homestudy

americantjej · 06-03-2007, 12:00 PM

my husband and i are just starting on the road to adoption and have our first meeting with the government agency this thursday. at the meeting they will talk about homestudy and also about the different adoption agencies available to us. i imagine we will try and start with a homestudy as soon as possible, but i have no idea what that actually means.

can anyone tell me what actually happens during a homestudy?

tariana · 06-03-2007, 01:21 PM

I have no idea how it works in Sweden, but I can tell you what ours was like. We live in the US, in Kansas.

The agency sent us a HUGE packet of paperwork to fill out. I kept copies of it, so I'll just tell you what is in the packet. We had to fill out a long application, giving our names, birthdates, and all that type of basic info. We had to have our doctors write a letter saying we were in good health with average life expectancy, and explain any medical problems we had. We had to describe our home in detail. We had to fill out a financial statement listing assets, debts, and monthly budget. We had to have six references write letters for us saying why they thought we should be allowed to adopt. We had to be checked through the child abuse registry, nationally and in our state, and we also had to have our fingerprints run through the FBI and state databases. We had to have our employers write a letter stating how long we had been employed and how much money we make. We had to fill out a form stating what kind of child we wanted (age, race, health/medical conditions, if we would accept twins or a sibling group, what circumstances by which the birthmom got pregnant, what we would accept in her health history and the birthfather's). We had to read a bunch of books about adoption and swear we had read them. We each had to write a lengthy autobiography, talking about why we wanted to adopt, what we had done to prepare for adoption, our families and life/history with them, our childhoods, our education, employment, criminal history, if any, health history, our marriage, our religion, discipline, and lots of other stuff. We had to provide copies of our birth certificates, marriage license, taxes, wage statements. We had to have our bank write a letter stating that our accounts were in good standing (not overdrawn, no returned checks, etc.) I think that's about it. A LOT of paperwork. Then the social worker had to visit with us twice (once at the agency, once at our home). She also toured our house/yard, but didn't look in great detail at anything.

Good luck. Adoption is hard, but exciting and very worth it.

americantjej · 06-03-2007, 01:46 PM

wow. that sounds incredibly through.
both my husband and i are new to our jobs. i hope that isn't a problem! i suppose i will find out more on thursday.
so nervous, yet relieved! finally taking the 1st step was a huge move

huermysunshine · 06-03-2007, 03:58 PM

Hey Jennifer,
We too had to do everything that Tariana did. Again here in the states.
I know it sounds overwhelming. But, if you are organized it isn't that bad.
In our case we had the worst time with the biographies. Don't over think it and I am sure your case workers will advise you on how to tweek it.
This is a very exciting time for you and DH. Don't let your nerves get to you too much!

tariana · 06-03-2007, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by huermysunshine

Hey Jennifer,
We too had to do everything that Tariana did. Again here in the states.
I know it sounds overwhelming. But, if you are organized it isn't that bad.
In our case we had the worst time with the biographies. Don't over think it and I am sure your case workers will advise you on how to tweek it.
This is a very exciting time for you and DH. Don't let your nerves get to you too much!

Are you in the process of adopting, or have you gone back to TTC? I see what look like treatments in your signature. Just wondering...

americantjej · 06-03-2007, 04:39 PM

my main concern is that i am not 100% fluent in swedish. but i suppose as long as i show i am working on it that shouldn't be a problem. (crossing my fingers)

we are still TTC, but will only do 3 rounds on injectables max.
however, we want to go ahead and start the process since i know it's a long one. should we get pregnant in the meantime then we will just be double blessed

huermysunshine · 06-04-2007, 11:11 AM

Tariana - We started an adoption process June of 2006. We planned on adopting an older special needs child. After many, many classes (which scared us to death) we decided to put the breaks on it all and try medicated conception options. We had never gone to a fertility Dr until March of this year. We had never concieved on our own durring our marriage and thought we should at least give it a try and then move back to the adoption if it didn't work. The agency we dealt with made such a big deal (no one could beleive we never tried fertility treatments) over us just deciding to adopt that in essence.... they changed our minds! LOL

tariana · 06-04-2007, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by huermysunshine

Tariana - We started an adoption process June of 2006. We planned on adopting an older special needs child. After many, many classes (which scared us to death) we decided to put the breaks on it all and try medicated conception options. We had never gone to a fertility Dr until March of this year. We had never concieved on our own durring our marriage and thought we should at least give it a try and then move back to the adoption if it didn't work. The agency we dealt with made such a big deal (no one could beleive we never tried fertility treatments) over us just deciding to adopt that in essence.... they changed our minds! LOL

We never TTC -- on our own, even... it just didn't seem worth the risk of miscarriage, etc. to me and luckily my husband wasn't attached to the idea, either. Adoption has been SUCH a blessing for us. I have no doubt we'd still be trying to GET pregnant if we'd gone that way.

huermysunshine · 06-04-2007, 07:07 PM

Tariana - you are blessed!! You have a beautiful baby too!

