Homestudy Info.

not sure of your location, but we live in south central texas. We cleanded and cleaned the night before as if the queen of england was coming. The homestudy was this. Our CW arrived. we sat down and just started talking about us as a couple. what we like to do and then he interviewed us individually. we were asked questions about our spouces and what our views were about parenting. It wasn't until the last 5 miutes of his stay that he looked over the apartment and said, cool. looks like you are getting ready for baby. No white glove inspection. Just as long as you mention that you are working on finishing up the remodeling and baby has a safe environement to live, there really isn't much to worry about. That is easier to say. We thought this home study was something to really fret about, but it's not. hope this helped. May Heavenly FAther be with you, guiding you through each step. gonnabeadaddy matched Dec 5th ds due march 15th

Hello! Don't worry about the homestudy. I don't know what state you are in but there are probably only slight variations from state to state. We are in Utah. Our social worker from LDSFS did our homestudy and so we already knew him from the classes and interviews etc. It was pretty relaxed. He came into the house and did a tour of the home. He didn't open any closets or anything (all that organizing for nothing!) He checked out our unfinished basement which has a door that closes it off, and suggested we could get a lock for it if hubbies tools were going to be laying out. He asked where we keep our meds and cleaners, and told us we'd need to get a first aid kit. He mainly seemed to be checking the size of the rooms, the amount, getting a general feel of the home. We did have some baby gates because we have dogs, and he mentioned we'll need to use those or others to block off the stairs that go to the basement. He wanted to know that we had smoke alarms and a fire extinguisher (10$ at walmart we bought THAT morning). I think he wouldn't have even cared had there been some clutter, though there was certainly none that day! He then went outside to take a look at our property. He asked if there were any streams or ponds near by saying that if there were we'd need a fence since we don't currently have one. Our neighborhood is pretty safe and quiet though so he said no fence was no problem. We then sat in the livingroom and he filled out his paperwork about the house and asked a few more questions about the home and what we'd done to it since we'd built it less than a year before. If you have pets, its a good idea to keep them under control. I have heard, and took the advice to get them groomed just before so they can see that they are well cared for. Ours are downright spoiled and I think he could tell! It was really laid-back, took about an hour, and went very well. What I would suggest is that you get doors on the rooms that are unfinished and either put locks on them or those child-proof doorknob covers. Good luck and don't worry about it!

Thank you both so much for responding!! Here I've been fretting about this for weeks!! It sounds like it'll be no sweat. I have a few things I should get ready - but even with the unfinished bathrooms, it sounds like we're ready to go!! So...how many classes and meeting do we have to go to before the homestudy part happens? Also - how long does it take to get "approved" or "ceritifed" to be adoptive parents? Oh yeah - sorry, I almost forgot again! We're in Utah. Salt Lake City. Thanks again for your input...you really helped relax me about the homestudy thing. :)

approval process depends on you and each CW. We started our paper work at the end of July and finshed the beginnign of November. We got our final letter of approval, you are in the books and waiting at Thanksgiving. And then we got THE CALL December 5th saying we have been matched. Due date MArch 14th. We told our CW worker that we were ready to be parents and wanted this to go as fast as we could get it done. I guess HF heard our prayers and we only waited 2 weeks. gonnabeadaddy

Wow! That was really fast!! I hope it goes that quickly for us! Right now I'm just waiting to get the papers in the mail so we can start filling them out. I'm already so excited I can't stand it. He he. Conratulations!! May the Lord always be with us all.

We will keep you in our prayers. What an exciting time for you and DH. ] This is such a great message board. There are so many awesome people here who are open to discuss and share our fears and anxieties. gonnabeadaddy

Our approval process from beginning to end took us 6 months here in utah. I think the Utah offices (might) have a lot of people they are dealing with because our social worker was ALWAYS busy. Hard to get him on the phone! First you need to call LDSFS and they will send you a few pages of info such as basic qualifiers and a bishop referral sheet. Once you give that to your bishop and he sends it in and LDSFS receives it they will set up an interview with you. After our interview we had more paper work like financial, relative, and health information to finish to qualify for the adoption classes. They were once a week, for 5 weeks. During that time you work on a 50 question questionaire all about you, and your spouse does one to. Then you turn in your birth mother letter and photo pages (which they generally explain how to do those in the classes) and once those are looked over you are interviewed again. After that 2nd interview you set up a homestudy. So Like I said, all in all it tooko us 6 months and we were doing our part as soon as it came. It may be that our agency was just handling a lot more, I don't really know why it took that long. Anyway, we've been approved for a month now and while we hope the wait is short- the average is 1.5-2 yrs. Of course, every agency branch, social worker, couple, process, and divine path is different, so take this as just one example! Hope this helps!

I'm excited to get started. Hopefully things will fun fairly smoothly. I really appreciate all the advice!! DH and I both feel that this is the right thing to do...and it's especially nice to get such positive feedback from others in similar situations. I hope we can all keep each other updated!!