The 364 Day Home Study

I am floored that it's been so long since I posted. We have been through many challenges since our home study began in December 2013. What started out as great hope for a smooth process turned into over nine months of frustration. The greatest lesson that I learned is that the right social worker makes all the difference... and being the "right" social worker isn't about the diplomas on the walls or the in-service training; it's about personality, personal experience and compatibility. The second social worker we were assigned in December 2013 (the first one wouldn't meet outside of office hours which didn't work for us as a working family) made us feel, frankly, like her job was to find reasons why we should NOT be allowed to adopt children. I actually lost count of how many office visits we had to make. In one visit, I had to spend nearly an hour discussing my high school boyfriend - a relationship which ended twenty years ago. I tried and failed to see the relevance and, at one point, almost asked if she wanted his number. But, I held my tongue because this social worker and I were definitely not compatible and she did not find me funny... AT ALL. Since this was our second social worker, we tried to stay under the radar and "keep our eye on the prize." It was now April and we were six months in to a process which, we were told, took three to five months... with no end in sight. However, when we were reprimanded after complaining about being stood up by our social worker for a home visit, my patience wore out. I couldn't believe that we were being told that our reaction to, what was without a doubt unprofessional behaviour, was "concerning" and "called into question" our ability to parent children who may demonstrate challenging behaviour. It was almost laughable that an educated professional would equate our reaction to an adult behaving in an inconsiderate and dismissive way to dealing with children. This was now the second time that our "ability to parent" was challenged while ignoring that we have been successfully parenting a child since 2001.I complained directly to minister responsible in Victoria about the way we were being treated by the staff at this particular office and, not surprisingly, they kicked it back to the office to handle. So that went well... We agreed to part ways with this particular social worker, taking our home study report with us. We didn't receive our report until the end of May 2013. I spent over an hour correcting the spelling and grammar. I had to correct the spelling of our names numerous times.It was so disheartening to read, after waiting SEVEN MONTHS, something that was so carelessly written about people who were portrayed as big dull duds and nothing like us. I wouldn't have ever given those people children either; they would have died of boredom living with them. In June 2013, we began working with a part-time social worker who was just returning from an extended leave. This lady "got it." We were excited and didn't even care that we basically had to do a new home study. She knew the report was crap and no adoption worker would read it and be like "YES!" I was so relieved to know that we weren't the only ones who thought random comments like "She thinks her mother is a terrible singer" had no place in a home study. Or that a paragraph describing your parents shouldn't really end with a crazy comment like "His birth father is also gentle" because, logically, this would make anyone reading it wonder who the father described in the rest of the paragraph was! We spent the summer redoing our home study and getting to know our new worker. We were excited and things were looking up. It took us 364 days from the first phone call in August 2013 with the first social worker until our home study was signed off. But we didn't care because we KNEW this worker was going to get things done. She laughed at my jokes, she chatted easily with our son, she had a family so she just got us. I think I probably developed a lady crush on her... and then she quit her job. I thought I was going to die. We were ready to pack it up, be grateful for our one kid and buy a 2 bedroom ocean side cottage. It seriously felt worse than the realization that having more biological kids was no longer an option. In a last ditch effort to make this work for us, we called the adoption supervisor and asked to be assigned to the adoption worker who taught our Adoption Education Program classes back in 2013. She is like the adoption whisperer; she grew up in a home with adopted siblings so she just "gets" all of it. And just as important, she "gets" us and she doesn't judge. Probably in an effort just to get rid of us, the supervisor agreed. At our first meeting, she says, "You know... I was flipping through the book this summer and I came across these two kids and I couldn't believe how much they looked like the two of you. It was weird..." We met those kids in January and they moved in in March. And, thanks to her, I'm writing our story again... this time as a family of five.