Homestudy Interviews!

Time for a little good news, bad news.  Of course, the bad news is that I should have posted this update a few days ago.  Not too terrible, but I hope all of you can forgive me for the delay!  The good news - all 4 of our homestudy interviews are scheduled!  Our first homestudy interview will actually be at our house with Katie, our counselor, on Monday, April 9th which is just over 1 week away.

So what will happen during our first interview?  Katie will get to see our house and determine if it's safe (read: not a death trap), stable (read: we actually live here and the pictures in the frames aren't of strangers), and healthy (read: all of our furniture isn't coated with a fine dusting of crack).  I joke a lot here, but there are some important and valid legal items that'll need to get checked off.  Aside from the checklist items, I'm sure Katie will chat and get to know us better.

From a counselor's viewpoint, these interviews are actually really important.  So far, we've technically only had 1 meeting for two hours with Katie.  While we've submitted loads of written information, it's important to get to know adoptive parents through face-to-face interaction.  If you were a counselor evaluating and preparing an adoptive family to welcome a baby into their home, how many hours would you want to get to know them and make sure they're prepared?

• Application & Intake Interview
• Homestudy Interview #1 - April 9th
• Homestudy Interview #2

While I've discussed the first meeting, we'll have 3 others that are tentatively scheduled to take place by April 25th.  This is great for us as all four of our interviews will be done before we leave to go to Europe for 2 weeks in May.  That timing will allow Katie to wrap up our homestudy and write the 10+ page report while we're gone.  It's really exciting to know we're still on track for entering the pool of waiting families in June or July!