We had our Home Study this past weekend. For those not familiar with adoption processes, that means that a social worker came out to our home for two separate visits in order to interview us, observe our family, and assess our home. I wasn't particularly concerned about the Home Study itself. I'd spoken to the social worker on the phone a few times, and she works for our agency. So, I was comfortable enough with the idea of her coming, even with all the warnings that the process and the questions would be fairly invasive.
Lara, our social worker, came for the first visit on Saturday morning, stayed for about 5 hours, and then came back Sunday afternoon for a few more hours. She interviewed Josh and I individually, and together; talked with the kids a bit, and checked out the house. She wanted to make sure that we were able to care for another child, that we would be a loving, safe, and healthy family for the child, and that we really understood a lot of aspects of what would happen with the process, and after our new little one joins us.
Before the Home Study could take place, Josh and I each had to write an autobiography to help the social worker get to know us better, and understand where we were coming from. Apparently we did a good job with ours. Lara said that ours were so well written that she didn't even know what to ask us; she already had the answers she needed! Funny!
The cool part of the day came while Lara was finishing up her tour of the house. Josh was walking her through the house, and I was outside grilling lunch while the girls were playing on the swingset. Gracie suddenly called out "Mom, come see! A Ladybug!" I ran to get the camera. She was excited because ladybugs are cool to see, and we don't get a whole lot of them normally. I thought it was neat for another reason.
You see, ladybugs are thought to be lucky in Chinese Adoption. While I don't particularly believe in luck, I do appreciate the symbolism that this sort of thing has, and it was just fun to see it happen in the middle of our home study!
Why are Ladybugs considered lucky? Well, I Googled it, and apparently, it's not a Chinese thing itself. From what I understand, a while back there was a slow down in families being matched with their children. At the same time that they were waiting for referrals, there was also a huge number of ladybug sightings reported around the country. Right after the ladybug sightings, there was then a flood of referrals that came in for the waiting families. So, to this day, it is adoption folklore that if you see a ladybug, it means that you will be matched very soon.
Again, because we are kind of "fast tracking it" with the path we're taking it in this program already. And from what I'm consistently told by our dossier rep at the agency, we will most likely be matched quickly anyway, because of the medical conditions we've agreed to accept. So, again, I don't know how much seeing a bug actually does to assure anything concrete. It was a really fun little thing that makes you go "hmmm..." though.
... and Lara the Social Worker was very excited about it. She said it gave her chills!
fun!!!
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