Yesterday morning we had our final meeting with our case worker! It was our home visit meeting. Our case worker came to our house around 10:30am and we showed her around our home. Then we did some paperwork and went over basic saftey requirements we needed in our home in order to hold a Foster Home (Adopt Only) License from the State of Illinois. They were mainly basic things, like cleaning supplies in a safe place, carbon and smoke detectors on each floor, and water at a certain temp so it will be safe for a child. Most of the things we went over where things she said we didn't really need to have until we actually adopt since it could be awhile until we actually get chosen and have a child in our home. We signed a bunch of paperwork and talked for awhile and then we went through a sample profile book that the agency had created. Our case worker told us a few general guide lines for creating a profile book about our life and gave us a few tips to help us get started! Our case worker also was able to get information she needed to complete her report, our official home study, on everything she learned about us. Everyone that adopts or fosters is required to have a home study report. The meeting went extremely well and by around 11:45am our case worker was on her way back to Peoria! At this point the only thing left to do is create a profile book for Family Core to have to show birthmothers. This is just a basic book with pictures and descriptions like you can make on shutterfly etc. It will have pictures of us, our families, jobs, our home, and things we like to do etc. This book will be shown to birthmoms looking to make an adoption plan along with other couples books as well. The birth mom then chooses a family by looking at the profile books and eventually we meet the birth mom if she chooses us. Along with making a profile book we will also be waiting to recieve our Foster Home license from the state of Illinois before we will officially be a waiting family. It is a requirement to hold a Foster Home Liscene in Illinois if you are going to adopt. Our case worker said this Lisence should be coming to us in the mail sometime in the next three weeks or so. Once we have that and turn in our profile book we will be a waiting family and could be chosen at any time to adopt a baby! We are so thankful how smoothly this process has went and it seems crazy that we are almost finished! I think that the hardest part is yet to come as we wait on God's perfect timing in providing us with our little baby. For now we have our profile book to keep us busy but after that the waiting will begin. We are trying to look at it from the perspective that it will be awhile before we will have a placement, partly because we don't want to get our hopes up to be dissapointed if it does take awhile and partly because our agency does not usually have very many placements each year so the statistics show that it could be awhile. But despite all that I also try to remember that God already has our baby chosen even if he/she is not concieved yet. The timing is all in His hands whether it ends up being a few months or a few years.
I feel like there are times I write things and it makes sense to me because I have been able to talk to our caseworker and we are getting used to all the adoption "terms" but it might not really make sense to you! Or maybe the way I word things doesn't really explain it very well:) If you ever have any questions please ask us! I would love to do my best to explain anything you might be wondering about!
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