The Home Study

If you are familiar with the adoption process, then you know all about the home study. If not, let me give you a brief rundown.

The home study is basically a written report on our family. It covers everything from our family history, our work life, our home layout, our community resources, our hobbies, how we deal with stress, how our friends feel about our parenting/marriage/adoption and so much more!

This process takes time. We needed to have our fingerprints taken, background checks done, a water test on our well, lots and lots and lots of training and education, as well as doctor appointments with letters of recommendation. We also needed to submit a mountain of paperwork from birth certificates, passports, social security reports, income statements, pet vaccinations and so much more! Part of the process also includes interviews with our social worker (individual, couple, and our older kids) and a visit to the house for a walk through home and safety check. The process is very thorough (as it should be).

When we began our journey, we were told this process can take 4-6 months. Much to our surprise, our wonderful case worker had our first draft written after about 6 weeks! That brings us to where we are now. We have a few more pieces to finish to complete our dossier and then we are ready to send it in!

We are currently waiting for approval from our placement agency. Once we receive that, we will be able to complete the rest of our paperwork for the dossier. In the meantime, we are focusing on spending time together and doing all the fall things! We went to the apple orchard for the tenth year in a row with Ben’s grandparents, we ventured to the fair, we’ve been to all of J’s soccer games, we made lots of apple pie filling and we’re in a great rhythm with homeschool!

Part of sending in our dossier includes paying a large fee, $9,000 to be exact. We so far have raised and saved a little over $5,000 so we are close! God is providing exactly what we need when we need it so we are trusting he will do the same here. If you’re interested in being a part of our journey in this way, you can read about some different things we’re doing here.