Home Visit(s)

On Sunday afternoon, I slumped in a chair and told Jeff we needed to postpone the home visit. We were both exhausted. We had already admitted defeat on the "easy to install" cork floors. The counter tops wouldn't be in. The sinks, faucets, appliances, plumbing fixtures, etc wouldn't be in. And I had just spent the last 2 hours cleaning the dining room. We still had the play room, living room, bedroom, Lillian's room and 2 bathrooms left to clean. At 2 hours each, there just was not enough time to get ready for the home visit. Fortunately Jeff talked me off the ledge and busied himself with the playroom. I got a 2nd...or 3rd...or 20th wind and went to work on our bedroom. By the time our heads hit the pillows that night, we were nearly ready.

Which brings me to today. The good news is we completed the home visit. The great news is that our counselor has spent the last 6 years remodeling every surface of her own home and could easily relate to our partial state of completion. The excellent news is that we got BOTH home visits done today. Wooohoooo! Generally they do 2 home visits because it takes about 4 hours to gather all the information for the profile. But because much of our info hasn't changed from last time, we could just fill in any gaps from the past couple of years. Here's a partial list of what we discussed:

• Our childhood experience
• A typical day in our house
• A typical weekend
• What we like to do as a couple
• What we appreciate about each other
• Religion
• Values
• Parenting philosophy
• Discipline strategy
• Financial situation
• Neighborhood
• Detailed description of our home and property
• Jobs including travel and daily schedule
  

Now you can see why it takes 4 hours! Adoption is certainly not an overnight decision. It requires a lot of soul searching preparation. If only all parents had to spend this kind of time thinking about how they would parent...

The final discussion today was also the screening tool. Adoptive families outline their openness to everything from race to gender to exposure to a variety of drugs and alcohol. This list is then cross referenced to potential birthfamilies. Only birthfamilies who match our preferences will receive our letter and profile.

With both home visits completed, that just leaves our individual meetings. We have scheduled those for October 8th (Lori) and 9th (Jeff). Then we wait for our counselor to complete the profile before we will officially be in the pool! I can't believe it's moving so quickly. By the end of the month, we will likely be in the pool. And then the nerve racking wait really begins.

Adoption is a bitter sweet process. Our joy comes from someone else's pain. Lately I've imagined a young woman distraught to discover that she is pregnant. And she is making this incredible decision on what to do next. I pray that somehow she finds out about open adoption. I pray she is brave enough to choose adoption. I pray God brings us together.

Looking Fine

Well, I forwarded the "zen garden" picture to our counselor for approval. Her overwhelming response was "I think the picture looks fine." Ahhhhh, such enthusiasm! Um, does she not realize that we spent hours wandering around campus looking for the perfect location? And then we conducted an online poll to select the perfect shot? And what do I get after all that? "I think the picture looks fine." Oh well, she looks a dozens of these photos every year so I suppose I can't expect her to do back flips.

We're still tracking toward the home visit on the 25th. I'm beginning to resign myself to the reality that our house will be only semi-complete. For example, the bathroom will be tiled but there will be no shower door yet. And the counter tops will be in but not the back splash. That kind of thing. Our counselor said that would be fine but I like things to be just so. Oh well, she'll see the finished product at the 2nd home visit.

Speaking of which, here's a quick outline of the rest of the process.

• Home visit on the 25th.
• An individual meeting with the counselor for both of us.
• Another home visit.
• Wait for profile to be completed.
• IN THE POOL

Basically being "in the pool" means that our letter and profile are being presented to birthfamilies. That's also the point at which every ring of the phone stops my heart. When I got the call that Lillian's birthmom had selected us, I was merging from Hwy 217 to Hwy 26 with my mom and sister in the car. It was a bit of a miracle that I managed to answer the phone, change lanes and write down the relevant info without crashing the car. You know, I think cars should come with reader boards for such an occasion. I should push a button and a sign should pop up on the roof that says "It's THE call." Then all the other cars should just move out of my way allowing for any appropriate reckless maneuvers on my part. Or I could just pull over next time. Or tell them I call back in a minute. Nah, I like the sign idea.

Postponing the Home Visit

Well, I pushed out the home visit to the 25th. That gives us 19 days to get the house in some semblance of normalcy. I can see that without some sort of deadline, a remodel could last indefinitely. But I'm learning that contractor time is sort of like dog years. Just multiply whatever they tell you by 3.

In the meanwhile, we wait and edit some paperwork.

• Dear birthparent letter: Thanks for voting on the photos! It was really valuable to have other people's perspective. We could choose the one we like but ultimately it's a marketing tool designed to attract the right birthfamily. So it's really more important that other people think it represents us well. I've updated the dear birthparent letter with the "zen garden" pic.



• Autobiographies: Our counselor sent back our autobiographies with some minor edits. We'll make the changes and then check that one off the list as well.

Other than that, we're working hard to get the house ready. We've decided to hire some of the work done to speed up the process. Now I'm just waiting to see how much that decision is going to cost.

Oh and we're talking about names and expectations and all the other stuff that parents-to-be think about. I'd like to convince people that we're gonna have twins and name them Diego and Dora but I can't seem to keep a straight face. (If you don't know who Dora and Diego are, you need to hang around more 3 year olds. Lillian loved Diego.)