home study: extremely time consuming process ?

For our home study process, we had to gather the paperwork and yes, it can be time consuming but you should hae access to some of the paperwork anyway - copy of taxes, bio history, health (you should be going to the doctor annually regardless of whether you adopt, no?). There were only a few documents that needed to be done together - we finished those on weekends. Fingerprints need to be done and we did those on lunch breaks. Both my DH and I are in corporate America- our social worker made appointments but did not meet on weekends. For one, I was able to schedule late in the day but for the other one I just took the day off and got some other things accomplished with my day off. It may just be the way your wrote it but you want to adopt (not willing like it is a second option) and having to possibly take a day off to make the appointments shouldn't be all that of a big deal. Just wait to you have children, they are sick and you need to find alternate child care with NO notice. Best of luck to you. In case you were wondering, it took about 2 months to get all the paperwork, appointments, fingerprints done, and the homestudy was completed and sent off to the agency within a day or two.

Thank you a lot. I know what it implies beeing parent but it is different to stay home because your child is sick or asking without any reason many days off during 2 months. Actually if it is just 1 day it is nothing of course but that was not obvious. I also heard about group meetings compulsary in some agencies so I didńt know what it was. However you don t talk about that. Did you have some meetings like that ? Thank you for all. Concerning the "willing to" it was maybe not the best choice but as I am not english native (nor american citizen) i might have approximate english sorry.... It does not change the idea (I hope :-)) Thank you Regards Marie

All agencies are different in how they do their homestudies. My agency did not meet on weekends or later in the day; I had 2 meetings, one at my home and the other at the office, of a couple of hours each. I talked to my boss and flexed my schedule rather than taking the whole day. I also had to attend an education session, which was Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday - they said they usually did it as a series of weekday evenings, but did a weekend one to accommodate a number of us who lived 1+ hours from town. I was able to do fingerprints on my way to work (it only takes about 15 minutes, and I had to drive past the police station anyway) and schedule other things like a doctor's appointment (my state requires one within 6 months, and I was just over). Luckily I had a job that I could adjust my schedule as needed. If I hadn't, I probably would have had to take a few full or partial days off, but with plenty of notice. One thing to think of, however, is planning for a baby coming. I did not have any notice of that; my son was born when we were matched, I got the call, called the airline and bank as I was straightening up my office a little, told my boss I was leaving for the day and would be back in 12 weeks, and had her call clients for me. I had to go in for a day when I got back to take care of a couple of things, but just remember that there can be lots of unexpecteds in the adoption process, even if you can schedule your homestudy appointments more conveniently.Good luck!

We had a local agency do our home study because we were doing out of state adoption and a different placing agency that was (roughly) nation wide. The home study agency had the most paperwork (which you complete at your own time). Some of the paperwork is mailed or sent to a state department and you have to wait for the results to be mailed back (such as your child abuse and criminal background) - that takes time but nothing that requires you to do anything after mailing it off. We had two meetings - one at the home study agency and then two more at our house. This agency scheduled late in the day but not on weekend. With our placing agency we had two phone interviews during business hours M-F. The placing agency also had us do parenting courses and adoptive parent counseling but that was all online courses that we did during the weekend or on our own time but had to be completed before we were matched. As ruth indicated, we had one failed match but that was a baby born situation where they called and said go meet your daughter. Our second (successful!) match was a two month notification prior to due date.

Thank you for all your experiences. It helps me a lot. Actually it seems pretty "easy" to schedule things and have a work at the same time. I talk with my experience in UK where we have hundreds of meetings (maybe 10 times more than what you did, and it is neither late on the day, neither possible to do it on the week end as your training days...). It was just awfull and it ruined really my life (not just career) and my hope to have a baby. Thats' why taking 2 days off for the whole process is nothing ! Concerning the "wrong match" you both talked about, I didn't understand why it wasn't a good match: because it was too soon and you wanted to have some time to prepare for that ? How long after the home study did that happened ? I also didn't fully understand why you had to take some many days (12weeks) and travel ? did you do an international adoption ? Actually I plan and would like to be accepted for domestic open adoption so maybe the process is a little bit different. I don't know. Thank you again et best for all your kids! Marie

If a child is born in a different state than the one in which you live, you will need to travel and stay in that state for 10 days, at least. My son was born in Texas, and I live in the northeast, so I had to travel. The 12 weeks I took was for maternity leave. I know many people take less than that and that I was very fortunate to financially be able to take the entire time I was legally entitled to, but I highly recommend taking as much time off after the baby comes as possible, since it is a big adjustment. Some agencies also have a requirement that you take a certain amount of time off after the child comes home in order to bond. I'm not sure what you mean by a "wrong match." I don't see any mention of that in anyone's post, so I'm afraid I can't help you with that one.

Nice, thank you I understand. I actually never thought about interstates things. Concerning the 12 weeks I understand a lot better and I hope I will be able to do that too. Thank you for your answer. In open adoption in NYC, to you know if there are lots of interstate adoption ? I thought it was interstate and never thought about that. Concerning the wrong match actually I think I didn't understand your sentence: "we had one failed match but that was a baby born situation where they called and said go meet your daughter". What is a failed match and what do you mean by "baby born situation" ? Thank you again for all that. Think this will be my last question on this subject. However I am interested in agency advice if you have some :-). I posted a new thread on that as it is the 1st phase ! Regards Marie

Usually when a match doesn't work out, especially with a baby, it is because of parental interference of some kind. Maybe the birth mom changed her mind after the baby was born or maybe a grandparent swooped in and decided that they wanted to take care of the child instead. It's never a sure thing until all those adoption papers are signed and finalized.

I wouldn't call that parental interference, I would call that a parent choosing to parent.I'm sure it is a really hard thing to experience but so is the decision to place.