The Home Study

So what is a Home Study? I am thinking that a home study is when a social worker comes over to the house and talks with us and the kids a few times, makes sure we have a clean house, food in the fridge and that we aren't crazy. Then she writes the report and we send it to the Agency. I'm thinking this takes, what, a month?? How long can it be?? I am thinking that I can get this paperwork done faster than any adoption in history. I am prepared to wait once we are ON THE LIST, but this side of the list... I can FLY though this paperwork. I can control this side of waiting, right?? I can get all of my paperwork filled out ASAP, get things notarized, postaged, faxed if possible, and push through to THE LIST. Right????

If you have been through this process you are laughing at me right now aren't you? So not funny.

I made a call last week to THE ONLY approved agency in my area. They never called back. So I called again today. I got a call back. This was the fabulous news they had for me... a homestudy is much more difficult than I knew. There are classes involved, group classes, individual classes, home visits, and approval from the state & federal government. We have to obtain a foster care license. We have to pass a marriage test. We have to have more classes about Hague accreditation. I need that class, cuz i have no idea what that even means.

The home study agency doesn't even have a class set up until February. That's in three months. They didn't care that I wanted the class to be tomorrow. They said it would take 6-8 weeks to process approval from both IL & Fed. That's a total of up to 4 months...just for approval from IL & Fed!!!! Not to mention the time that it will take to complete paperwork, take the classes, take the tests, have the social worker over at least twice and have her complete her assessment. She said to plan on at least 6 months. Ummmmmmmm, what?????? At least 6 months??? Are you crazy??? I was going to ROCK this side of waiting!!! I was going to OWN it!! And fly through it with my amazing direction and completion skills!! 6 months just for the home study. I have searched other blogs and I have never seen a home study take 6 months. Just my luck.

The Lord is obviously pulling rank early. He's obviously showing off and showing me who's boss.

There is also a application fee for the home study. I was prepared to pay the application fee for the agency ($300), but I had no idea we had to pay the home study agency an application fee too ($250). What if we aren't good enough? What if they don't approve us? Then we paid $550 in application fees and the additional $2800 home study fee???? It just doesn't make sense to me. I will be spending lots of time researching blogs tonight to see if this is normal.