Homestudy Done!

Big milestone was reached today . . . we turned in the last two documents for our homestudy! The 'homestudy' is the stage after you sign on with the adoption agency, before you actually get matched with a child. It took us about six weeks to complete all the 'to-do's: two classes at Heartsent (we've taken the Orientation class and 'What to Expect the First Month Home' so far), three visits with a social worker (Christine was wonderful, very supportive and not afraid to ask anything) and about two dozen pieces of paperwork, from marriage and birth certificates to notarized financial and medical papers. Whew!

So what now? We wait. The first of two waiting periods, really. After Heartsent gets these last two gems from us, they'll compile everything and send it to the adoption section of the INS, and the government will bless us with another piece of paperwork saying we're worthy to be parents (we hope anyway). After that, we're cleared for a match.

Because we're put in a request for a newborn girl, it might be a bit of a wait just for a match. Apparently, there is more demand for baby girls from Guatemala, so the wait can be longer than for a boy. Val, the Executive Director of Heartsent, suggested a great way of deciding how important holding out for a girl was for us. She said, let's check in two months into the wait. If we're chomping at the bit and feeling sex is irrelevant at that point (of the child that is ;-)), we'll swap to a boy. If we're feeling stronger than ever about a girl, then we'll continue to wait, even more confident in our decision to do so. The second big wait comes after the match, when we wait for all the paperwork to be done in Guatemala and the US to approve and finalize the adoption so we can bring her (or him) home.

So thus begins the first of the two big waits. Here we go . . .