AUTHOR: M. DATE: 5:14:00 PM ----- BODY:

When we first started our home study, I wrote about every single detail. Maybe one of the good things about drawing this homestudy out f*o*r*e*v*e*r is that I've started to get a little more chill about it (This is relative. Chill for me is... not so chill. But still.) Anyway, the progress update: in terms of what needs to get done, we're pretty much done. But, because we don't want (well, logically anyway) a placement until Isadora finishes school, it's going to be a while before we're officially done (you can read this if you really want more about my own drama attached to that). Anyway, our social worker was here a week or so ago for our home visit. Except for the part where she asked us if our smoke detectors work, it was like having a friend over for dinner. We gave her the tour, shot the shit, and she even brought over dessert. I'm sure she had a checklist in her head, but she's experienced and laid-back enough that it was never obvious. She went through a draft of our profile with us and gave us some feedback, which was mostly helpful, except when she said she wondered if talking about our sea kayaking hobby would make a birthparent think that we were going to strap a 4-month-old to the front of the boat and jump on into the ocean (ok, I lied a little... but she did wonder if it made us sound too much like risk-takers - hah!) We've got some forms we're holding onto for a bit longer, so they'll be recent, and we have to submit our tax forms when we get those done, but otherwise we only have one more meeting, which will happen in March - and that's just so that when our social worker does her write-up she can say she met with us within the past 30 days. We'll start looking for a match in April. Our agency is just a homestudy agency, not a placement agency, and she's got an unorthodox approach to finding matches. Since communities of adoption professionals in any given area tend to be pretty small and close (even in a major urban area like this one), and she's been in the field for 20+ years, she knows people at pretty much every agency in the region. So instead of our choosing a placement agency and then hoping that one of their 20 or 50 or however many birth parents who they work with each year choose us, she'll introduce us the kinds of agencies we want to work with (Afrindie Mum has a great post this week about choosing an ethical agency) at the annual Adoption Community of New England conference in April, let them know what kind of a situation we're looking for, and find out if they have any birth parent/birth families looking for families like us. At that point or some point later they'll include share our profile, and we don't sign on with an agency (and give them our 9 billion dollars) unless a birth family using that agency chooses us. Because the agency we're working with has a reputation for working with same-sex couples and with families interested in transracial adoptions, she gets a lot of calls from agencies looking for adoptive families that fit one or both of these bills. She has found matches almost immediately for a few families with this kind of networking, and within not too long for a number of others. I'm trying not to get my hopes up for a short wait (go ahead and laugh), but I'm optimistic. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

-------- COMMENT-AUTHOR: Anonymous COMMENT-DATE:7:44 PM COMMENT-BODY:Just got caught up on your blog, and it seemed time to check in; I'm glad that so many other people are finally speaking (writing?) up, instead of just lurking. The support is wonderful and moving - y'all hear me?
I'm deeply touched, as usual, by what you write, and saddened about your friend. And proud of you and Isadora, esp. re the situation with Nana. I'm also near exhaustion following this l*o*n*g adoption process - I don't know how you guys do it! Love you. --------