Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Our Home Visit

I have to say, I did not think that I would be nervous over this visit but I was. Our Social Worker showed up two hours late, which intensified my anxiety. I had exhausted myself cleaning in my nervous frenzy. It is scarier than meeting your Mother in Law for the first time! All those feelings of what if they don't like me are hugely magnified. :-)

So we sat down and went over the program in detail and what was expected of us. (I will call our Social Worker either SW or Mrs. D) SW was extremely nice and I look forward to working with her. I love that she said she expects us to always answer our phone regardless of where we are at as we are parents and our children come first. That was big to me. Most people always want you to turn your phone off or ignore it, not her.

So after her speech she asked if we had any questions. Of course I did and so I asked about if she was going to inspect the house?

Mrs. D. responds, "No, I don't see the need for that!"

Me "Are you going to tell us what we need to baby proof or fix prior to the placement?"

Mrs. D "No, you have had 3 children I am sure at this point you know what is safe and what is not! It seems a little ridiculous to baby proof prior when we aren't sure when and what age the baby will be"

Me, "Oh from what I was told we would just baby proof and get a safety inspection prior and live like that."

Mrs. D "That is crazy you are experienced parents, no obvious problems I can see in your home it is just not something that is necessary. The only room I will check is the room the baby will sleep in."

Me "Oh, Well what about the married couple in our basement what will we need to do about that!"

Mrs. D "Do they have a separate entrance?"

Me "Yes"

Mrs. D "Well its their own dwelling so we don't need to worry about them."

Me "Well, what about that they babysit for us?"

Mrs. D "Well why don't we go ahead and do a background check on them."
"Any other questions?

So that is about how our home visit went. It was too funny. I don't think she went beyond the Dining Room. We do have two more visits one where she meets the boys and speaks to them. She said this is where she learns the most at this visit. Then the final visit to check the baby room and make sure we are ready.

At this point SW will write a report of our visit from Friday and then write the formal letter inviting us to the training on February 21st.

During this process time we have to do a background check, fingerprinting, an autobiography, and interview each of the boys and do a personality sheet on them as well. We have 8 days of training broken down for 7 weeks. They expect us to be done with training and our home visits by the end of March. What could take longer is the background check and finger printing, as it is from the police department and sent out so they have no control over when they get it back. So they think that by the end of April to mid-May we will be finished and open for placement. We will see if their estimate is correct.

So we are officially paper pregnant and working toward parenthood, again! :-)

TnT

1 comment:

diane boucher said...

I love that phrase, "Paper Pregnant". It is a joy to walk this journey with you my friend!!!

love,
diane