In all honesty, our home study interview was quick, easy and PAINLESS. We were in and out of Gladney in less than TWO HOURS! Remember, they told us to expect to be there for 4-6 hours.
I have to admit, just as every other adoptive family does after the interview – it is completely overhyped. There is no reason to stress. I won’t deny it is an important part of the adoption process, but really it’s just a formality. They want to see you have at least thought about the answers to these questions. There is no right or wrong answer, just your honest feedback. If you think about it, the questions pertain mostly to your life, so you wrote the test. How could you not pass it?
Our interview went a little like this:
We sat down in a conference room and in front of us was our caseworker with our file and a stack of papers equivalent to the thickness of a 300 page book. It was a little intimidating at first, but as we began to answer the questions, page by page, it began to dwindle quickly. Kris and I answered all questions as a couple; I had a little input, he had a little input, but we made sure neither one of us were speaking more than the other. As we answered the question, our caseworker began to write down our response. It didn’t matter how eloquently you responded, because she wrote down single words and sometimes even forgot some of the points you made (how could you keep up?!). That’s how I know it can’t be that important, because so many of our thoughts were not recorded and will be forgotten. As time went on, I tried to crack a few jokes and lighten the mood, because the routine became tedious– Ask question, answer question, write down response, move on. There was little talking in between and I sought out this opportunity to possibly get to know our caseworker a little more.
Before we knew it, we had completed the couple’s interview and it was time for our one-on-one interviews. I started while Kris waited in the lobby and when I was finished, we switched places. These questions were focused on our childhood, our relationship with our parents, their parenting style, our marriage and each of our strengths and weakness. Again, easy stuff – it’s our life.
After our individual interviews wrapped up, we all met back up together and went over any questions we may have and next steps in the process. We did get an update on when we can expect to take placement of our baby. With our openness, we can expect to bring a baby home within 12-15 months, but because we are more open than most, it will likely happen sooner. She didn’t want to say an estimated time frame, because no one knows and she didn’t want to get our hopes up, so we will expect something to happen within 12-15 months.
From here, we wait to hear from the local casework to schedule our home visit and in the next 4-5 weeks we should finally be approved and ready for birth moms to view our profile. I did receive the okay to begin working on our profile book and I will start chipping away at that this week. The goal is to have our profile book done by the time we are approved and that way there are no delays on our part. The profile book is the final portion of the adoption process that we have control over and after that it’s in God’s hands. Losing control will be very hard for me and I’ve always recognized that about myself, but we just have to continue to have faith in a greater plan and everything will be alright.
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