Home Study Update

Today we had a meeting with our adoption agency's social worker to update our Home Study. Our Virginia Home Study conducted in 2009 is valid until May 2011. But the agency that is handling the placement is in Texas and there, Home Studies are only valid for one year. I thought we would just be able to go to the agency for a meeting. But no, the social worker needed to come to our house.

As you can imagine, there was a frenzy of cleaning going on this weekend, Monday and Tuesday. I'm talking about going so far as washing windows and cleaning ceiling fan blades. I even got home a little early to do some last minute tidying up this afternoon. And then I panicked about our basement which is still in the progress of being finished. Should I write something up showing how we would spend the next few months putting the final touches on the basement? Would she insist on seeing it like our last social worker did when she came to visit us a year and a half ago? Even though we have done this before, I started having all kinds of paranoid thoughts. Maybe she would check the cabinets to make sure we didn't have any cleaning products within a child's reach. And on top of everything, she was about a half hour late allowing me more time to let my imagination run wild.

And in the end, she just sat us down at the dining room table and we had a lovely hour or so with her explaining the paperwork we needed to fill out. Most of it is just an update of forms we have filled out before. She did ask a few questions about what our plans were for maternity leave and child care after Baby comes home. But that was it. This is our third social worker at this agency since we started and this was our first time meeting her. Well, I hope she sticks around. We had a great chat with her and she was so helpful in so many ways. And the only time she left the dining room was to use the restroom just a few steps away. Ah, all that extra cleaning (and worrying) for nothing.