Home Study #1

Today our social worker arrived at 9:30 am to have our first joint interview, home tour, and child observation. It went really well!! Just like everyone says- I worried way more than I should have beforehand. We really enjoyed talking and getting to know Sella throughout our interview conversations. She walked us through some documents, a list of to-do's and then jumped into our question and answer session. The girls played well while we spoke for over and hour and a half. Most of the topics we covered today addressed relationships we have within our marriage, extended family, etc. Brad and I took a prepare and enrich marriage survey online beforehand and we looked at our results. We also discussed how we ended up in the adoption process and where our hearts are in this whole process. We discussed travel, building a "cocoon" around our nuclear family of 6 when we return from China, and teaching our new son or daughter what family is. The girls were dying for Sella to interview them, so she asked them a few questions about how they felt about the adoption and what they expect life to be like with a new sibling. After that the girls took Sella on a home tour- no closets thankfully!- and then we were done! So thankful that Brad had this morning with no surgeries scheduled and we were able to knock this long interview off the list.Our list is a mile long of things to accomplish, but we are trucking along! Next up is writing our autobiographies. This will be a long, tedious process, but well worth it hopefully. We will meet individually with Sella once we have completed those. So happy to be done with that interview and moving forward. Our social worker mentioned that usually travel happens about 1 year from home study...so that means that next Thanksgiving/Christmas we may be traveling to bring Hobbs baby #4 home!!