[Mrs. Krispe] Homestudy Visit Completed

[This post written by Mrs. Krispe.]

Today is the anticlimactic end of a busy weekend-plus. We kind of deferred Father's Day until next weekend so that we could focus on getting the house clean. I know, the social worker is not there to evaluate how good a housekeeper I am. Still, I wanted to show our home in its best light. Besides, it's been awhile since we did a good thorough cleaning.

I can't say that I got things really organized. It was mostly cleaning up clutter, then vacuuming and floor cleaning. And wiping down counters & mirrors & dusting... On Sunday I had Kris take Cerri to FunLand. They had a good time, and I could clean more efficiently. By the end, I felt like the house was glowing, kind of like Nemo after the French cleaning shrimp finishes with him ("Voila! He is clean!") That said, I did leave a few things undone -- a half-folded basket of laundry on a spare bed, a couple of items on the drain board. I didn't want to seem like a total perfectionist. (Whether I am or not, I didn't want to APPEAR that way.) In any case, I am fairly certain that we won't be required to take a Remedial Housekeeping course before being allowed to adopt. :)

Monday, Cerri was nicely tired out from the weekend excitement, so we managed to get through the day with minimal re-cluttering. We dined out, giving me a little break & continuing to keep the house in a state of maximum cleanliness.

The home visit seemed really short to me. The whole thing (including the face-to-face interview with a referrer) was completed in just an hour. The house tour was actually quicker than a typical walk-through when we have friends & family come over for the first time. She was favorably impressed of course (truly it is a fantastic house), but mainly she just took a VERY quick look in each room and jotted down answers to her set questions (number of bedrooms, bathrooms, etc). She didn't go down to the basement at all. Yes, it's unfinished, but I still vacuumed it, and there are things set up down there (a freezer, an area for overwintering plants with fluorescents & a timer...) No doubt we'll be storing some of our garden harvest down there on ventilated shelves. Still, I guess that's not really relevant to adoption.

We finished a few minutes before our referrer showed up, so we were able to show her the garden. When he arrived, they actually did the interview on our canopy-swing that faces the playset while Kris pushed Cerri on the swing and I weeded the garden. And then, just like that, she was finished.

As she said, the next time she sees us, it will be with our new child(ren).
Wow.


I can't fully grasp the idea. But then, it reminds me of what it was like when I was pregnant with Cerri. I knew it was going to happen, and I knew I wanted it, but somehow the whole thing didn't seem completely real to me until it really happened. It was pretty wonderful when it did. So, it's ok with me that I can't fully imagine it. That's probably better than having a bunch of daydreams and then being disappointed if it goes differently than I imagined it. I'd rather let things unfold in their own way & be open to appreciate each moment as it happens.

Getting Ready for the Homestudy

Well our first homestudy appointment was suppossed to be yesterday but due to unfortunate accident it has been moved to tomorrow. So we have our first interview tomorrow. We have to go to Richmond to meet with the Home study worker. Then we have the actual Home visit on Tuesday of next week. Well this is all exciting as things are going nicely now. I am sure that once this part is done things will go back to a slower pace as we wait for USCIS approval. We will be submitting the
I-600A next week sometime. We were waiting to file this since we know that USCIS will not do anything with the processing of the I-600A until they have a completed homestudy. So now that it looks like the homestudy will go quickly time to file the I-600A. Then we will have to wait to find out what region in Russia we will be traveling to. Once we have that we will know exactly what they want for the Dossier. Since each region in Russia is different we have to wait until the region is assigned to put together the Dossier. Our Agency CHSFS will not assign the region until after they get the home study at least preliminary report back. So it looks like we may have a region in a couple of weeks as our home study should be done by end of next week at least pre-approval. Then the social worker has 30 days to put together the final product and deliver it to CHSFS.

First Round of paperwork all complete. Starting homestudy

Well CHSFS finally received everything like the reference letters and clearances that were needed before starting the Home Study. We had all of our paperwork in that we had control over for the May 9th class. Now they have finally received the other paperwork. We received a call from the social worker who will be doing our HOME STUDY. Yea the process is moving along. We just now to schedule dates for two appointments to get the home study underway.

Pre Adoption Class

On May 9th we went to a pre-adoption class with CHSFS. It was nice getting to meet other future adoptive parents. Nobody else was adopting from Russia. Oh well we were hoping to meet someone else adopting from Russia. There were about 20 people in the room. They were adopting from all over Ethiopia, Korea, Mexico, Peru and of course we are adopting from Russia. Ethiopia was by far the most popular. CHSFS does seem to have a strong program for Ethiopia as well as the Russian and Korean Program. Had we not already wanted to adopt from Russia we might have choosen one of these other programs. Just before the class there was a mad rush to make sure that all of the first round of paperwork was complete. CHSFS Does seem to have a lot of paperwork that others need in the second round in the first round so maybe second round won't be so long.