Third & Fourth Adoption Meetings!

On this past Friday, June 7th, Jesse and I had our third and fourth meetings with Family Core in Peoria.  We each met individually with our case worker for about one hour each.  Our case worker basically asked us questions about our life and our past.  She also asked us any questions she had about the application questions we answered about our life. The meetings went great!  As I said in earlier posts we were somewhat nervous, especially Jesse, just because we would be drilled with questions by our case worker and we would be alone.  When we were done we both felt like we could have just kept on talking and were surprised by how fast the hour passed by!  Our case worker is so wonderful!  She is so nice and makes us feel comfortable and able to be open about ourselves.  She is getting to know us personally and so it doesn't seem so formal and strictly business, which makes it much more comfortable.  Jesse went first and I went to a nearby pet store to look around while he was in his meeting.  When I was in my meeting Jesse went down to the River Walk for awhile and walked around.  Our agency is actually only about a block or two from the River Walk.  At the end of my meeting I asked our case worker what we still needed to accomplish and what comes next.  We have to finish two more online classes, which are done on our own time so we just need a couple evenings at home and we should be done with those.  Next our case worker will write an 8-10 page written report of what she has learned about us and our family and lives.  Once she is done with this she said we will meet one more time.  She said to plan on sometime mid July that way she has time to finish her report.  The next meeting will be when she comes to our house to make sure everything is generally safe and a good environment for a baby.  I asked her what things they look for and what we should do just so we can be ready and not have a bunch of things wrong when she comes.  She told me that they are not extremely picky.  They mainly just want the house to be generally safe in basic safety features.  She also said that if something is wrong she will tell us and we can change it, not a big deal.  So I am not really worried about the home visit, I am actually looking forward to it!  When she comes to our home she will also talk with us about our profile book that we will make to show birth moms and bring a sample book for us to get ideas from.  After her visit she will make any final changes to her written report and then it will be sent to the State of Illinois and we will have to be approved by them.  Thanks to Lisa Aberle I am not to worried about being approved as she has told me her experience and how state approvals are usually handled.  Our case worker also said she is waiting on parts of our background checks to come back from the state as well but other than that and the classes we have done pretty much everything we need to do for her!  Once we have our next meeting in July we will begin our profile book.  I am not sure how long state approvals actually take, that's something we will have to ask our case worker, but once that is done I think we will be a waiting family and have our profile book ready to be viewed by birth moms looking to make an adoption plan!  So far everything has went extremely smooth and easy for us.  We were actually trying to figure out what we missed because the process to become a waiting family seemed to easy!  I think that once we are chosen and we begin getting involved with birth families and courts and legal things, that is when it could become a little more difficult.  We are thankful though that it has went smooth this far and we give God all the glory for that!

EDIT- I emailed our case worker and asked her more information about her written report and about being approved by the State.  Come to find out our Home Study will not be sent to the State of Illinois for approval after all.  Once our case worker is done writing her report about us her supervisor will review it and that is all that needs to be done.  When we go to finalize the adoption something called A Report of Investigation will be written by our case worker including Home Study information and also development information about the child we have had in our care and are adopting.  This report will be given to the Judge and the Attorney involved in our adoption finalization.  I was told that there are a "bazillion" more rules and requirements for an international adoption compared to a domestic adoption and that is why our Home Study will be handled differently than Brian & Lisa's, who adopted internationally.