The blog will be moving to a new host. Please visit us at http://ourmissingpieceblog.blogspot.com/
Godspeed Home Study July 8, 2008
Our home study is done. Yes, we got a copy of it last week and read the entire document cover to cover and it was a winner. No mistakes, not even little ones. We had been warned by other adoptive parents to read through the home study with a fine tooth comb because social workers were known for making glaring mistakes. One woman even told of how her social worker didn’t even get the husband’s name correct in the home study. Ours was great though.
From here, our home study must embark on a journey of sorts. It will be signed by our social worker and the director of the Korea program at Lifelink. From there, it is sent to DCFS in Illinois where it waits for approval from a state level and a letter of approval with some sort of official seal / stamp. We were told that approval takes somewhere between 2 – 4 weeks, but from the boards it sounds like it is taking people 6 – 8 weeks to get approval from DCFS.
Once the state of Illinois gives us the green light, we send our home study on to the United States Citizenship and Immigration office and they send it to the US Department of Homeland Security. Homeland Security will then review it and send us each individual appointments to get fingerprinted (yes again) and pass (yet another) FBI clearance. Once we are deemed to be upstanding citizens, we will get our coveted I-171H form.
Oh how I long for the day when I can twirl around my living room holding my I-171H form close to my heart.
Once the I-171H form finds its way home to us, we truly just wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and for the phone to ring with news of our referral. Then a whole new round of paperwork fun begins.
