Just the Beginning

We are currently preparing for our home study.  We recently inquired about housing standards for the home study and were a bit surprised that the housing licensing standards for foster care and/or adoption is 47 pages long.  There really weren't any surprises for us as far as what is in the packet, except that maybe Alicia thought there would be more requirements than there really are.

With the home study we will have to meet multiple requirements such as home visits/inspections, training on parenting and adopting, physicals, fingerprinting for different background checks, and personal references/letters of support.  The most worrisome part of all of this is having to wait for the fingerprints/record checks to come back.  This used to take around a month but apparently our state is now running with a wait time of over three months.  Since this is the same check that is done for foster families, this is even more disappointing.  You would think that with the lack of quality foster homes that they would be able to speed up this process.  

The home study is the very important first step in the adoption process.  The cost will be between $2500-3000.00 to complete the home study.  Once the home study is complete we will be able to sign contracts with an adoption consultant who will help facilitate our search for Baby F.  We have it narrowed down to two consultant agencies, but are strongly leaning toward one of them, which networks with all of the "safe states" for adoption.  Also, once our home study is complete then we can apply for grants to help fund our adoption.

Okay, is this enough information to swallow for today?  We truly hope you are as excited about our adoption process as we are.  Please, continue to share our story, and click around on the blog, as Alicia added new pages to help organize things a bit.