Home Study Freak:)

Yep. I’ve officially been labeled. By my husband:). Since we filled out our application to adopt from Ethiopia with AGCI, I have been a complete nut. I watch you tube videos on Ethiopian adoptions and cry my eyes out. I have gone from blog to blog to blog to blog—reading about other families in the process…gazing over their adoption timeline and they are all so different that I’ve realized…that there will be very few things that I have control over. AND–there will be A LOT of waiting. So–I have become, to myself and my husband, for the month of September–the Home Study Freak. I admit it. My name is Andrea and I am in a rat race to finish my home study as fast as possible.

Today’s gigs—fingerprints, background check, physicals for kids and 1st home study visit. (Can’t believe just 10 days from turning in our official application and we’ve already had our home study visit!) Here are a few pictures (taken from my iphone) of some of today’s fun..
Frank joined me at City Hall today. He got Oooed and Ahhhed over by the sweet ladies doing the fingerprints. He also wanted a background check…but in 10 months he just hasn’t managed to get in to enough trouble for that one. Isn’t he cute:) I can’t believe he’ll be ONE in 2 months. Harder to believe he’ll probably be well over 2 when we finally get to go get our child!

And not only does our home study require us to get physicals–but they need to know our children are healthy too. WHEW! Thankfully, the doc just signed some papers for Frank and Laney b/c they have had more recent visits. But poor Parker was due up for his 5 year check up…and shots. Not fun. But nothing that a little Dunkin Doughnuts couldn’t help afterwards:)
The kiddos waiting on the nurse to come back in…and before poor P’s shots!

I filled out the application with AGCI on September 1st. 10 days later. I have 95% of EVERY application, form, fingerprint, certificate and signature required for the completion of our homestudy. 10 days later we had our first HS visit–and we’ve already planned our next one. Next week:). All 3 of my kids had their physicals today (required by our HS agency) and our background checks will be back on Tuesday. Our first home study visit lasted less than 1 hour today as all the forms she brought for us to fill out—I had already downloaded online, printed off and filled out. Yes, all 50 of them;). I had already been to the courthouse, gotten fingerprinted, and you name it–it was filled out. I was afraid our adoption consultant was going to think I was nuts, but she thought it was great and loved how easy her job was today. I even had “sign here” tabs for her on the forms that required her signature:). We’ll have all our visits completed by the 25th which is the day our adoption physicals are on—then we’ll be done with our home study!

Next up—then of course after the home study…comes the dossier (another crazy list of documents and requirements). But no worries…I already got a sneak peak on that list and certified birth certificates from vital records and new social security cards (no idea where our originals were) have already been ordered, reference letters have already been written and are patiently saved and waiting on friends and family computers, and picture of the outside and inside of our home have already been taken. I’ve heard the dossier is crazy, so thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a headstart once the home study is written and complete. I may have little or no control over the wait–and since these things are what must be completed to “start our wait” and get logged in…I’m ok with being a Home Study Freak (and soon to be Dossier Freak) until then;). It will ALL be worth it in the long run!

Whew…gotta run. 3 more pages to finish…then I’m lighting a fire under Richard’s tail to finish his 16 page personal profile. And no honey, you are not aloud to look at mine or copy:).