Somethings never change!
Even in the year of 2020 with life so different our adoption approval has to stay current. Every year until we have a finalized adoption we will need to do the following:
A child-abuse background check
A New Jersey state finger print check for criminal background
An annual physical
A home study
So the first few things are pretty basic in explanation. Each thing that is done is a requirement by the state for somebody to be approved to do adoption. The child abuse background check I believe is a federal check, we fill out paperwork then submit it and the adoption agency gets a report of their findings. Next is the fingerprinting, this is one of the few things that the first state by state on having to be done every year. Of course it’s expensive in New Jersey requires it every year even if we had a placement you have to make sure it’s current at the time of the adoption finalization. And the third thing is an annual physical or really just an annual update that we are still physically capable of becoming adoptive parents.
Those three things get done every year no matter what and have to be completed and returned to the agency before the actual homestudy visit. Because 2020 is what it is we were smart enough to have the child abuse background check and the fingerprinting done a few months in advance. We knew there was delays with background checks currently in gun licensing and stuff like that so we didn’t wanna take a chance that they wouldn’t get the paperwork back and have to put our adoption journey on hold. Just like many things in life we are best advocates and we stayed on top of it!
Next was the home study visit with our brand new Adoption Specialist aka our social worker. Typically this is a 2 to 3 hour visit to our home that includes a full inspection to make sure our home is safe, clean, and well-maintained. Then she holds interviews with both of us together and then each individually. Typically this includes a week of cleaning the house it’s already clean because I get nervous with the construction, and it includes Jeff and I fighting because the house is already clean but in my mind it’s not clean enough. Then the stress level goes up because you always worry that they’re going to find something and tell you that they’re going to put your adoption process on hold which we’ve had done when we purchased the house. Our journey all depends on her point of view on us and our home.
Homestudy in 2020 is all via zoom! So you’re a little more relaxed or at least I was. I was so relaxed then I decided I was going to clean out my bedroom and sort through summer clothes I don’t want any more and start getting the winter stuff out. The day of the home study! Let’s not forget the day before Thanksgiving our smoke alarm went off for no reason and Lowe’s was sold out. You see you have to have functioning smoke detectors to pass a home study, Jeff literally picked up the new smoke detector on Wednesday and installed it 15 minutes before the home study.
Oh and that bedroom full of clothing guess what! That’s right she had to get a tour of the house to make sure that it’s clean and maintained well. I found that about two hours before the home study when I emailed her to ask her what she’ll need to see during the zoom. Thankfully she is a sweetheart and a realist and understood when I told her you’re just gonna have to ignore the piles of clothes.
So whether home study is in person or on zoom it is so stressful and it is a constant reminder that pregnancy just won’t happen to for us. Normally it’s a week I don’t talk to many people because I’m dealing with my own emotions and trying to clean a house like a crazy lady.
So we did our zoom home study and started with our joint interview. During this year’s typical questions on how we’re doing, how we’re holding up during the adoption process, and she reviews our adoption plan to make sure that she knows what we are looking for. Then we did a zoom tour of our house and our property which included the messy bedroom. She has to see the smoke detectors, that we have locks on the front and back doors, that we have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen, and that the guns are locked away and ammunition is kept separately. We had to explain some of the upcoming work we’re doing on the house and guarantee that if we had a placement right away that whatever work we were doing could be sealed up and safe. Of course I kind of hit the messy areas because we have two rooms that are lined up for construction and we don’t show them to anybody. We then headed outside to show her some of the property and an area we hope to fencing in the future.
Following the virtual tour she ended our one on one interviews with of us. I don’t know about Jeff but for me it’s a very stressful time because you always wonder what they’re asking the other person and what the other person is saying. You always wonder if somebody says something to you but it says something different to somebody else that’s what goes through my mind this whole time. The benefit of zoom is in our house and you can pretty much here at all over the first floor. And I have to say it was probably one of the best conversations to overhear. To hear Jeff talk about what he expects when we adopt and how he plans to handle night changing and feeding when he gets home from work so that I could sleep really just pulls at the heartstrings. And our adoption specialist was a little surprised that he was still opened about shared responsibility and taking care of the baby at night. I was glad Jeff went first because I was calmer because of listening to him when it was my turn. She has some of the same questions of me and I talked about how my parents were two different shifts so that they could have 24 hour coverage pretty much for us. So for me having Jeff work the shift he work is normal. Then her and I talked about some paperwork they had to get processed and we have to approve for the home study to be finalized.
Before we realized it the whole stressful day was over and we really just vegged out the rest of the day. It’s an annual thing that reminds us that we’re still on this long journey, and that becoming a family for us is just a bit harder then for others.
