A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

In my last post, Home Study: Preparing for the Home Visit, I shared my complete overreaction to the social worker's scheduled home visit as our final interview in the home study process. I had spent hours steam-cleaning the carpet in our family room, and the social worker barely... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

Our final interview was scheduled at our house. I was a nervous wreck about this.

Today, I am a pretty good housekeeper, although keeping house is never going to be something that I enjoy. However, at the time we were going through the home study process, I did not have the first clue about how to keep a nice house. (I learned later by reading a book about how... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

As I mentioned in my post, Home Study: The First Interview, one of the interviews had to be conducted in a one-on-one with the social worker. That was the interview in which was discussed our childhoods.

As I shared in my posts, Abuse... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

One of our interviews centered on our parenting philosophy. I really did not have one other than that I did not plan to spank my child and that I wanted to do things differently from the way my parents raised me. That wasn't a whole lot to go on.

I knew that my sister used time outs with her son, so I talked about using time outs. I also said that I liked "creative... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

In my last post, Home Study: Interview About Expecting Mothers Birthmothers, I talked about the home study interview in which our social worker, C, tried to explain the expecting mother's side of adoption to us. I was not in a place where I could really hear her, but she did... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

One of our interviews focused on expecting mothers. Our social worker, C, hoped to help us understand the pain that expecting mothers face when they place their babies for adoption.

At the time, I truly did not get it. I saw adoption as a solution to a problem. Hub and I needed a baby. The baby needed loving parents. The expecting mother needed someone else to... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

Our social worker, C, wanted to make sure that our marriage was stable. Also, she needed to get know enough about us to be able to talk intelligently about us with an expecting mother. So, she asked us lots of questions about our history together as a married couple.

We talked about how we met and our dating years. We discussed our hobbies, both what we liked... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. I am working through a series about each of the interviews we had as part of the home study process.

One of the interviews focused on finances. We discussed our budget, savings, and expenses. We had previously provided all of this information on the adoption application, but we talked about our finances in more detail.

Part of this discussion centered on how adding a child to the family would affect our finances. Was I planning to stay at home with the baby?... more

A reader e-mailed me and asked if I would share more about my personal story with our home study. So, I have put together a series about each of the interviews. I hope that sharing my own story will help those of you who are entering into the home study process for the first time. Keep in mind that what is discussed in each visit might be different depending upon the state from which you are adopting, and there might be some differences from agency to agency. However, I would say that our home study experience was fairly typical and a good overview of what you might be... more

My son was born in a different state from where hub and I lived. In the state where my son was born, the placing mother has 10 days after she signs relinquishment papers to choose to parent. So, during those 10 days, we were (obviously) required to stay in the state of the baby's birth.

Babies need to have a well visit with the pediatrician when they are seven days old. I clearly could not take my son to the person I had selected to be his pediatrician. Also, I could not take him to a pediatrician in my home state, where my health insurance would... more