Talking Homestudy on Sunday

We were getting so close to the end of all these classes. The closer we got the more excited we were at the idea of being parents. We would talk regularly and wonder if we would have a boy or a girl. What ethnicity would the baby be....how old would the baby be...we day dreamed about it all the time. We talked about it when it was just the two of us and we talked about it when we were out with friends or family. I think it was all we talked as it got closer.

I was out one day shopping and I found myself wandering in the baby isle. Wondering what we need and hoping we had saved enough money to be able to afford everything like diapers, clothes and furniture. It was hard to buy anything ahead of time because we had no idea how old the child would be. I was in my own little world when I came across a baby jungle animal theme on some bedding for a crib. I was in love with the idea. I loved that it was gender neutral and I started to envision it in the nursery. I came home and started bouncing the idea off my husband. Now being the artistic one in our family he had big visions...he was thinking of drawing jungle animals on the wall and making the nursery a piece of art. The more we talked the more excited we got.

Altho we both loved the theme and we both had a vision of our future in that one small room we were soon talking ourselves out of the idea of painting the nursery until we were finally approved by social services. There were still a few HUGE steps that needed to be taken. We had two classes we still had to complete. Luckily one we could do online and the other was CPR and First Aide and we needed a free Saturday to spend to complete the course. The biggest obstacle left for us though was our home study.

The home study to me was the most intimidating thing we had to complete. Just the name of it was unsettling...HOME STUDY! First of all I hate to study and more than that I hate to be studied! The other part was I wasn't completely sure what a Home Study meant. I did know that my husband and I would both be interviewed separately for four hours a piece by an unbiased party and then as a couple for another four hours with the same person. The whole idea was to get to know us as individuals and as a couple. This one person could change our future by taking the information they found and putting it in a report of social services. The whole idea of it was so overwhelming.

One Sunday we talked to my pastors wife about the Home Study. We asked her what we could expect and she tried to ease our fears by telling us the kinds of questions they would ask. She told me that the four hours alone were all about how you were brought up as a child. Things like how your parents praised you or disciplined you. I just smiled at her as if to say...oh my up bringing... yeah that should be an easy conversation...what she didn't know my history. As she talked I was already spinning out of control in my head... I was thinking...Great that is where all this is going to fail! They are going to figure out I was an abused child and then they will thank us for our time and send us on our way! I can't believe we took all those classes for nothing....as I looked at my husband he could tell I was freaking out and he just put his hand on the small of my back as if to say...its okay calm down!

Even tho I had jumped onto the worry train....my pastors wife was still talking about their experience. She proceeded to tell me they would then get us together as a couple and we would talk about things like who manages money in our home....how would we discipline a child....they would want to know how we fought as a couple...how sexual are we as people....they would even ask why we wanted a child....and then I began to try and answer all these questions as I let the questions raced thru my mind.

Some of them were easy answers and to discuss with a total stranger. It was no secret I was the accountant and I managed our money. But then there were other questions I had no idea how we would answer. How would we discipline a child...we hadn't even talked about that. I guess I hadn't even thought about it..I wondered if my husband had? And who wants to tell a total stranger how sexual they are as a couple? And what does that even mean? Do they want a count of how many times we are intimate in a weekly or monthly period? Or are they interested in if there is porn in the house?

As my pastors wife talked I became more nervous. I noticed I had started to shift my weight from one foot to another as she talked. I even started to bite my nails like I did when I was a kid and I was worrying about life. She ended by telling us, we should have no problems with this part to just have faith that God would give us what we needed to make it thru the interview. And then there was Jackson's voice again...THIS IS NOT UP TO YOU! But it was to late I couldn't hear Jackson this time...all I could hear was my own fear...and my biggest fear was this would be the part we would "fail" and we wouldn't get to be parents. I didn't know if I could live thru failing at this too. I didn't want it to be because of my past that we couldn't have a child....but I knew that was a big possibility!