Hello! I spoke with our agency yesterday about getting a homestudy and they gave me the name of a woman in Germany- said if she can't do it, they can fly someone out here. Yeah! I was terrified I wasn't going to be able to find someone to come to Italy to do this.
Now here's my question- for the home study, do we need to have everything set up for baby? I know how to child proof a house- I was 15 when my bro was born and helped raise him, I also am a certified pre-school teacher- but does it need to be done before the social worker gets here? Also, do I need to have the baby's room set up? We know where we'll put baby, but as of now nothing is in there save for a dresser.
Also, what should I expect? Do they sit down and ask you all sorts of tough questions, or is it a bit more relaxed?
while I'm not sure how exactly your homestudy is going to go, since it's being done abroad, I would imagine it's not going to be much different than any of the ones that take place in the US. You'll have to let me know how yours goes, since I'll likely be doing the same thing within the next year in Germany.....
That being said, RELAX. Really. They aren't as bad as our imagination makes it out to be
We didn't have a room set up--our social worker said she could completely understand that. Why walk past a room everyday filled with baby stuff that you have no idea of when it will be put into use? We just showed her what room would be the baby's and that was fine. We didn't even have any baby gear at the time. The SW didn't blame us at all and it didn't count against us in the least. Now, if you still don't have anything when you bring the baby home.... Just kidding. But they will be back to do post placement checks once your child is home. Those are no biggie either, just a chance for you to gush about how perfect your child is to a captive audience!
Our house was not and is not childproofed. I know that some agencies check water heaters and whether you have a working smoke detector and extinguisher. She never looked, although I did have my extinguisher out in plain view just in case.
Basically, the homestudy meeting is just to get to know you and your dh. Who you are, what makes you tick, why you are chosing adoption. We sat at our kitchen table for our homestudy appointments and I had made some cookies. We just visited for a couple of hours and that was it. She did ask us specific questions, but they weren't that hard. The questions were similar to the ones we had to answer on our info sheet for the agency.
I'm so excited for you guys!! Hang in there!!! Keep us updated!
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Thanks! I will admit to being very nervous about this whole thing. I have this fear that they'll find some random reason and say "Nope- no baby for you!"
On the plus side though, I found a home study preparer here in Europe (I actually think she's in Germany) who is willing to do our homestudy. She's going to e-mail a list of the documents I need to start gathering, and then we'll pick a weekend for her to come visit!
I'm just so excited to get this whole process started!
I was talking to my sister the other day and she said that while she was talking to Kate (our other sister) she said "Jessica's baby could be being born, or conceived, right now!" How weird is that!
I remember that fear like it was yesterday. Maybe I can help set your mind at ease. Even if there is some random thing that the sw doesn't like about your home, finances, whatever.. they won't say "No baby for you!" They will say "I'm having a problem with this and we need to work together to fix it." It may take a little extra time, but there are very few problems that can't be fixed, and I sincerely doubt, even knowing you as little as I do just from your posts, that you have any of those problems. (Basically we were told, "Unless you've committed a crime against a child, there's nothing so bad we can't fix it together.")
We did have a problem, though I still feel it shouldn't have been one. We are very young, (26 at the time we started, turned 27 during the process of homestudy, turned 28 during the wait), still have student loans we are paying, a mortgage for a house we just recently purchased and car payments on a new car we bought because we thought the old hunk of junk that broke down every 10 miles wasn't safe for baby. The sw who did our homestudy really had no idea how to calculate a net worth. She counted all that debt against us, but did not count the value of our home or car or other assets FOR us. So basically she had our net worth at like -$200k. Obviously that seemed to be a HUGE problem at the time. She asked us to write up a plan of how we were going to pay off our debt and still support baby (for some reason she seemed to think debt MUST be paid off faster than the term loans on it, she wants us "paying extra" every month and still showing enough money left over to support baby, really frustrating.) We actually wound up calling the program director from our adoption agency and having her chat with the sw about why it was such a ridiculous notion. I was an emotional wreck at the time. I'm not telling you this to scare you.. I'm telling you this so that you know, even if you DO hit a snag (they're rare, but they happen).. hold on to the hope! As terrified as I was at the time that we were going to be told "No baby for you!" simply because we had tried to do the right thing by providing a house and a safe mode of transportation for our little one first, the snag actually only lasted about 3 days. We did write up a "savings plan" for her, basically telling her we weren't total morons and we realized kids cost money. Looking back, I still find it to be ridiculous, but I also find that it was a learning experience for us, and it also helped to strengthen us for the many "mini-crisis" we would face as the process moved on.
Good luck, and relax, you'll do fine
-Brandy
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Brandy(33) DH Dan(33)
DS Samuel Sebastian(6) - Adopted from Colombia
DD Isabelle Caiyi(5) - Adopted from China
RNY Gastric Bypass surgery 1/30/2009
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Question about the homestudy 
Just kidding. But they will be back to do post placement checks once your child is home. Those are no biggie either, just a chance for you to gush about how perfect your child is to a captive audience! 
