Approved!

We are FINALLY approved for our home study!!

Last Wednesday (sorry for the late posting!) we received a copy of our approved home study in the mail from our adoption agency (Old Agency).  It seems like the process has taken forever.  We dropped off our adoption paperwork with the agency in September, then met with our social worker in twice in November.  Then we were reassigned a new social worker because our original social worker had to take a leave of absence because her sister went missing right before Thanksgiving (sadly, they still have not found her).  We met with our new social worker at the end of January for our home visit.  That was when we informed her that we wanted to pursue embryo adoption.  At that point, she wasn't sure how we would need to proceed as the agency has never dealt with embryo adoption.  In fact she had never even heard of such a thing!  She had to check with the agency to figure out what to do next.

In February, we heard back from the agency saying that they would not be able to complete our home study as the are not equipped to do a home study for embryo adoption.  You can read about it here.  We were devastated and furious as we were so close to getting our home study done.  We started looking at another adoption agency that would work with us to complete a home study for embryo adoption.  After meeting in person with the managers of the original agency, they agreed to complete the home study on the condition that we transfer our home study to another agency, and then we could work the them instead to complete our embryo adoption.  You can read about that here.  We are willing to go to another agency and pay the extra money for a home study update for a chance to pursue embryo adoption.

We finally received a draft of our home study on March 11th for review.  We reviewed it, and made corrections, and sent it back.  After not hearing anything back from the social worker, I emailed her again on April 5th, enquiring about the status of our home study.  She seemed surprised as she supposedly emailed us a final copy for our review on March 26th.  We didn't receive it, so she sent another copy for our review, which we did right away.  We finally got a copy of the approved home study in the mail last Wednesday, April 10th.

All in all, it took us a 7 months to get just the home study piece of our adoption process completed.  Does that sound about right for most people?  It just seems like a really long time to me.  This does not include the fact that we submitted our application (not the actual adoption paperwork) back in February and attended informational meetings, training, etc.  We worked on our adoption paperwork and sat on it for a few months.  We did not submit our actual paperwork until September 2012, and the home study was approved in April 2013.

So, the home study is approved!  We are moving right along!

On NEDC's side of things, I talked to the nurse last week.  I will be starting Es.trace (estrogen, taken to prepare the lining of the uterus for pregnancy) on either May 5th, or the first day for my next cycle, whichever is later.  That will be timed just right for my initial appointment at NEDC on 5/22.

Just a little  more than a month before we leave for Knoxville on 5/20!  Not like I'm counting or anything!