Had our journey not went the way it did, I am not sure if we'd have a son or a daughter by now. Right now, we don't have either! But, like the old saying everything happens for a reason.

Thank you for your interest in our situation. We are NOT closed to adoption. I myself am adopted and LOVED as much as my biological siblings! I believe in adoption and know the miracles first hand that it allows! I believe God has a plan for everyone and every situation. I am sure you know in your heart this was his plan for your family. We are still trying to figure out what our 'book' says. If it were up to us totally we'd have a house FULL of children of all shapes, ethnicities and from all around the world!!!

Wishing you many blessings - Barb

Texanna · 06-07-2007, 11:36 AM

Kati you seem like you are a wealth of infromation. I have been thinking about adoption a lot lately. I think my DH is now warming up to the idea. We are wanting to adopt a child from China, but you have to be 30 years old. That means I have a few more years to wait. Did you do a domestic or over seas adoption? How did you make that choice?

Anna

tariana · 06-07-2007, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texanna

Kati you seem like you are a wealth of infromation. I have been thinking about adoption a lot lately. I think my DH is now warming up to the idea. We are wanting to adopt a child from China, but you have to be 30 years old. That means I have a few more years to wait. Did you do a domestic or over seas adoption? How did you make that choice?

Anna

We did a domestic transracial adoption (we are white, our DD is black). We were originally thinking of Guatemala, but it was too expensive, and then we got to researching more and learning more about domestic adoption. Many (not all) of the agencies are less expensive than international agencies, and obviously the babies are younger (newborn vs. around a year old). If you're not so concerned with the age of the baby or want an older child, other countries may actually work better for you, but I figured this will likely be my only chance to be a mom, so I really wanted a newborn.

We considered several agencies, but finally went with one in Texas. We are in Kansas. The agency we chose is VERY large with many offices all over Texas, so we knew our baby could basically come from anywhere in Texas. She was born in Houston, and we picked her up in San Antonio when she was 5 days old.

We decided to only be open to black or biracial (mix of black and any other race). Part of the reason for our decision was cost. Adoptions of black babies are, sadly, less expensive than adoptions of white babies in many cases. There simply isn't as much demand for these babies. Because there is less demand, there is also the added bonus of less waiting time. Instead of possibly more than a year for a white baby, many people are often home with their babies in a matter of a few months if they are open to black babies. We waited just a hair over 2 months, and several others that used our agency waited between 2 weeks and 4 months. We are supposed to have a semi-open adoption (contact both ways between birth parents and adoptive parents) but Yuna's birthparents don't want contact right now. So we send them letters and pictures twice a year and hope that they will contact us someday.

I don't know a lot about China as we never researched it thoroughly because we knew we didn't want to wait until we were both 30 to adopt, but I hear from others on the www.adoption.com message board that it is VERY slow. They are anticipating 3 years from start to finish now, and possibly an even longer process later on. There are still people starting China adoptions, so if the long wait wouldn't be an issue for you, it might still be a good place to adopt from. Guatemala used to be very fast, but has now slowed considerably in most cases. I honestly don't know a whole lot about international adoption, because we focused on domestic pretty early in our process and stuck to that, and every country has different requirements anyway, so you would just need to see what might fit you.

I was very lucky that my DH was pro-adoption from the very beginning, and didn't want to put me through the pain of TTC. I'm also fortunate that he wasn't hung up on having a baby of our race as many people are, which allowed the process to be faster and easier than it would have otherwise been.

We were very happy with our adoption experience, overall. As with most large agencies we did not recieve very much personal attention, but I didn't really have a problem with that. The caseworker who handled Yuna's adoption has already left the agency, and they have what appears to be a VERY high turnover rate, but everyone I've talked to that used them was happy. They seem to be more focused on good counseling for the birthmother than some agencies I've seen, and take a sort of no frills approach with adoptive parents, which was fine with me. We don't make very much money, so less expensive was important to us, and our agency doesn't spend a lot of money on fancy advertising or anything -- they just place babies with a minimum of fuss, from what I can see.

Anyway, now that I've written a book, I'll end here. If I can answer any other questions for you, I'll be glad to.

Texanna · 06-07-2007, 11:37 PM

Tariana- You are a wealth of information. I live in Texas and would like to know the name of the agency that you used. I am a little confused....I thought the main reason why people did international adoptions was because the process was quicker and easier. I need to do more research to understand the process.

Anna