home study - third social worker's the charm

• Social Worker #1 - $1800 - I spoke to a woman almost two weeks ago and she said she would send me a packet. I called her again last Friday and left a message saying I still had not received the packet and I was eager to get started on my home study, still no returned call or packet...

• Social Worker #2 - $1300 - I emailed the head office and they gave me the email for their Richmond area social worker. I emailed her - no response after a week. I called again and left a message, saying I'd not heard from their Richmond social worker and was there a better way to get in touch with her. They called me the next day (October 7) and gave me two phone numbers. I called her cell. She said "you live WHERE?!" She didn't want to go that far and anyway she was on vacation and really couldn't think about it right now (well then why did you answer your PHONE!). She is suppose to call me when she gets back from her vacation...
  10.13.08 update I got an email today asking if we'd found a social worker yet. She said if we hadn't she'd do it and in addition to the home study charges, she'd charge 45¢ per mile AND $25 per hour for travel to and from our house. yikes!
  

• Social Worker #3 - $1800 - We went to a free quarterly seminar at a family center on Tuesday night, my parents went too. They do home studies for three payments of $600, due at each meeting. An attorney spoke about the legal side of adoption. We really liked one of the social workers we met at the seminar.

I called the family center Wednesday (October 8) and they put a packet in the mail and took my "intake information" over the phone (name, DOB, address, SS#, annual income, religion, etc).

I received the packet from the family center today and I am expecting a call tomorrow to arrange our first meeting, hopefully for the week of October 20.

We still don't know if we will go with a domestic or international adoption. According to the social worker, we don't have to decide right away. She said the more people that know we are hoping to adopt, the better. I think she said something like 85% of adoptions happen because someone knows someone. So please feel free to tell anyone you know that you know we are hoping to adopt ;) Feel free to give them our phone number or email address.

afamilyisborn[at]earthlink[dot]net