Our family is in a similar situation as some of your reading this blog. We are starting our home study process to finalize Hannah’s adoption. Ours will progress slightly differently than yours will, since hers is considered a private adoption, but most of it will be the same.

For us, the first hurdle was finding an agency that is willing to do our home study. Because of the complexities of our case, I sent out e-mails to every licensed adoption agency within a 200 mile radius. Here is what I wrote:

We are trying to get some information on getting a home study done for a child that we have guardianship of.

She is a 6 year old girl who has been in our home for 14 months and we have had legal guardianship for a year. She came to us from a disrupted adoption. Her previous adoptive parents have not terminated their rights yet, but will do so as soon as we have a completed home study. She was privately placed in our home, not through an agency, but the previous family had adopted her from foster care.

We have a 14 year old who is out home care due to several law violations and court involvement. We adopted him from foster care almost 9 years ago. The worker overseeing his case is fully aware of our intention to adopt this little girl and is not opposing the adoption. Our son is moving to a new residential facility on March 11.

We have been through an abuse investigation that was ruled unsubstantiated.

I want to be upfront about everything, rather than getting partway through a study and feeling like we held something back.

Please let us know if you will be able to help us.

Thank you.

We did receive a few rejections, but we have gotten a couple of agencies that are willing to work with us. We tried to start this process a year ago, but the worker in charge of Sammy’s case at the time was adamant that we were horrible parents and should never be allowed to care for another child, ever, so she did everything she could to block our adoption. She made the recommendation that Sammy be back in our home and “stable” for six consecutive months before we are allowed to adopt again. She set an unachievable recommendation. If you have been following my blog, you know that Sammy has been in out of home care for the past two years, and there is no chance of coming home in the near future.

Being the patient people that we are, we waited. A new worker was assigned to Sammy’s case and he is open to us adopting Hannah.

We will receive our application and informational packet in the mail shortly. We will start filling out the paperwork, getting our background clearance, having our home inspected, and doing all the same things as a “regular” home study.

The way that our situations vary greatly is that I know who my child is going to be, but I fully remember the days of searching the child listings and being anxious about how long things would take. You are certainly not alone.

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