Paperwork

The other thing we're getting really, really used to so far in this process is PAPERWORK.... whether it's an online form or something on traditional paper, one thing is for sure... There's a LOT!!  In case you're interested, here's a look at what we've had to do so far:

When we applied to our agency, there was an online form - this one was pretty basic, but that was just the beginning.

When we applied to the agency that is doing our homestudy, there was a big, big packet. Here we had to fill in information about who we are and what we do, how much money we make, how much money we owe, who our families are, where we work, our physical characteristics and health history, our education background, our residences since we were 18 years old (yes, every single one!), our employment history for the last ten years, and more. It was definitely a lot, and I'd say I spent about 4 hours on this one.

We worked on an online form for our placement agency called an APQ - Adoption Planning Questionnaire.  This was a massive document that not only required information about us personally, but this is also where we had to specify our preferences on all those decisions I mentioned in the last post. This took us several different sittings to get through -- I'd say 6+ hours if I had to guess. There was a particularly big section about our feelings on adoption, our feelings on infertility, our feelings about birthmothers, our expectations for the adoption process, etc.  It was actually a really nice way to get to talk about things together.

Once we turned in our application to our home study provider, they gave us another big chunk of paperwork.  We have to sign for credit checks, record checks and background checks , we have to have 5 people fill out forms that we're decent people and we're fit to be parents to a child, we have to have physicians do an exam and sign off on our health and ability to be parents, and then there's the 'Adoptive Parent Questionnaire.' This one is the big one...

I could try to tell you how big and intimidating this packet of questions is, but I don't really have the right words. I don't think it's meant to be scary, but trust me... it is. We each have our own packet to fill out, and this is one of the things we're working on right now. The purpose of this packet is for our home study provider to get to know us each as individuals, and also as a couple. There are pages and pages of essay questions about adoption, our childhood experiences, our parents and families growing up, our beliefs and feelings about life, what we feel a parent should be, how we feel about ourselves and each other, our likes and dislikes, our good and bad experiences, our talents and skills and our personalities, our history as a couple, the state of our marriage and how we handle things, and so, so many more... I can't wager a good guess as to how long this will take us to complete, but I know it will be many, many hours.

See?  I told you there was a lot...  and we know there will be more. One valuable piece of advice I was given from a mom who adopted last year was to 'enjoy the process,' and let me tell you -- I've repeated that to myself MANY times as I'm working on this massive stack of papers.  Enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it....