An Online Journal of Our Adoption Journey

The Home Study

It went much easier than I expected, yet was not without its stressful moments and lingering afterthoughts.

Our social worker arrived on time and we showed her through the house right away.  It was like showing your home off to coworker who had finally come over one day for a get together.  She was very pleasant and didn't look throughout each room like some inspector, which had been what I was expecting.  We then sat down in the living room and she went into the questions.

She had read through our long personal questionnaires and dived right into what bothered her most: our lack of grieving.  Neither of us had mentioned any grieving period for not having our own, biological offspring.  This struck her as odd.  We should grieve, she said, for not being able to have children.  

That wasn't at all what I thought she would talk about.  I was worried about our rocky financial past, and the fantasy art hanging on the walls, and the sword collection, and about living in a smallish, rented duplex, rather than whether we had grieved or not.

No one has ever told us that we can't have children.  No doctor came into the little exam room and said, "Bruce, I'm sorry to have to tell you this but you have no sperm."  Nor has anyone told Lise that she doesn't have the necessary equipment for pregnancy.  On the contrary, all the doctors were very positive and upbeat about our prospects.  It just never happened.  Not once, not a start followed by a miscarriage, nothing.  So the question becomes, how does one grieve over an event that hasn't happened?  It would be like grieving over not winning the lottery, or grieving over not being hired by that killer online company with the cool bonus and pay.  It is upsetting, yes, but grieving?  For all we know Lise could get pregnant tomorrow.  We didn't know how to respond, except to say what I've just told you, but I don't think she bought it.  She just moved on to other things.  It has, however, haunted me for the last several weeks.  Should we be grieving?

Overall, though, it went well.  She came back the following week to talk with each of us individually.  It all pertained to our thoughts about each other, how we think we'll deal with a child, and she wanted details about our own childhood, and how our parents went about raising us.  She covered much the same ground that the questionnaire did, just adding onto those things she found interesting.

A few days later she called us and said that she had forgotten to get some information on our chosen guardians, i.e. - Autumn's god parents.  They who would take care of Autumn in the event that something were to happen to Lise and I.   We've picked my brother and wife, Brian and Jody, and told her as such, and gave her all of his information.  At the end of the conversation she said all is looking good.  She'll be sending her report to Holt, who then sends us a draft copy to check out for errors and/or misunderstandings.  We then send it to back to her and it goes on the rounds again, this time becoming official, with one copy going to INS and the other to us for the dossier.