Home Visits

While washing dishes, I overheard a few of the girls playing Barbies. One was the “Mother Barbie”. I heard “Mother” yell out to the younger Barbies: “Everyone hurry and help clean up!!! The caseworker is coming!” To hear my daughter state “me” so plainly was enlightening. I did yell that out to the kids every time we had a home visit. We all rushed about cleaning every normal thing and a bunch of less-normal things as well. I had tons of anxiety! I don’t know that the “pre-caseworker cleaning anxiety” is all bad. It certainly did help keep my house really tidy on a regular basis. Not that we’re pigs now, but nothing like some pressure to… [more]

A social worker made yet another visit to our home this morning. We are in the process of finalizing the adoption of a wonderful little group of five siblings. When they were originally placed with us, the children were in foster care placed with a plan to reunify with the birthmother. Six months later, the birthmom chose to relinquish her parental rights and we were asked to adopt. We agreed. That was 2.5 years ago – and we are STILL in the process of adopting these kids! Sometimes I wonder if it will EVER be over?!? Glad to have previous experiences, I know that it will; I just need to be more patient. Again. When/if… [more]

It’s that time again, time for our second post placement visit. When we adopted four post placement visits were required. I know that this is an ever-changing requirement with many international countries. This is something very important to follow through on. Russia has halted adoptions all together in regions because of parents not turning in post placement reports. I believe that Ukraine also closed its doors all together because of this. Its just one of those things you need to do. Yes it’s a pain. Because our adoption agency is out of state, we had to hire a social worker from our state to do our post placements. We had communication issues with our first Sw and we are now… [more]