The Homestudy

Before I begin, I should note that these next few posts will be quite boring for anyone involved with adoption. However, I know many of our friends and family are not familiar with the process, so I wanted to chronicle for them what we have experienced and accomplished over the last year.

After applying with our chosen adoption agency on Valentine’s Day, we received word from them within three days that they were willing to accept us as clients in their Bulgaria program. While we waited for our contracts and then gave ourselves lots of time to read and sign them, we chose a local homestudy agency.

At this point, some of you might be wondering what a homestudy is. In a nutshell, it’s the process of assessing and preparing a family for adoption. It is used to determine the family's suitability to adopt and the type of child whose needs would be best met by that family. Homestudies are required for any kind of adoption and the components vary from state to state. Our homestudy consisted of two meetings with our social worker, 12 credit hours of adoption training, child abuse clearances from all states we have lived in since age 18, fingerprint checks by the OH BCI and the FBI, a fire inspection of our home by the local fire marshall, four letters of reference, a financial statement, as well as first aid and child CPR certification. I am sure there was more, but these are the main parts I recall.

Our homestudy was completed in May, approving us to adopt two Bulgarian children of either gender ages 0-36 months in good health relative to orphanage care and possibly with minor and/or correctable medical needs.