
On our second homestudy meeting at the office, we finished up each of our life history up to when we got married to each other. Then we started delving into why we wanted to adopt. So for us, that meant delving into the infertility issues. He spoke to us together and then each of us separately. He needed to determine whether we were entering the adoption process willingly or not. I guess speaking without the other person there would allow one spouse to say things they don’t want to say in front of their partner.
A large focus of the home study was on each of our childhoods. What was your fondest memory? Should I tell him that I thought my father was superman and swore that I saw his blue cape? No, I told him it was the big Italian Sunday dinners we had a grandma’s house every week eating pasta and brown derby cake that my uncle John always brought over.
Was I ever hit as a child? Hmmm, not by my parents but my oma hit me with a wooden spoon once because I left my records on the floor and my younger cousin stood on them and crushed them. Why was I hit??? ‘Cuz I left the records on the floor.
What were my feelings about discipline? I know the answer that the social worker was looking for here, but the truth was that if I ever had to swat my kid on the behind, I would do so. However, what I said was that I would never use corporeal punishment and signed a document to that effect. Timeouts would be the primary punishment.
What role does religion play in your lives? Oh, boy. This is a loaded question. The truth? I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in god. I questioned the belief system that the Catholic school tried to cram down my throat when I was 11. Did I get married in a church? Yes. It meant nothing to me and it meant everything to them, and my parents were paying for the wedding, so what was wrong with a bit more hypocrisy surrounding the Catholic church? My answer to this question was “I am a lapsed Catholic. I don’t feel the need for organized religion,” and he didn’t press me on it so that was that.
The last home study visit was three weeks after the first visit, so we did it pretty quickly. The last visit took place in our home. I was dreading this because even though I know they don’t do the white glove test, what was he really going to do? He came in and when he sat down, one of my dogs immediately jumped into his lap. I think he was more of a cat person, if you catch my drift, and thought he’s be mad, but he was cool and just petted my dog while he continued to ask questions.
He asked my dad if he supported our efforts for the adoption, which of course, he said yes. I told my dad not to offer any information and to just answer the questions he was asked directly. I didn’t want to take any chances. What if my dad said something crazy? It could happen, you know. Thankfully it all went well. We were hoping to have our home study in our hands in three weeks, which would put us around Thanksgiving. More waiting.
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