Sweating the small stuff

As I’ve mentioned before, the only thing I dislike about adopting is the role third-parties play in my family planning.  Since I’m early on in the adoption of a child from Ethiopia, the third-party that is having a significant impact on my life right now is my local adoption agency.  For those of you who haven’t actually adopted, many people not only have an agency for the actual placement of their child, but they have an added bonus agency who does the paperwork necessary at the state level.  Two agencies for the price of one, well, two really.  

I’m in the process of getting my homestudy updated.  Shouldn’t be a big deal, as I’m using the same social worker, but I have to have a home visit nonetheless.  Aside from delivering to the agency documents pretty much describing most of the most intimate aspects of your life in detail, a social worker comes to visit your house.  The purpose of the home visit really is to see that your home would be a healthy/safe environment for the child you’d like to adopt.  That’s what they tell you at least.  For some reason, though, I just cannot act as though this is true.  Most people seem to sweat the disclosure side of the homestudy – you know, when you have to disclose whether you’ve been arrested, had a substance-abuse problem, health issues, etc.  I don’t have these issues, so instead of breezing through the process, I obsess about the home visit.

My social worker will be at my home in one week, and I have developed a homestudy cleaning plan in order to ensure my house is spotless by the time the SW arrives on Tuesday.  I will also be buying additional safety equipment (fire extinguishers) and enhancing my child-proofing.   An added bonus is that I was already scheduled to have two rooms painted and new light fixtures installed this weekend, so the house will be looking great.

What bothers me is that I know better.  Sure it’s great to have a thoroughly cleaned house, and there’s definitely a benefit to having additional safety features, but neither of these things are necessary for the homestudy update.  The problem here is that I’m allowing myself to fall onto the same obsessive path that I followed during my first adoption.  The path where I sweated each and every detail.  I’m afraid this does not bode well.

July 29, 2008 Posted by Oscar and Etta's mom | Adoption, Red Letters Campaign - Adoption Journal | cleaning, homestudy, intrusion, obsessions, paperwork | 1 Comment