More from the Adoption Files

Yesterday we had our intake interview at the adoption agency. That's homestudy interview 1 of 5, for those in the stands keeping score. I figure that somewhere around, oh, July, we may actually be finished with all of them. (Ok, ok, I kid. May, tops.)

For those of you scratching your head and thinking, "Wha?!?" I've written, re-written, almost posted, deleted, etc. so many posts on adoption since September when we finally bit the bullet and signed up with an agency that I'm not surprised that you're wondering. It's been a crazy three-almost-four months as far as adopting goes, so I suppose I'll fill you in sketchily and then return to the conversation at hand (provided, of course, I remember what that is by the time I get back there. That's been a more frequent problem of late than I care to admit. Must. Remember. Vitamins.)

Let's see, September started with us attending the "information" meeting and getting our initial application packet. So after sweating through creating a whole personal statement of faith and trying to come up with more than one word answers to such insightful questions as "Why do you want to adopt?" and "Do you think adopting will fix your marriage in any way?" and dredging up last year's tax return and various and sundry other financial information, I waited for them to get in touch with us regarding the two required training classes that would then lead to the homestudy and finally being able to have a profile that prospective birthmothers might be able to look at. Well, when they finally got back in touch with me, it was to simply tell me that the training classes had been cancelled due to lack of interest and they'd get back with me sometime after the new year.

After cleaning up the brain matter that was all over the walls of my office, thanks to my head exploding, I called Tim. I'm not sure that I had any actually intelligible words that I could utter at that point. Thankfully, Tim is well able to interpret Beth-meltdown-speak and got the gist of the conversation. So, somewhere in October we went through a flurry of rethinking this whole thing, looking at other agencies, reopening the whole domestic/international can of worms, and very nearly switched to an international program with another agency. I called our agency back and was prepared to let them know we were doing just that, but rather than being able to just leave a voice mail, the social worker answered the phone and we had a relatively good conversation that ended with her saying they'd be delighted to work with us individually and outside of their usual order of things. And she apologized for how thoughtless her message to me about the cancellations had been.

Shortly thereafter, the formal application (different from the initial application in that it's about sixteen times more paperwork) arrived in the mail. So November was full of anticipation and eagerness to fill out form after form after form. Right up until the autobiography section. I was able to knock mine out fairly quickly, but I had several things going for me: I don't mind writing, I'm pretty good at filling up space for "required answers", and I enjoy talking about myself (hey, I blog, it comes easily at this point.) Tim? Not so much. And it didn't help that we had just entered the six weeks of '06 that I will forever consider "Tim's winter of discontent" (However, there was no son of York and thus, no glorious summer. Thankfully, the six weeks have run their course.) And so his autobiography didn't make its way onto the page until New Year's weekend. After which, I pushed and we scrambled to get all the other information that we'd been dragging our feet on looking up (IRA balances, etc.) so we popped it in the mail the 3rd of January with the full expectation that it would now be a month or so before we heard anything back.

Yes, that was the sketchy fill-in. Aren't you glad I didn't provide details? (Difference? Much more gnashing of teeth, wailing, and wringing of hands.) (Thus why the posts never made it.)

So, yesterday we had our intake interview with the social worker who will be preparing our homestudy. My sister called while we were on our way home to ask if it had been a waste of time. My only response was the one Tim gave, which is that it's one block checked off. Progress has been made. And that is a good thing. When I got home I ordered the books we have to read from Amazon and tried to remind myself that I had wanted more non-fiction in my life. (Though honestly two of the three sound interesting. So we'll see.)

Part of the process is recommendations from 3 friends (can't be family.) Well, when she called to schedule the intake interview, she asked me to call our references and let them know that it was on the way so they could turn them around quickly. One of my friends is more excited about us adopting than I think I'll ever be. She got the form, filled it out, and drove it to the post office the same day. The social worker mentioned it yesterday and I just had to laugh:

SW: We got one of your references already.
Me: She mentioned she had taken it to the post office.
SW: She seems very excited.
Me: Well, she's a very excited person normally.
SW: I don't think I've ever seen that many exclamation points in one place before.

Next up are our physicals. We're actually doing that today. The form makes me chuckle cause it looks like a camp physical form (which, honestly, I prefer over some big in depth mess.) My only fear is that they're going to make me get a tetnus shot. It's been...5 years since my last one and I can't remember how long they're good for. I do remember how much they hurt.

After that, toward the end of this month, if all our paperwork is in (2 more references plus employment verification) then we go to our training class. In the mean time we have instructions on making our profile. She showed us examples last night and I think my O'Hara-like exclamation about scrapbooking may have to take a nose dive. Cause these profiles? They're all like little mini-scrapbooks. I don't want to be the new family she uses as an example ("I had this one couple and they were just so boring. If they were a color, they would be grey."), so I'm guessing that it's time for a little digital scrapbooking out of self-defense. But it's only a few pages, so I'll probably live through it. Probably.

But the reason that I'm writing this is because she said something else last night that I think I'm going to have to try and take to heart, no matter how much I don't want to. She said, "Now it's time to tell everyone, even if you're a private person who would rather not."

Ok. Here goes. My name is Beth. My husband and I want to adopt.