Home visit

This past weekend we had our first post-placement home visit. I was originally told that we would not be able to finalize our adoption until we had Jack home for six months and completed our three home visits during that time. I have recently learned that our adoption was finalized in Korea since we both flew there to receive him, but that it is strongly recommended that you re-adopt your child within the United States just to make everything a lot easier. So for us the home visits are so that we can re-adopt Jack and he can easily get the paperwork that he'll need for the rest of his life, like an American birth certificate.

It was nice that for this home visit we didn't have to be nervous like we were for our first visit, which was to put together a home study on us. Besides the fact that the first visit was a evaluation on our family, we had to talk about all these personal questions that you answer for them to get a better understanding of what makes you tick. So I was nervous about that visit for weeks before, whereas this one I just had to get the house completely clean and look halfway nice, which is not easy but certainly not nerve racking.

It was less than 30 minutes, she just asked us some quick questions about Jack's adjustment and ours. She looked at his room but didn't even look at the rest of the house, which I expected but had it all clean just in case.

We only have to two more and then we can re-adopt Jack and be done with home visits forever, but she mentioned that some countries have you do a home study every year until the child is 18 years old! Can you imagine? She said by about the 12th visit the people answer the door wearing their bathing suit and their house looks exactly the way it always does, which she said is great, because we just want to see their normal lives.

So if you have a home study coming up for your adoption, just relax and be yourself, they are not looking for perfect families, just regular families wanting to start an amazing journey!