What's in a homestudy?

Now, that all our paperwork for our homestudy has been sent in, I have a few minutes to breathe before we start the next stack of forms. (Homestudy review for our placing agency and our first set of papers for immigration/FBI clearance)

So...I thought to myself, what can I update my faithful readers on? And then I had an idea. Many of you are walking this journey yourselves, and I'm SO grateful to be making new friends along the way, it's an amazing community! But not all of you are familiar with the international adoption process. And it's not a cut and dry process, the country our girls are in alone has different requirements depending on the region of the country you're adopting friend! And every other country has their own requirements as well. Our process will look different than someone adopting from an African country, or China for example.

Anyway, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into what our world has been consumed with lately! :) Here's a little list of what we had to include our packet that was mailed to our social worker. (Which by the way - if any of you are in Oregon, looking to adopt and need a homestudy, I would be happy to recommend our agency to you - our social worker has been awesome so far!)

1. Application
2. DHS Criminal History/Protective Services Check
3. Fingerprints
4. Adoptive Parent(s) Information Sheet
5. Autobiographical Guidelines (This ended up being a 15 page typed document from Brandon and I - talking about pretty much everything from our lives!)
6. Copy of first 2 pages of 1040 Tax Forms for previous 2 years
7. Financial Statement
8. Monthly Income and Expenses Worksheet
9. Physician's Report for adoptive parent(s) (This had to be notarized when the dr. signed it!)
10. Copy of certified Birth Certificate for all household members (These have to be ordered from the state - and cost $135 for 3 copies of each of our birth certificates - we'll need them several times throughout the process)
11. Copy of Social Security Card for all household members
12. Copy of Driver's License for adoptive parent(s)
13. Copy of Marriage Certificate
14. Proof of Medical Insurance
15. Proof of Automobile Insurance
16. Guardianship Form (we have to name who will be our children's guardians in the event we can't care for them - and the guardians have to fill out a form, have it notarized and return it)
17. List of dates and places where family members have resided since age 18
18. Release of information form
19. Copy of pet vaccines certificate from veterinarian
20. Completion of 10 hours of adoption training/preparation
21. Form agreeing to agency fees

And this is just the first set of forms, folks!! :) Our homestudy review paperwork isn't a whole lot different, we just need a few more things for that. So that's good, we are part of the way already on that one!! :)

Hopefully, we'll be scheduling our actual home visit (eek! Just a little nervous about that!!!) pretty soon!! Maybe even by the end of the month. Now I just need to get busy with fundraising!!!! :)