[J*e*n*_78]

Hi ladies! I was wondering if you had your baby room all set up for your home study? Right now it is just a guest bedroom- i wasnt sure if the social worker would want the room ready or not?

thank you!!!


jen

[mgmsrk]

You don’t need to have the room ready for the home study. It may scare some social workers. I’m not saying your not emotionally stable but having a nursery ready may give the impression that you think they are just going to had you over a baby asap as if it is your right. On a personal level it may be hard to look at over the next months or years. I assume that your homestudy will go along just great and you will bring home your child but if you are waiting for a healthy white infant it can take a few years, with a few serendipitous exceptions it will be generally be 6m to a year after the completion of the home study to bring any infant home. If it takes 3 years to find your child do you want to walk by the room every day? For some it would make it worse and for others it would give them hope.

[wannabigbabybelly]

We adopted through fostercare and yes we did have to have a room ready. But that is different circumstances than a normal infant adoption.

I'm sure all they will want to know at this point is that you do have a room selected that will be the childs room and that it is safe. Many adoptive parents wait until the child is home or at least matched before they start picking out nursery's and painting etc.

Try not to worry what others think of you. The adoption process can feel so invasive. If you do feel like preparing a room now is right for you then by all means do it. It won't make you look bad or desperate or anything like that.

Some expectant mothers enjoy seeing pictures of the completed nursery's in the adoptive parent profiles...so they can invision that as their childs room and their childs parents. So above all just do what feels right to you. If someone chooses to judge you harshly for it, then it wasn't the right match for you anyways. But no you won't fail an homestudy for either having a room completed or not even started.

[Kari]

In our adoption education classes our social worker urged us not to set up the baby room. She said it can be emotionally hard to see the nursery during the wait. I have a plan for the room, but will probably wait until the baby is born before decorating.

Just make sure you have a working smoke detector in that bedroom. That's probably all they will be looking for during the homestudy visit.

[alabamacutie]

I'm a social worker and supervise other social workers in child welfare. When our agency does home studies, we don't discredit you if the child's room is not set up. We look more at the potential custodians ability to parent, the financial means to care for a child, mental and physical ability, space for the child, and blatant safety hazards. Other issues may be addressed, but those are some of the big ones. Be yourself, and just be honest. Don't try to put on a show, a good social worker can really tell if you are being fake. We just want to make sure that generally the potential custodians are willing and able to care for a child if he or she is allowed to stay with them. Good Luck and I hope everything goes well.

[sarah16]

When we had our homestudy, we had to make a map of the house and then our social worker did a tour. We did not have the room set up.

[J*e*n*_78]

wow ladies! Thanks for the great responses!
mgmsrk and kari i didnt think about that.. it would be hard to walk by for years if it came to it. I think we will keep it a guest bedroom for now and definitely add a smoke detector in there!!

[mondk]

When we had our homestudy, I had just lost my twins, so the room was half put together to begin with, thinking I was going to need it for the babies. We basically had a room with a crib and some blankets and a few pictures on the wall. Our S/W was great and was more interested in the stroller we had. She spent about half an hour with dh showing her how the stroller worked...LOL.

Blessings, Michelle