Moving forward

As you know, the baby is due in just over two weeks. With such a short time frame, I've been a little nervous about completing the home study before the baby arrives. Thankfully, we are working with an amazing agency that has assured me that we will be done in time.

Wednesday, I got word that our file was being assigned to a caseworker. Now, my gut reaction was to send an immediate e-mail introducing myself and hinting at the fact that we need this done ASAP. I was good, and did nothing. I realized that she would need some time to review our file, so my goal was to be patient. Within a few hours, she had already contacted me about setting up a meeting. Amazing! We ended up being able to schedule my individual interview for the next morning.

I've gone through home study interviews a few times, three to be exact, so I wasn't too nervous. I knew what questions were coming my way. What never goes away is the fear of having your answers judged and analyzed. That is just something that I had to get over.

You may wonder what questions were asked. You may not, but I'm going to share anyway. She broke up the questions based on the different aspects of my life. We started by talking about me - my likes, strengths, proud moments, etc. From there we moved into relationships with my family. We talked about my life as a mom - how has parenting changed me, what has been challenging, etc. We finished by talking about my marriage. This is where things got REAL personal. Like, stuff I don't share with my girlfriends personal. While it was a little weird answering her questions, I knew her reasoning for asking everything. She wanted to be sure that our marriage was in a good place so that we would be bringing the kids into a healthy environment.

Well, I survived my individual interview. Our caseworker will be coming over this weekend for Matt's individual appointment and our joint session. After that, we'll be pretty much done! It is crazy to think that we were able to finish a home study so quickly. Our home study with CJ lasted a few months. God is definitely guiding this process!

I'm not sure if I shared this before, but our foster license for Alex came through. Now, we are just waiting to hear from Arizona about when we should pick him up. The next hearing is in two weeks, so we are assuming that we'll head down around that time. It's looking like we'll get both boys around the same time.

As always, I'll keep you posted!