Homestudy Complete and Approved!

We had absolutely no reason to be nervous. I would say it took us less than 5 minutes to get comfortable talking to our social worker.

Bethany arrived just after 9 and we all went and sat in the living room across from the kitchen and got right to work. She looked like she was my age, something John said he wasn't prepared for. I guess when you think of a social worker some people imagine an old, uptight woman judging you for every little opinion or thing you say...just like in the movies. :) My minor in college was sociology so I had some friends going for their degree in social work - so I guess she turned out to be what I expected.

She started off asking us basic questions like why do we want to adopt, why Honduras, and our expectations of the age of the child we wanted. Then she went through our history together: How we met, things we do together, things we struggle with in our marriage, how our relationship was with family, how do we respond to stress, explain a crisis we had experienced or been thru and how we dealt with that and then sharing about some great times we've had together. From there we talked about everything from our 'support group' of friends and family to the realities (positive and negative aspects) of adopting a toddler.

We split up and she interviewed us separately - I went first. The majority of the questions I could have answered in front of John: Explain my personality and hobbies, happy and sad moments from my childhood, relationships with my dad/mom/siblings, describing my dad and mom's personalities, how am I like them and how will I be like them or not like them regarding parenting. Then she had me talk about John; what I loved about him and something I didn't love about him. That was it basically aside from a few technical questions like whether I'd been married before, etc...

John took his turn and once we were done, she just went over a couple more things and then we showed her the house. The 'tour' took maybe 5 mins...and I had cleaned my house for 2 days. :)

At the end she basically told us that she was going to approve us to Gladney! She still has to write up her report - which she said takes on average 30 days to complete. Once the first draft is done, she sends it to Gladney and they get back with her on any changes or things she left out. So all in all, it could be two months before the homestudy is officially written up and complete. I'm just glad to have the interview over!

As she was leaving we were shaking hands and I told her, "I feel like I should hug you b/c you know so much about me now!". :)

Thankfully, we had both taken the full day off from work b/c I was exhausted. John and I went and had lunch and then dropped by my doctor's office to finally pick up my notarized papers. FINALLY!

So that's it for Gladney - now we just wait!