[seviemac]

Hi all...

We are hoping to become licensed soon, we finished our FAKT training and we are still working on the whole packet thing (OMG it is so crazy how do ppl finish it so quick?!?!) and hoping to have our home study completed when we finish painting our new house. We are from Tippecanoe County and we are hoping to connect with some other couples who have gone through everything before. We are hoping to adopt a child (or possibly 2 children), under 4, preferably under 2. Anyone have any advice? This is stressful and we are worried about being approved. It seems like you have to be absolutely perfect to get approved!

seviemac

[ladybug79]

The approval process is actually not as difficult as you might think! We are by no means perfect and passed very easily. The worst part is all the paperwork! I can't speak specifically to adopting because we are just licensed for basic traditional foster care but I wouldn't worry about trying to be perfect. We are in Marshall county, further north than you, but if you have any general questions that aren't county specific feel free to message me!

[seviemac]

My biggest thing is I'm worrying about the home study. Another couple we talked to from this county said it's impossible, but pretty much everyone else I've talked to, and J's uncle (a social worker) said it really isn't that bad. He looked around the house and said the biggest thing is our paint (our house is old), and all the paint on every stupid piece of trim is flaking...hello to all new trim through the whole house (ugh...the cost!!!). So we have to repaint our entire house and redo all of our trim work before we can have our homestudy?!?! That stresses me out! Otherwise we just have to put on our cabinet locks and put up the baby gates and we're done...Did you find that your homestudy was difficult or stressful? We have to re-do all our essays, too, because J killed the computer and we hadn't backed them up yet....*sob* Thanks ladybug

seviemac

[ladybug79]

Wow, I guess it just depends on the person who is doing your homestudy.....I couldn't imagine repainting everything! And, actually, our house flooded last year and we had to basically gut our living room and mud room and bring in new dry wall, raise the floor, etc, and we didn't even have all the trim done yet when we had our homestudy so we had exposed drywall around the two doors! There was no problem at all with that. She took a tour through our house, noted our outlet covers, drawer latches, etc and measured the bedroom sizes. She made sure we had a fire extinguisher and noted we did not have a pool. That was pretty much it! Easy Peezy! In our county, if anything is found to be wrong in your homestudy, they just tell you what it is and you have a certain amount of time to get it fixed and they will be back to check. I can't remember if it was 30 days or 60 days. Maybe your county is similar in that way? Honestly, in your situation, I would not paint my whole house before the homestudy without knowing whether or not you will be marked for it. Maybe you should do everything else, have your homestudy, then if they tell you that you have to, then paint? I know you are worried and want to make an excellent impression the first time but I don't think you will be asked to do anything unreasonable. All that said, I guess if your house is really old and you know your paint has asbestos then that could be a potential health hazard but you should have that taken care of for you and your husband's sake anyway. I sure wish you luck and let us know how everything goes!