Individual Interview #1

Well, a couple weeks has passed and things continue to progress on the adoption front, though of course not as quickly as we wish. I know we won't be ready to go until Theresa is done with her school next September but that doesn't make me any less impatient. Like always, I want stuff done yesterday.

Anyhow, I had my individual interview with our social worker last Friday. The questions were much more in depth than in the first sit-down that Theresa and I had several weeks ago. Basically, we started from the beginning of my life and came all the way to the present day. I guess it was the stuff that you would expect her to ask of me in order to find out if I would be a suitable parent. She wanted to know about my parents, how it was being raised in my family, what my relationship was like with each parents growing up, what it is like now, who did the discipling, how the discipline was handled, what my relationships were like with my brothers both then and now, etc, etc, etc. We also talked about several of the issues that shaped my life during my teenage years and how those times have influenced who I am to this day. Then, of course, we talked at length about my relationship with Theresa, how it started, what attracted me to her, what I thought her strengths and weaknesses were, how we work through issues in our marriage, yada, yada, yada. I actually enjoyed the interview in the sense that it really made me think about some of those issues from my past that I probably never really realized had shaped me as much as they have. Maybe the field of social work isn't quite as "touchy/feely", feel-good as I thought. It was amazing how she was able to read what I had previously written and listen to the things I said and really put things into words that I hadn't been exactly able to come up with previously. Then again, maybe it was her 20-some years of experience in listening to people just like me and perhaps my life isn't quite as far out there as I sometimes think it is! :)

For those keeping score, I failed miserably in my task to get our paper work filled out and turned in. I had done absolutely none of it. However, after feeling bad about myself, I sat down for several hours this past weekend and did nearly all of the paper work. I think I signed and initialed more papers than I did for my mortgage. My hand was quite sore by the end of it all. A quick trip to Champaign this week allowed me to hit-up a free notary (thanks, Deb!) so most of the paper work is ready to go. Theresa just has to fill out a couple of her forms and we should be good to go. Those forms don't include two of the major federal forms for the USCIS, the I-600 and I-600A, which will be completed closer towards the end of our homestudy process to ensure they don't expire before our little girl comes home. We also don't have our medical physicals done yet either. South Korea has a weight requirement that says all prospective adoptive parents must be no more than 30% over their ridicuously low average weight for your height. They must be using gymnists and marathon runners to get their average weights because I can't believe that the "average" male at 6' 3" shoud be 188 pounds. Anyhow, I've got a bit of weight to lose before I'm within their guidelines so there is no sense in rushing into my physical yet. I think if I managed to go the entire month of January without a Diet Coke, I should be able to knock off these few pounds that I need to lose, right? Right!

Anyway, that's it for me. Next up is Theresa's interview, which I think it coming up later this week or sometime next week. I'm sure she'll get the same type of interegation that I got and then it will be another joint interview at the adoption office. The final interview then will be at our home. I'm not sure about the timeline for these last two meetings but I assume they will be within the next month or so. I can't say that I have much free-time for the next 4-6 weeks but I'm sure we'll find some time.

Thanks for reading along and for all the prayers. God bless!!

-PMD