[mellaf]

Seems we are doing things backwards...We will be fost to adopt parents and are going through the Mass. DSS system. I think that we were going to wait to be matched, and then we went to an adoption party pre-meeting to talk with social workers and learned of a 10 year old girl (I call her Sparkle )from one of the nearby offices. We spoke to her social worker at length during that meeting and both sides were excited of the possible match.

We met the girl at the adoption party a couple weeks later. Apparently, her social worker told her that there was a family interested in meeting her so she went and wrote up a whole page full of questions to ask us!! We spent most of the 3 hour party shooting hoops, kicking a soccer ball around and talking with her, her social worker and our social worker. Fast forward a couple of weeks, and we've been told that both SW's have discussed it and we're unofficially matched

All of this has happened BEFORE our home study is officially done. It's been "Almost completed" since July. Finally, Christmas Eve it was submitted for approval, and we are STILL waiting, but we had been hoping to get things tied up by Christmas so that we could sit down for disclosure and possibly begin visits, but it didn't happen. We're not even allowed to communicate with her until home study is approved and we've sat down for disclosure.

So through my ramblings, I think it all depends on the situation. We were told that adoption parties don't usually yield a lot of matches, but we're hoping we're one of the few. We just wish we could spend more time with Sparkle.