Sunday, December 7, 2008

A Home Study

Three weeks. That’s how long it took Andrew and me to select our homestudy agency.

Two. That’s the number of homestudy agencies we had to choose from.

You wouldn’t think it would take that long to interview and gather information about each of the two companies. And it didn’t. What took so long was deciding who we were most comfortable inviting into our home to dissect our lives. That is not an easy choice. And if it hadn’t been for Pearl calling on one rainy October afternoon, I don’t think we’d be any closer today to picking an agency than we were then.

What set Pearl apart was that she listened to my questions, and she gave full answers to each one. The other agency rattled off answers to my questions as though they were inconveniences. I got the clear impression from them that I should have known the answers to everything I was asking. So that October afternoon, I stood in the rain asking Pearl every question that came to my lips while my class was going berserk in the background. And she answered them all, taking the time to make sure that each question was satisfied.

Both of the agencies had sent emails with information attached, or envelopes in the mail stuffed with brochures. Really, those are meaningless things. Anyone can print a shiny brochure or type an email with rosy descriptions of how wonderful we’ll feel when we choose you. What you can’t do is create the kind of confidence Pearl did on the phone with a letter or email.

So, I announced to Andrew when he came home that evening I’d decided what agency we would be using. We assembled the application, wrote another check and …. waited.

1 comment:

Elizabeth @ My Life, Such as it is... said...

We adopted domestically and our son is almost 4yrs old now. my sister and her hubby are just starting the process to adopt from russia. you will survive the homestudy - i promise. the agency you found sounds like ours and that made it so very easy. don't know ca laws but in tx you have to have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen - just an fyi!