Home Study? Check!

Yay! We were able to complete our Home Study today! Everything went very smoothly. The interview lasted about two hours and really wasn't much different than our interview when we went to their office. (However, we were able to swap some Purdue stories with Susie!) We took her on a brief tour of the house and then sat down to the interview part, which consisted of reviewing our family history, personal history, how we handle conflict, how we plan to discipline/parent, and what we think will be the biggest changes when we bring the baby home.

Along with asking us questions, she was also able to share experiences from other families that have adopted from Ethiopia. She said of the families she has worked with who have adopted from Ethiopia, the children have been very well taken care of and have been able to bond well with their adoptive family. This has been one of my main concerns, so to hear this was reassuring. We also discussed the option of adopting twins, and she encouraged us if that is what we really want, to make that clear both in our home study and with CWA. The good news is she approved us for twins, so we know at least it's an option. Nate sent an email to our CWA social worker to inquire about the wait time. She really wasn't able to give us an answer, and basically said that it's going to be a matter of how long we want to wait. She said there are "several" other couples waiting specifically for twins, too. So, we can definitely get twins if we want them, but it's a matter of how much longer we want to wait as opposed to waiting for an individual child which will probably be quicker. We will have to give a definitive answer to this question by the time our Home Study report is complete, which will be 4-6 weeks.

Susie also gave us some great ideas on how to incorporate the culture, such as celebrating the "Gotcha Day," the day we actually pick up our child(ren). She also said that many of the families that have traveled to Ethiopia have had the opportunity to meet the birth family of their child and actually visit the village of the birth family. That would be an amazing opportunity and a wonderful thing to be able to share with our child.

That's pretty much it, without giving you the actual play-by-play. :) Thanks so much for your prayers! We are so excited to have this out of the way and to have completed one of the biggest steps of our journey.