e-mail
Today I was going through some old papers and found an old email I wrote 8 years ago, right after we had our first homestudy ever. We had four biological kids at the time and were in the process of adopting a child from Korea.
The whole homestudy process was so mysterious that I went a little nutso when it came to preparing our home. I cleaned closets. I cleaned out the fridge. I cleaned under my bed. The kids’ rooms were spotless by the time I got done with them. I even bleached grout, for pity sakes.
Here’s the email I wrote to the adoption email group after it was all done.
1-22-1998
Hi All,
We survived! I feel like shouting it from the rooftop, but since we have a steep roof, I’ll settle for just telling you. We finished our last homestudy interview today and I am amazed– exhilarated– ecstatic– over how easy it was.She didn’t ask any nosy questions, she didn’t look in the closets ( which were, as you all know, very clean anyway!) and she didn’t even notice my bleached grout. (That’s OK. The mere *knowledge* that my grout was clean was enough for me.)
I did cry once, very appropriately, over my dad who is deceased. And our social worker did throw up once. That last caused me some worry but as it turned out, it wasn’t my fault– she had a really bad migraine that day.
Yesterday’s interview was cut short due to her illness. But today, amazingly, she showed up at our house feeling much better. She toured through the house, commented on how pretty it was, and on how clean our kids’ bedrooms were.
She took each of our children aside and sked them about their birthdays, hobbies, and what they thought about a new sibling. Very basic, friendly questions with me right there beside them.
She responded very favorably to the fact that we homeschool, and was impressed by our huge library and the educational games we’ve bought for our children. It just went perfectly. John and I are so thankful. We are just HIGH with delight over it all.
Baby, you are on your way home! And to prove it to myself, yesterday I went out and bought 3 sleepers and a huge stuffed lamb.
Thanks to everyone for your support!
Mary, mom to 4
I600A for #5 to INS 12-31-97
We got the referral of our son in May, and went to Korea to bring him home on July 15th, 1998. What about you? Had your homestudy yet? If so, what was the strangest thing you cleaned?
Our homestudy interviews were finished in February. We only had one interview in our home, but like you, I over-obsessed about cleaning and organizing our home.
I organized all closets, installed shelves and drawers, cleaned EVERYTHING, and even moved furniture around. We did have company coming that weekend as well, so the furniture part was also to make sure they had a place to sleep.
Our social worker also commented on how clean things were. She actually almost forgot to “tour” our house, which I was starting to sweat. I knew if she didn’t check out every room my husband would have killed me for all the effort we put in.
I remember that I did the same thing for the first one. For the second one, we had just moved in a week before so everything was already clean (even if most of it was in boxes in the garage).
Also, I wanted to read the Ethiopia blogs (some I knew of…some I did not). But my browser keeps crashing when I try and open the page. I can’t find the bug. It is only on that page (thank goodness). Would you mind sending me the links? Or copying the entry and put it in an e mail? I just can’t make the darn thing open.
Thanks,
R
I’m having trouble with that page too. I’ll see if I can just repost it on a new page
Mary