Gayle came this morning for our third and final homestudy meeting. She just had a few final questions to clarify a few things and needed to interview Dave privately since she didn't do that last week. She will have the report ready this week, and we will get a copy to review. Then, a copy will go to MCH to review and then to Gladney for review. Depending on how quickly Gladney reviews the paperwork, the process should take about three weeks. After all that, it will go back to Gayle who will make the necessary updates and finalize it once our fingerprints come back. Hopefully we will have those within 3 weeks.
Our psych evals have been written but we haven't seen them yet. Gladney revised their psych eval guidelines and format so we have to wait for our psychologist to redo it until we get the reports. When I talked to him, he said that our MMPI results are well within normal limits and our evals were great. So, we have officially been declared mentally stable...no one can say otherwise now! Haha! :-)
Our credit card was charged a few days ago for our FBI fingerprint processing. We are wondering if our mailer was just opened for the first time, or they charge the card when they begin the processing? Now that we've been charged, we hope it means we should get our results relatively soon. We shall see.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
"It is my recommendation......"
We've had our second homestudy interview this past Saturday. This time, Gayle interviewed one of our references in person and also interviewed Dave and I together. Our reference, Kyle said that she just asked him some basic questions about us and how we parent Evan. She interviewed me alone and will meet privately with Dave next time. Other than that, this meeting is a formality because it is required.
It looks like our third and final homestudy meeting will be the this Saturday, April 23rd! Gayle emailed me a draft of our homestudy so far and it's very interesting to see how an 'outsider' views us as a family and individually. Thankfully, it's all been positive! I loved reading these words in our homestudy, "It is my recommendation that David and Amanda Smith be approved by Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers to adopt a female child from Honduras." I have to admit, I'm not surprised, but it's nice to actually see it all official! :-)
We are now waiting for our psych eval results to arrive, which will hopefully be early this coming week. It will be interesting to see how we are viewed psychologically as well!
It looks like our third and final homestudy meeting will be the this Saturday, April 23rd! Gayle emailed me a draft of our homestudy so far and it's very interesting to see how an 'outsider' views us as a family and individually. Thankfully, it's all been positive! I loved reading these words in our homestudy, "It is my recommendation that David and Amanda Smith be approved by Maine Children’s Home for Little Wanderers to adopt a female child from Honduras." I have to admit, I'm not surprised, but it's nice to actually see it all official! :-)
We are now waiting for our psych eval results to arrive, which will hopefully be early this coming week. It will be interesting to see how we are viewed psychologically as well!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Homestudy!!!
Our homestudy started this morning!! Our caseworker is Gayle and she is nice and loved Evan. He was totally hamming it up for her! This is a big step so we are excited!
Gayle asked us a bunch of questions about how we met, our educational and employment backgrounds, neighborhood and family mostly. She also walked around our house and drew a quick diagram of the layout. We will meet with her two more times. The next time, she needs to meet with one of our references in person. Gayle said that she is pretty quick with getting homestudies done, which is exactly what we wanted to hear.
The government shutdown did not occur, so that's great for everyone! Thousands upon thousands of people get to work and get paid, and hopefully adoptions won't be interrupted.
Gayle asked us a bunch of questions about how we met, our educational and employment backgrounds, neighborhood and family mostly. She also walked around our house and drew a quick diagram of the layout. We will meet with her two more times. The next time, she needs to meet with one of our references in person. Gayle said that she is pretty quick with getting homestudies done, which is exactly what we wanted to hear.
The government shutdown did not occur, so that's great for everyone! Thousands upon thousands of people get to work and get paid, and hopefully adoptions won't be interrupted.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Government shutdown
We sent off our state and federal criminal clearance fingerprints last Friday. Now we have the serious threat of a government shutdown at midnight tonight effectively stopping non-essential jobs. I know the FBI itself is essential, but what about certain services within it? Will the FBI continue to work at fully capacity? We are wondering if adoption fingerprints are essential or not. I'm not sure if our fingerprints will be put in a different pile than those for crimes and whatnot, or if everything is processed the same. I have the same questions regarding our state of Maine clearances as well.
We know a U.S Marshall and he is going to try to contact his friend in the FBI to see what he can find out, if anything. The thing with fingerprints is that our homestudy cannot be completed without them so that is why we are anxious about it.
Speaking of homestudies, ours starts tomorrow!
We know a U.S Marshall and he is going to try to contact his friend in the FBI to see what he can find out, if anything. The thing with fingerprints is that our homestudy cannot be completed without them so that is why we are anxious about it.
Speaking of homestudies, ours starts tomorrow!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Jail, psych evals....
Yesterday, Dave and I went to the Cumberland County Jail to get two sets of fingerprints done. One set will be sent to the State for criminal clearance, and the second set goes to the FBI. The State clearances should take about to two weeks, and the FBI will take about 6 weeks to process. Our homestudy can be done without the results, but they are needed to make final recommendations.
This morning we met with a PhD Psychologist who did our psych evals which is a requirement for Honduras. He met with us together and separately. I was a bit nervous going in because I really didn't know what to expect. The whole experience wasn't bad at all. He asked basic questions about our marriage, motives for adopting and how we would assist our daughter in the transition into another culture among other things. We each had to take the MMPI which was 568 True/False questions. It it one of those tests that asks a lot of the same questions in several different ways. The doctor will have our report written by next week, so that's good.
Another thing that happened today was we received a call from our Portland area caseworker, Gayle. She wanted to set up the first part of our homestudy for April 9th! She will visit our home and do an interview. We've been waiting for the homestudy to get started, but had to submit so much paperwork and that took time. The homestudy is a HUGE part of this process so we are so excited to finally get going on this!
This morning we met with a PhD Psychologist who did our psych evals which is a requirement for Honduras. He met with us together and separately. I was a bit nervous going in because I really didn't know what to expect. The whole experience wasn't bad at all. He asked basic questions about our marriage, motives for adopting and how we would assist our daughter in the transition into another culture among other things. We each had to take the MMPI which was 568 True/False questions. It it one of those tests that asks a lot of the same questions in several different ways. The doctor will have our report written by next week, so that's good.
Another thing that happened today was we received a call from our Portland area caseworker, Gayle. She wanted to set up the first part of our homestudy for April 9th! She will visit our home and do an interview. We've been waiting for the homestudy to get started, but had to submit so much paperwork and that took time. The homestudy is a HUGE part of this process so we are so excited to finally get going on this!
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