Our Home Study Begins...

Thanks to my husband's persistence, after the six month delay, our home study began on Friday. It felt like an early Christmas present being able to feel like we are moving forward again. Needless to say, I was more than a little nervous - feeling like I was to blame for the initial delay - plus the BC snow "storm" and our needing to drive in it that day did not help my nerves either. However, even if he had to push me in a sleigh, there was no way my husband was not making that first appointment. I joked before we left that we will be able to tell our children we had to travel through sleet, snow and ice in our journey to "get them."

A nervous wreck traveling on the highway, I had to remind myself of two things: 1) it was highly unlikely we would end up in the ditch and 2) our social worker's task is to work with us to grow our family rather than, as I had begun to feel in the last few months, find reasons not to let us adopt. We were both pretty quiet on the trip in.

I'm not sure what I expected from the first meeting. In all honesty, it was pretty anti-climatic. All we really did is meet our new adoption worker and review, for the third time, what I call the child "shopping list." For those unfamiliar with the process, it is literally a checklist of what we are and are not looking for in our children - every single medical condition, disability, risk factor, ethnic background, etc. It is a long list. In our last meeting with the intake worker, I had joked that they could put this on-line and we would be able to "add to basket" the challenges, disabilities, ethnic and religious backgrounds we are looking for. I think my husband is pretty convinced this joke might be responsible for our delay. It goes without saying, I did not make this joke this time around. As the worker closed with "Do you have any more questions?" I was very impressed with both of us for biting our tongues and not asking "So, when are we going to get our kids?"

In our post-interview "debrief" on the drive home, I commented to my husband that I was glad to be working with this particular worker, she seemed very nice and accommodating but I did not think she would  "get" my sense of humour. Without skipping a beat, he responded with a "nope" and then followed that up with: "No jokes. Whatever you do, fight every instinct you have." What I have done is started a private collection of letters to "our" children that I will be able to share with them when they are adults - just as I have done with our son. This is where I will "hide" all my jokes for this part of the journey because, certainly, by the time they reach adulthood, all our kids will "get" my sense of humour.