Waiting for Certification

Well- It's been a little over a month since our home study report was sent in by our social worker and we still haven't heard back yet from the state. I am really starting to get antsy but my social worker assures me that this is completely normal. When I called a couple of weeks ago she said that she had just received 2 other family's certification that she had submitted 2 weeks prior to ours. I'm a praying that we get the paperwork this week along with our tax return. Once we have both of those we can proceed with our agency and hopefully go active very soon so we can start being viewed by birth moms.

Here is what we had to do for the home study:

HOME STUDY

First, we had to be finger printed to make sure neither of us have criminal records. (which we don't' of course :) ) Then we had to fill out a huge packet full of info regarding our financial stability, our family members, their addresses, our daily routines, our employers etc. We also had to get medical clearance from our general Dr. stating that we were healthy enough to care for a child. Talk about feeling like you are being put under a microscope to see whether you are good enough to be a parent.

Once that was completed we had to ask 3 family members and 3 friends to write recommendations on our behalf. We had all of that turned in and were ready to go with the actual home visit when I lost my job due to being laid off in October. Talk about bad timing :( So everything had to be put on hold until January when I had a new job and was able to reschedule the visit.

THE HOUSE VISIT:
Our social worker came to the house and sat down with us and asked us various questions.
Why do we want to adopt?
What gender and race are we willing to adopt?
What kind of discipline to we believe in?
What activities do we plan on doing with the child once they are old enough?
What school will the child attend?
Who will baby sit until the child is old enough to attend school?
She also asked us about how we met and our lifestyle as a couple.
What was the first thing that made us notice each other?
How do we resolve arguments?
Those types of questions

After the questions were done she did a brief walk through and we showed her where the baby's nursery will be and she viewed the backyard.

All in all is was pretty painless. She was at the house for about 2 hours and then we set up our one on one appointments with her.

ONE ON ONE APPOINTMENTS:
This is where our social worker met with us individually and simply asked us about our up bringing. Basically-what was our childhood like. How did our parent's discipline us. Where we went to school. What activities we were involved in etc.

After both of us went and had our one-on-one appointments she wrote up her report and her recommendations and submitted it to the commissioner for certification approval for the state of AZ. This is what we are waiting for. I have been told that it takes 4-6 weeks to get this back and I think we are at week 5 or 6 at this point so I am hoping it arrives soon. Our social worker assured us that she sees us having no problem being certified but still I want to have that paperwork so I can feel like I am one step closer to finally being a mom and having a baby.

I am so impatient. I want instant gratification and with the challenges we have faced trying to start our family I haven't gotten that of course. So now that we are on the adoption journey and of course I wish things would move a little faster than they are. But I am hanging in there and learning to be patient. We are doing everything we can on our end to make sure we are moving forward. At this point we just have to wait.

Wait for certification. Wait for our tax return so we have the money. Wait to get approval from our agency of our profile book so we can start making copies. Just wait. Waiting is the hardest part. I also know that once we are active with our agency and birth moms are viewing our profile we will have to wait some more. So I guess you could say I am learning a very valuable lesson in patience.