Home Visit

I just realized that neither Carrie nor I took the opportunity to donate an update about our home visit to the blogosphere.

Our home visit was scheduled for the evening of December 1. I was worried about it just because I didn't really know what to expect. As it turns out, I should have been about as worried as my boss (who was also my boss at SHPI, but that's a story unrelated to adoption). When I explained to him that our caseworker would come over and look through the house to make sure it looked like a place that would be okay to raise kids in, he just started laughing. He has been to our house and has known Carrie and I for a few years now, so he knew that we keep things more or less in order and that all of our house decisions have revolved around having kids someday. Between laughs and through tears he'd manage to peep out something about hiding some dangerous item, or he'd mimic a caseworker in horror as she looked through our home.

So yeah, the tour went remarkably well and the caseworker had nothing but positive comments. I guess I, like Mark, shouldn't have been surprised. I'm sure that it helped that we found out Carrie was pregnant about a week after moving in to our house, but we have all of our cleaning supplies and such high and out of the way. We have a nursery with all the fixings including a fancy paint job. We're clean enough and orderly enough to have things look nice without being so OCD that we aren't capable of having a mess around. We also have two dogs, so we have to keep things away from their reach. Not to mention that we both love our house and we like to do projects and make our own decorations and such.

After the tour we sat down and looked through some of the documents we've submitted. Our diligent caseworker made sure that we understood the impact of some of our answers and made sure that we understood as well as we could what it meant to have a baby around.

Her: "They smile and are cute all the time and they never make messes or add any financial burden. Are you sure you're ready to accept a simply beautiful bundle of joy into your lives?"
Us: "Sure, that sounds easy enough"

But seriously, She did a very good job and I'm glad they ask the kinds of questions she did. It's always good to get someone else's viewpoint and insight. As long as you are never ignorant enough to think you know everything, you just might learn something useful.