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Rivkah and Avraham's Adoption Journey
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The Home Study
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This page is a little diary of how things went during the homestudy
process. It will give you an idea of what we had to do and how long the process took. What I did not include were some of
the frustrations we encountered and my own feelings of worry and anxiety. If you are reading this and planning to adopt
or you are now going through the homestudy process yourself, you should know that worrying and hitting snags (like typos
in the homestudy report!) are just a normal part of things. Everyone worries and gets anxious, especially before that
first home visit! We certainly did. But it all turned out wonderfully and we can look back on it with a smile!
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What IS a homestudy, anyway?
An adoption home study is an assessment of our ability to be parents. It includes a criminal background check, a check
of our home to make sure it is suitable for a child, a doctor's statement that we are healthy, references and interviews,
among other things! It is also a learning experience, a time to explore many different adoption topics with
our social worker.
The Chinese government requires four visits with our social worker. One must be in the home. The
others visits can be at her office or attending meetings and classes. The United States government requires the
homestudy as well. The INS must review the homestudy before approving any applicant.
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OUR HOMESTUDY DIARY:
November 26, 2001: Our first visit with the social worker was today. One of the most helpful things
about it was that we got to talk about some of our concerns. We talked about integrating our three heritages (American,
Israeli, Chinese!) and about religious issues. Now I understand why people say the home study is a learning process.
Avraham and I both came out of there feeling more confident and sure our decision is right. Our social worker will come for
the home visit on December 13, 2001. Well, we should be all moved in to our new apartment by then. I'm looking forward to
the visit!
December 13, 2001: The social worker came to visit us here at our new apartment. The visit was about
3 hours and she met with us together and separately. She asked us lots of questions about our background and our ideas
about parenting. That got us thinking about our parenting styles. This is something we will discuss a lot during our wait,
I think. Over all, the home visit went well! I think we both felt very happy afterwards. Now we have to get all the
paperwork together and we will send everything to her! We have a class we have to go to on 1/10/02. Then we will be almost
done with our visits/classes. Things are coming along well!
January 10, 2002: We went to the adoption class/workshop.
It was all about traveling to pick up our daughter, but specifically about cultural differences and how to get along in a
foreign country. It got us thinking alot about Chinese styles of communication and what conveys politeness and respect in
China! This is one more thing we plan to investigate during our wait. When we travel to China, we certainly
want to convey the true happiness, respect and appreciation we feel.
January 31, 2001: All our paperwork has been sent in to our social worker. Clearance paperwork went in several
weeks ago. Now we wait until the clearance checks come back and our social worker can write our homestudy report! Oh, we hope
it happens soon!
February 14, 2002: We went to an adoption meeting entitled, "Families of the 21st Century: No One Looks the Same".
It was a small group of people and everyone talked honestly about personal feelings about race and difference. The open discussion
helped us all learn a lot. We think it's so helpful to talk about fears and share experiences like this. It is what helps
people not feel so different from one another! Great Meeting!
Also on this day....
We found out today that our child abuse and criminal checks have been completed and our social worker can
get started on our home study report! What a great Valentine's Day present! Hopefully she will finish the report in the next
week or two and we can send it off to the INS to get our approval! We are very happy we are one step closer to getting our
papers to China!
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March 8, 2002: Our social worker sent us the draft of the homestudy. She approved us for adoption!
We are so happy and excited to see it in print. Now we need the report to go to our adoption agency to be approved and then
off to the INS. We're very close to the time we can begin to authenticate all our documents at the consulate! Thank you to
all our friends and family who are being so supportive. Every hurdle we get over is easier with the support and love we receive!
April 5, 2002: Well, we finally got the homestudy report in the mail! The rough draft was already
faxed to our adoption agency for review, so now we will send this final copy to them. All told, it
took about 4 1/2 months for the homestudy process to be complete. It was a long time to wait. But
now we can finally move forward! Our homestudy agency sent us four copies of the report. One copy will go immediately
to the INS to complete our orphan petition. I hope the INS will send us our approval for our daughter fast! And
the best part is we will be able to move ahead with our dossier, that important compilation of documents we will send to China.
This page is done! For further updates see our new page "Our Progress and Updates", where we will keep you up to date
on our Adoption Journey. We send kisses to all of you who are there for us and who make our wait easier!
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