Application & Intake Meeting

We've been busy little beavers over here in the Next Chapter home (shout out to all the other OSU grads). Here's a quick look at what we've done:

• Completed our initial meeting with the counselor - more detail below
• Created a draft of our photo collage - this is a 3-5 page collage of casual pictures reflecting our family, home, vacations, hobbies, etc. It's basically designed to give birthfamilies a realistic view of our lives.
• Updated my autobiography - another 3-5 pages for each parent recapping our life, values, experiences, etc. I was already up to 5 pages when I updated my autobiography for Ian's adoption so this time I had to edit before I could add. Truth be told, I'm still at 6 pages so I'll trust the counselor to edit from there. I mean, this is my life we're talking about! I'm hardly objective.
• Signed the agency contract - this details the process and our commitments. We also paid for the next step in the process, the Home Visit.

Our Application and Intake meeting with the adoption counselor was last Wednesday. Much like last time, we really just used the time to get caught up and to discuss our desire to add to our family through open adoption at this time. For our first A&I meeting, I recall worrying about what to wear and what to say. I think I was concerned that this counselor, whom we'd never met, would solely determine whether I would become a mother. Now that we've been down this road, I'm much more comfortable with the people and the process. In some cases, the counselors may determine that a prospective adoptive parent is not a good fit with the agency. But on the whole, I realize now that these counselors' primary work is trying to accurately portray us to find the right match. At least that's my take on it anyway.

We've scheduled the first of two Home Visits for tomorrow. Considering our counselor only works 3 days a week, we try to be as flexible with scheduling as possible. Fortunately she had an opening so we jumped at it. It wasn't until later that I realized we needed to do a little work on the guest room which will be Ian's new room. Some of you may have that room where all the miscellaneous stuff gets tossed. For us, that is the guest room. Unfortunately, the Home Visit entails walking through EVERY room in the house. So that junky guest room would need to get an overdue cleaning. I'm sure the counselor understands the lack of storage for all those old baby toys and what not. But I'm not comfortable showing her a room you can hardly even walk in! After several late nights and a truckful of Goodwill donations, I feel so much better. The room still needs another deep cleaning but it feels good to purge all that junk! Next step is converting it from the guest room to Ian's room.

Please pray that our Home Visit goes smoothly tomorrow. We've managed to schedule it on our 15th wedding anniversary. What could be a more appropriate celebration?