{#45} What to expect at your home study interview

Our long home study interview was today.  Each agency and country is different, but this will be 2 of 4 (our orientation meeting at our agency counted as #1).

Again, since each agency and country is different, your interview will probably look a little bit different but this is how ours went today.

Our social worker did a quick walk through of our house.  It wasn’t very detailed because our county requires separate health and fire inspections which we already turned in.  She did double check for smoke and CO detectors.

She asked the kids to draw a picture of them doing something with their prospective new sibling(s).  PJ drew all of us plus 2 (or 3) kids in Van-Go.  Mia drew us celebrating with balloons, and Ty just drew Mia.  Along the way, she asked each of the kids how they felt about adoption and if they would prefer a sister or brother.

As for Patrick and I, she asked

• why we wanted to adopt
• what our strengths and weaknesses were as parents as a couple
• what our expectations were for after the kids were home
• what our education plan was
• how they adjusted to the last adoption
• how our families, friends, and church community responded to our adoption news
• what our support network looked like
• if we kept weapons, drugs, and/or fire arms
• what our biggest parenting challenge has been so far
• how we felt about birth order (since we said we would be open to disrupting ours)
• how we respond to unexpected changes in life

For whatever reason, I was a little nervous about our visit (even though we’ve been through it before) but I shouldn’t have been!