Avery, on Easter morning.
We've made a lot of progress on our homestudy during the last 2 weeks. We have pulled together the last few pieces of paperwork and reference letters. We're still waiting to get our 911 clearance returned and a few forms from North Carolina, but we've completed all of our parts of the paperwork.
Avery and I took a selfie - At Morgan Falls Park where we met some friends for a picnic lunch.
Last Saturday (4/19) our social worker came to do our home inspection and personal interviews. Avery was thrilled that she asked her to give the home tour and I'm sure she pointed out more than the social worker needed to see such as the size of her closet, all her bows, all the food in the pantry, how her shower curtain matches her towels, and how the furry yellow blanket on the chair in Mommy and Daddy's bedroom matches their comforter. Needless to say, I'm glad our social worker has young kids and her 4 year old sounds like the male version of our chatty Avery. Beside the home tour, she reviewed where we were in the process and went over the documents we had collected, and then conducted 1 hour interviews with Shawn and me individually. One day before our home visit I had completely stressed myself out with things that are totally out of my control - questions like, "What if she says we don't have enough money? What if a birthmother never chooses us? Will anyone choose us because we already have one child? What if...? What if...?" I'm glad for my very rational husband and friends who helped assure me that whatever is meant to be will be.
After our 4/26 meeting with our social worker we climbed Kennesaw Mountain. It was a great day for a hike! Avery did awesome on the 1 mile climb.
This past Saturday we had our last meeting with our social worker. We met at an Einstein's Bagel store and Avery could not wait for us to finish our meeting so she could get her plain bagel with butter! Our social worker just went over the last few pieces of paperwork that we're waiting on and what the next few weeks will look like. She will write our complete homestudy report (it will likely be 15 pages) and then send it to her supervisor for review and approval. We also discussed a few adoption lawyers, agencies, and facilitators that we've been looking into. She isn't affiliated with an agency so she can't give recommendations but was very helpful with some insight on agencies that other clients have used in the past and how successful they've been.
Avery has been wanting a "short in the front, long in the back" skirt since last summer when she saw her cousin, Madeline, wearing one. Daddy bought her this skirt last Monday at Target and it was hanging in her closet all week. She worked hard around the house being as helpful as can be so she could "earn" her skirt. This is also about as close as we'll probably ever be to dressing alike. :-)
I've been researching adoption agencies until my eyes are about crossed each night. We had a great experience with Avery's adoption but I read a lot of really awful, recent reviews so we're looking into other options. It's a little overwhelming to decipher what each agency actually does for you, what states they work with, what their fee structure is. Then when you look for online reviews it gets even more overwhelming. Do people only write a review if they've had a negative experience? If there are a lot of negative reviews and then some positive reviews, did the agency ask some clients to write positive reviews or did they even write them themselves? Ahhh.....!!! So, if you've read this far and you have personal experience with an agency, I'd love your insight - positive or negative. Feel free to send me a facebook message. :-)
Our homestudy should be finished in about 2 weeks and then we've got some big decisions to make...
