Adoption Update

When you adopt out of ICW after you've passed all your initial screenings and the mandatory class to take, you are sent to your "Certification Worker". This is the person to do your home studies. In ICW you must have 3 homestudies, 2 minimum. First 2 are for all the needed information, tour, and to make sure you have everything the state says you must have (fire extinguisher, etc). The 3rd is a "surprise visit", I suppose to make sure your house is in similar condition as the originals. Then they type it all up, make sure you have all the paperwork to pass certification, referrals, etc and send it to their supervisor who officially certifies you. 

Once you get passed on to this worker they have 90 days to get you certified. 

About 120 days out I was still getting the same response from our Certification Worker, which was minimal at best and so I contacted his supervisor. I made sure to be very kind about our Certification Worker but gently expressed concern that I felt we were stalled and was hoping to be certified already. She contacted me and told me our Certification Worker had actually turned in his notice but had promised her he'd have our paperwork all typed up pretty and on her desk by Tues (I had heard this twice already) as his final day was not until Friday of the next week. Wed of the next week rolled around and we got a phone call from the supervisor. Apparently our Certification Worker hadn't come back from lunch the previous day. And over the next few days we found out that NOTHING had been done on our case except the home visits but even with those there were no notes (except a few scarce ones on the first home study which took the longest). Our paperwork was scattered amongst his other cases all piled into a ream of paperwork with no sense or reason to it, which really upset me because we have so much personal information in that paperwork. But she assured me she was sending us to another worker whom was very organized and efficient. 

The next week we heard from our new Certification Worker "L" with a really cool name. 

Well, she had to do 2 of the Home studies over again, 1 to finish his original notes and the surprise visit because there were no mention of the original one in our paperwork he left. Sigh.

She, however was immediately more organized than our previous person and seemed very competent and efficient. I enjoy this about her. 

Then we hit another setback. Apparently our paperwork coordinator somehow missed getting a TX background check on us (which totally doesn't make sense to me because we had just barely moved from TX less than one month previous to sending all the paperwork in originally and I remember her saying she would do the TX but not worry about the OK since we'd been here less than one month. 

So, our home studies are done and completely typed up, minus one referral we are waiting on. 

Our child abuse TX check is in and we are just waiting on the TX background check and the day that comes in we'll officially be certified. 

We are hoping that is next week but are not putting too much account into it until we see the certification letter in hand. 

It's been a long process and more frustrating than it should have been due to incompetence. But, hopefully it will be over soon and others currently going thru this process will not have to have the same issues we have. 

I dream of our next child so often. I dream of a baby, with dark curly hair and big brown eyes and pouty precious lips that create a huge happy smile. I yearn to hold this child, to snuggle and cuddle and bond with him/her. I ache to see the boys treating him/her affectionately and teaching this child all about life and things they know while learning to protect their lil sibling. 

As Voddie Baucham says "We just don't have enough BABIES!!".