[jaenelle]

Or will it vary from agency to agency? We are looking to get some of the things for our home bought little by little so we don't have to spend so much all at once. So... what were you required to have?

[mommamarci]

Smoke alarms, carbon monoxide detectors (if you have anything gas in the house) and fire extinguishers. That's it. Our agency actually reccommends not doing the room or buying all the stuff that soon because the wait could take a while and it is hard to look at everything.

[jaenelle]

Thanks!

We already have smoke alarms (5!) and fire extinguishers (3) -- after having a fire a year and a half ago that totally destroyed my house and about 90% of my belongings, I'm a bit paranoid about fires.

We haven't bought *any* baby things because I do feel it's too early. We probably won't buy anything until we get matched, if even then... I don't want to jump the gun and then have to deal with looking at all that stuff and having no baby to use it if something falls through with the birthmother or anything.

[randloar]

We are going intl, so I am sure that is different, but our social worker just asked about the smoka alarm and extinguishers and never wanted to see them.
Our time was spent interviewing and talking with a quick (10 minute or so max) walkthrough of the house to make sure we had a room that was going to be for the kids. But, we had taken out our stair bannisters (its a tri-level, so only about 6-7 steps per floor), and she did comment that we needed to get those in before we traveled, so if you have any half done home repairs maybe consider finishing those up (the ones that would affect things I mean)! Just throwing things out there!

If you haven't gotten the paperwork stuff (marriage license, birth cert, etc), collecting those can take some time!