Cleeeeeeeaning...

Our first meeting with the social worker is in half an hour. We have been cleaning all day...hahaha....anyone who knows me well knows I am not a domestic goddess by any stretch of the imagination. The house is cleaner than it has been in at least a year:) It is 100 degrees and we have no AC and the social worker is coming here. I have been walking around with no pants on in order to avoid excessive sweating before she gets here.

So she came and went and all went well:) Our social worker was great! There will be three visits including today over the course of three months. Today's visit was about paperwork and home inspection. Our little home is fine but we do have to test for lead paint. I have no idea what happens if there is lead paint under the the current paint.....there are three hundred years worth of paint on some of these walls! We need to have physicals including TB tests, hand over tax forms ( you get a $14,000 tax credit for adopting), get fingerprinted and cleared by the FBI, and give them all vet records for Panther, Poe and Bob, among many other things. We also signed papers saying that we would never use humiliation or corporal punishment as a means of discipline. If only all potential parents were subject to this much scrutiny:/

Today's payment was $900....that is half of the home-study cost. The study is good for a year in a number of states. The agency we work with encourages it's clients to submit their information to "sister agencies" across the country in order to expedite the process...Florida and Utah are popular places to adopt from for some reason. If a birth-family chooses us from another state, there will be some travel involved. John and I have no racial preference when it comes to the child we adopt. We would love to have a child of any race in our home. Having no race preference also makes the process faster and, believe it or not, less expensive. Once the home-study is done in September, the process should take less than a year. Happy happy me:)

Going forward our focus will be on our "album." This is a scrap book of our home, family and hobbies as well as a letter of thanks to the potential birth parent(s). We neeeed to buy a new camera right now! We have to make several copies of this album to send to different agencies. This album is so important it's scary. A birth mother will choose us based on this album. I need to do some research on the best way to put one together! Any ideas?

John and I really want to thank those friends who have consented to be our personal references. What you are doing is of vital importance to this process....you will be receiving paperwork through the mail in the near future....please try not to spill coffee on it (or tea, in Lisa's case:).

Natasha and John start a blog documenting their adoption process

This Thursday, June 24, 2010, John and I have our first meeting with the social worker to begin our adoption home study.