Check...Check....Checking things off the list!

Last week we went to a Children's Mental Health Training course.  It was interesting, but we felt it was not really something that would pertain to us for several years because we wouldn't know about any learning disabilities until then.  Nevertheless we did gain some valuable information. CHECK!

Yesterday we had our second meeting with our social worker and turned in a bunch more paperwork! CHECK!  The meeting consisted of going through each of our autobiographies and answering any questions they had or expanding on anything we wrote.  Although we wrote them privately, we read each others when we were done, and it was fun learning new things and gaining insight on each other.  It's funny that even though we have known each other for 13+ years, there are still things to learn!

The next step is finishing up paperwork (which we are very close to doing!) and attending 2 more classes.  One of the classes is a two day class on pre-adopt and pre-foster parent training.  I am actually kind of excited for this because I think we will learn some really valuable information!  And then we also have to do a car seat safety course that we have yet to sign up for.

After all of that is done, our social worker will come out to our house to make sure that it is a safe environment to raise a child.  We have to get some fire extinguishers and put up a fire exit plan on each floor.. I laugh because I picture our baby trying to look at the map and figure out a way to get out the door.  But hopefully it is not something that we will ever need to use.

Then we will have to wait while our social worker writes our home study report.  It gets passed through several people in the office that ready over it and make any corrections or suggestions. Our social worker said yesterday that this can take one to two months to complete.  :(  We weren't expecting it to take quite that long, but I suppose its good to be thorough.  So it looks like we are looking at the end of November or into December for us to get in the book!  We can't wait!

Take care!
Ryan and Christa