The Questionnaire

 We have been sent the questionnaire to end all questionnaires. This reminds me of those email questionnaires that used to go around when I was a teenager (do kids still do those things?) but on steroids!

We're back to more forms where we tick off boxes but this time we're describing our past and current relationships with our parents, describing our parents past and current relationships with each other, describing our childhood memories, how we were disciplined and so much more!

At this time I would like to ask our parents to take a deep breath and remember that we love you all. And just in case you think that you're being singled out, I'll let you know about a few of the questions we have to answer about ourselves.

What were we like as children? Well, that's not so bad. Happy, anxious, nervous, awkward and funny seem to be a good place to start.

How did we behave as teenagers? We get choices like: rebellious, curious, immature, responsible, kind, moody and more. Umm, how about all of the above (sometimes all of the above within the course of an hour...)

But it gets worse. Describe your early sexual experiences with choices like: awkward (duh), loving, shameful, romantic, hurtful, curious, limited and more.

And then it gets even more personal when we get to describe our current "sexual compatibility": Very compatible? Compatible? Sometimes compatible? Not compatible (I have a headache?)...

So we're going to each sit down (with a glass of wine?) and fill out our forms separately and then compare, which should make for a few laughs and some good conversation. Please, don't think that because we are laughing that we're not taking this seriously. This is an important step towards our social worker learning more about us and what kind of people we are/ what kind of parents we'll be.

Luckily we're pretty open and honest folks who talk openly and honestly with each other and those around us so this process doesn't feel scary or too intrusive. If nothing else, it is a great chance to get anything on the table that needs to be dealt with before we become parents.

Soooooo Sloooooowwwwwww

We finally met with a social worker. The same one who taught our Adoption Education Program. After a year (A YEAR!) of waiting to change our adoptable age range, discuss special needs and 'clean up' our application we have finally completed another step towards starting a homestudy.

There is still no telling how long we will wait for a homestudy. We have been told that we seem like great people, that our application looks good and that we'd probably make good parents. So it's not like they have concerns that are holding up the process.

Something really frustrating that we've learned is that any time someone is willing to adopt an older child, they get put ahead of us on the homestudy wait list. It could be that no matter how long our file has been gathering dust, any time someone says, "maybe I'd adopt a 14 year old" they get moved up the line and we get pushed back.

Now, I'm all for teen adoption. But this system seems a little counter intuitive. Wouldn't it make sense to get some of those 6 and 7 year olds adopted before they reach their teenage years and become harder to place? Would it not be prudent to have some workers who specialise in teen adoption and some who specialise in school age adoption?

But alas, we are not in charge of the system (nor would we want to be!). So we wait.