Home Studies and Water Restrictions

We sent our formal application in to Heaven Sent Children, an adoption agency in Murfreesboro last Friday. They called yesterday to set up our first home visit! In the state of Tennessee you are required 4 visits with the agency before your homestudy is complete. Most of the homestudy process is interview as a family, couple, and individual interviews. They ask about your childhood, your schooling, your marriage, discipline philosophies, etc. They must do at least one of these meetings in your home to check for safety issues, adequate sleeping and play space, etc. In the past we have had our 3 hour home visit last, but this agency prefers to do this visit first. Then on their last visit they will expect us to have the house with all the required elements.

What is required?
Funny, I don't remember what is required for the state of TN because Benjamin's adoption was such a whirlwind. I do remember some stuff from both adoptions, it was things like:

• safety locks on cleaning supplies

• working smoke detectors within so many feet of each bedroom and at least one on each level of the house.

• medicine locked up

• fire extinguisher (this was for KY they didn't ask about it for Benjamin's adoption)

I'm sure they will give us a list next Wednesday when they come.
I do know that new requirement is the medicine has to be behind a key locked door or cabinet, it used to just have to be behind a child lock. So we will have to install a new knob on our bathroom closet door.

So anyway, our homestudy is next Wednesday. Currently we are under a water restriction because of the flooding and one of our water treatment plants is under water. So, I have been rinsing dishes in used water and I have not been doing laundry. We are limiting showers (I did have to give the kids a quick bath today but kept the water level low). I have a lot of cleaning and washing that will need to be done by next Wednesday and we are not sure when the restriction will be lifted. So I'm not sure what we will do about that. It could be interesting!

Other homestudy requirements include:
Copies of birth certificates for all family members
Adoption decrees for our current kids
Health forms filled our by all of our doctors
Forms from the vet
Marriage License
Background checks from all states we have lived in
Fingerprints
Work experience
Tax Forms
Proof of income
That is all I can think of right now.

My next project will be to work on a profile book. This is basically a scrapbook of our life. Pictures of us and the kids and things we like to do. The birth parents will look through different profiles to choose the adoptive family. This will also include a "Dear Birth Mother" letter that is a letter to the birthmom explaining our desire to adopt and a little about our family and our life.

So there is a little about the homestudy process in case you have forgotten since it has been 3 1/2 years since we last had one (can't believe that!).


Oh....someone asked us about time frame from this point on. They told us they can go as quickly or as slowly as we want on the homestudy. It is just a matter of coordinating our schedules for the 4 visits. Then we have to wait on background checks, etc. to come back. It took about 6 weeks with Benjamin. They said to expect up to 18 months for placement. It took two weeks with Hannah (after homestudy was complete) and of course with Benjamin we got the homestudy done in order to get him. So we will just see what God's timing is!