Home Study #2

We had our second home study yesterday at our house. We spent the first 20 minutes talking about the domestic infant adoption program. Over the past couple of weeks Aaron and I have been feeling badly about the Russia program slowing down. We decided we wanted to find out about dual listing with both the domestic and international programs. Then whichever comes first, being matched with a birth family or receiving a referral from Russia, is the route we would take. Well after deciding this is something we were interested in our social worker informed us that the agency no longer allows dual listing (this is a change in the last few months.) So we would have to completely change over to the domestic program or stay in the Russia program. After giving ourselves a little time to think about our options and talk with each other we decided to stick with the Russia program. The rest of the home study focused on parenting skills such as how we are planning to discipline our child. Aaron says "she also insisted that we regurgitate what we already wrote in the self-study paper." She asked us things such as what our family strengths and weaknesses are even when she had our answers to those questions sitting right in front of her. Neither Aaron nor I "have a way with words" so these kinds are questions can irritate us after a while. The social worker also took a quick walk-through of our house. At the end of it all she let us know that we are officially approved by the agency to adopt - yea!! Now the agency has a 2-3 weeks to get the home study paper written and then we will have a chance to proof read it and make sure all of the information is accurate. We also got the go-ahead to start getting our paper work together to send in t0 USCIS. The agency will also be sending us a preference checklist in order to determine which region in Russia would be the best fit for us (we won't be put on a waiting list for the entire country - instead you are registered within a region and each region does things a little bit differently.) So one more step is finished and we will hopefully get these next few things completed within a month (that's my hope.)