Well, today was supposed to be our final homestudy, but our Social Worker is sick and had to cancel. Bummer! We've rescheduled for next Wednesday afternoon, so it's not like we have to wait months and months, although it is still disappointing. The house is super clean, and most of the projects are done: we're ready. The fire extinguishers are hung, the fire-escape ladder is mounted, and the non-skid bathmats are in place. The bedroom is all set up, the closet and dresser cleared of clutter and ready for a new little person's belongings.
Even if the homestudy had been completed today, we'd still have a bit of waiting time left. Once the visit happens, the SW has to write up the report, which takes a couple weeks. When she's finished, we get to take a look at the draft report and have a chance to correct anything that's inaccurate, then it gets submitted to the licensing people. We also still have to get fingerprinted, which is scheduled for Nov. 5th. They are pretty cagey about how long it will take to process the prints and return the clearance, but it seems a week to 10 days is about average.
If all goes well, we could have our foster/adopt license approved by the end of November!
And then... then we will officially join the Prospective Adoptive Parent (PAP) pool, and the real waiting begins. Our file will be sent to social workers around the northwest who are trying to find homes for children whose cases are headed for adoption, rather than reunification with their birth families. These caseworkers will look over our files (and all the other PAPs) and if they think we're a good fit for the child, we'll get a call. It could take a week or it could take months... there's no way to predict it.
In light of that, waiting one more week for our homestudy to happen is probably just good practice.
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