Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Home Study Update

Well, we finally have some news to share with you. Unfortunately, it isn't that great, but at least it's news. I was beginning to think we were going to be stuck in the same spot forever. As some of you know, our agency (CHI) had some problems with some of their employees this past summer. The employees were doing some illegal things (don't know specifics) with home study paper work and pretty much got our agency in trouble with DCFS (yes, the employees were let go). Therefore, CHI has been under investigation the last 7 months. They were supposed to have been cleared by the new year, so that they could continue with the home studies! This is what we've been waiting for since October! However, if you know anything about DCFS, nothing ever goes fast. So, today I found out that CHI will not be able to do any home studies until after June 1. So now, we need to find a social worker here in town, or close, to give us our home study. This is a problem only because we had everything done for CHI. Which means, we might have to do several things over again. I'm not looking forward to that at all. However, CHI was very kind and are returning all our documents to us, including our money. So the only thing we really lost was precious time.

On a brighter note! Children's Hope International is still fine to do our adoption and I am still pleased with them. Also, we are remembering that everything is in the Lord's timing. And as James said, "Maybe the children we are meant to adopt, aren't ready to be adopted yet. And this time that we're waiting, is meant to match us with "our" children created just for us!" Thanks again for all your prayer and encouragement. God Bless!

5 comments:

Kim & Jamie said...

Hi! I just found your blog. My husband and I were with CHI when all the DCFS investigation started (it sounds from your time line we started the process around the same time). I know how hard it must have been to wait everything out these past few months, and I admire your patience and attitude towards the process. We were not so understanding and we wound up switching agencies in December.

Good luck with the new home study agency, and may your journey to your little one go quickly from here forward. (At least you are seasoned pros at the home study process now so it will go quicker!!)

Many prayers your way.

Kim in Chicago

Amanda said...

Good luck with CHI. My husband Jeremy and I just didn't have the same confidence in the so switched to Adoption Ark. We have our home visits from our homestudy agency next week!!!!!

Diana said...

We're from Illinois too. We live 20 miles south west of Freeport.

We are nearing the finish line of the paper-chase phase. Hope to bring a two year old boy home sometime this year.

Send me an e-mail and I'll invite you to our blog. chirodoc@frontiernet.net (yes Diana is a chiropractor)

Sending many good vibes your way.

Angela said...

I'm not sure where Galesburg is, but we are in Carbondale and Lifelink did our home study. We were very happy with them - they were very quick and answered questions promptly. Here is a link: http://www.lifelinkadoption.org/Offices-Southern.html. People also suggested Lutheran Family Services and Catholic Social Services.
Good Luck!

Angela

Matthew Ruley said...

The IA journey is so full of uncertainty, it suprises me that your agency would have left you in the dark about this circumstance, since I imagine it was no suprise to them (they knew about this before you signed with them (you mentioned Sept)).

There are very few IA stories that are perfectly smooth, so you are not alone. We changed countries and agencies (3 dossiers, the last one we assembled in 1 week).

You have a good attitude about this unfortunate situation, and have made so much progress in a short amount of time I am sure no matter what you decide to do to move forward, you will overcome this obstical. I look forward to following your journey to become a family.