Andy's Homestudy Interview

I'm done!

I just did the final of my meetings with Katie, our adoption counselor, and Brian's in with her now for his portion. After today, we'll be done with all the meetings needed for the homestudy, so that's a nice milestone to pass.

Today's meeting started with: "How would you describe yourself?" I hate that question. I mean, I don't mind talking about myself; I think a lot of my friends will recognize that I often wear my heart on my sleeve. But that question is so vague and so open that it's always a difficult one for me, especially to start off with! Luckily I managed to say something that passed for acceptable, so we moved on.

We turned in autobiographies to Katie a couple weeks ago, and most of today was spent with Katie delving into more detail based on that material. I got to spend a lot of time talking about my childhood, my brothers, my parents, and anything/everything related to that. Once I got going, I actually think Katie had a hard time stopping me from talking! Don't worry, Josh and Matt, I didn't tell any stories that were *too* bad...

The homestudy meetings have really not been a nerve-wracking process so far. I was a bit apprehensive going into them, especially since they included a tour of our home to make sure it wasn't a death trap. But I think a lot of my nervousness was due to a misunderstanding of what the meetings would entail. The homestudy is a legal document that certifies our home to receive a child, and so I was expecting the vetting process to be difficult (and perhaps even adversarial). As it turns out, the OA&FS homestudy is more than just the legal document; it seems they're really trying to profile us as a family, so that expectant mothers considering adoption can get a sense of who we are. To that extent, the meetings really ended up being more like a set of long interviews by a biographer, and less about judging us and our home.

Anyway, so today's meeting was the last of those for me. After this, we have a few more documents we need to turn in (thanks to everyone who wrote us recommendations - they've all been received!), and then Katie will use them all to write our homestudy in about 4-8 weeks. So things are moving forward pretty quickly! If all goes well, we should be in the pool of waiting families sometime mid-June. Exciting!