It’s late. I am ready to zone out with some Law & Order SVU. But I have also been struck with a few writing ideas. Therefore, here I am typing away and trying to chug down the last few ounces of water for my goal today.

We have our first home visit tomorrow for our home study process. Since I haven’t established all the foundations here yet (on my list, I promise), a home study is what couples hoping to adopt need to complete in order to be officially and legally “verified” in order to foster or adopt. I am under the impression that each state has it’s own guidelines and regulations for what is inspected during the home study, and I will only be sharing our own experience so far.

We have been in contact with our social worker for a few weeks getting prepped and setup for our first in person home visit and interview. She gave us a list of documentation that we needed to collect in order to finalize the home study. We needed to organize all of the following:

• Copy of Marriage Certificate
• Copy of divorce decrees (not applicable to us)
• Copies of Birth Certificates
• Copies of Driver’s Licenses
• Copy of education decrees (college level or post graduate)
• Copies of last three tax returns
• Proof of investments
• Verification of employment
• Outline/Timeline of employment history
• Copy of Indian heritage enrollment card (not applicable to us)
• Proof of insurance (car, health, dental, life, and other)
• Copy of immunization record on minor children
• Copies of physicals completed in the last year
• Statements from doctors on any existing medical conditions
• Names and email addresses of 3 references
• Copies of pet vaccinations
• Current family photo
• General monthly budget
• Certificates of completion of online adoption training (6 hours)
• Current fingerprinting and background check

Most of this was pretty easy to collect, since I am incredibly anal retentive about home organization and had all the documents in the filing cabinet. It took us almost two full weeks to complete the rest, because we had to wait after scheduling doctor, vet, and fingerprinting appointments.

Now that all of that is collected, the social worker alerted us today that we will be meeting tomorrow evening and I started to panic immediately. I started worrying that I hadn’t done enough, that I missed something and started asking a lot of questions in my head. It stirred up a ton of emotions: fear, doubt, anxiety, excitement, hope, happiness and worry. We haven’t done this before and so I have no idea what to expect tomorrow.

When I got back home from errands, I didn’t know where to start. So, the first thing I did was vacuum because that would make me feel like I at least accomplished one thing. I plan on mopping all the floors tomorrow morning and keeping the clutter picked up and put away. The craziest thing I found myself doing was re-arranging all the decor I have setup on the TV stand and the bookcase! Here is what I finally decided looked the best:

My hubby keeps reassuring me that 1) our house is more than clean enough and 2) this is the first meeting, not the only, so we have time to get other things done if the social worker asks us to. He is such a rock when it comes to my moments of pure mental chaos! I need to remember that I’ve read and studied and done as much preparation as possible! So far here is what we’ve done to get the house ready for the home visit:

• Put the plastic covers in all outlets
• Put safety locks on cabinets that have chemicals
• Moved medications to a high shelf in the bathroom closet
• Installed new smoke detectors on both levels
• Installed a new carbon monoxide in the basement
• Decluttered a little bit
• Setup the crib (to establish physical space for another child)
• Completely decluttered and organized our laundry room (it was a disaster)

I am still feeling a bit nervous for tomorrow’s meeting, but writing all of that out makes me feel like we really got our poop in a group the last two weeks and that we got a great start! I am feeling more excited now, just need to keep reminding myself that the social worker is on our side and only wants to ensure that she knows us well and can match us successfully with a birth mom and baby. Once I finished vacuuming, picking up and fidgeting with home decor, I took myself to the gym for a super hard cardio session (from the 80 Day Obsession program) and it really helped clear my head to gain some clarity!

I keep reading the note I have written (I believe I found this on another adoptive Mom’s blog): “Adoption is a marathon. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there is a finish line; the day is coming that you will hold your child. It’s all about endurance for the journey.”