Homestudy news

The volunteer coordinator from the hosting organization finally got in touch with me today. She told me the homestudy agency they are working with will NOT do the "mini" homestudy (she called it a first visit report) that we were originally told would happen. Instead, they will do a complete homestudy. That means that if the first visit report would have cost $350, the full homestudy will cost $1000 instead. That adds $650 to the expense of hosting a child for five weeks. I can't imagine a family doing a host-only program, only families that intend to adopt their host child would pay that much money, in addition to the over $1000 hosting fees, in addition to the related expenses (i.e., camp, clothing and food and entertainment, possible physical exam for the host parent). I'm also pretty sure that Colombia requires a psychological evaluation for adoption, but I'm not sure if that would have to be done for a hosting homestudy (those are pretty expensive, but I've never done one so I don't know how much money to estimate).

To say I'm displeased is an understatement. The $650 difference is quite substantial. If I decide to do a new homestudy, it's more economical to just update my old homestudy from several years ago. That would still be about $300 more than what I already budgeted, but not the $650 I'm now presented with. I know that I shouldn't let $300 control my future, but remember that this is not my first attempt at adoption. I have, unfortunately, a lot of experience with agencies that don't tell the full story. What I'm starting to hear now sounds like half-stories, and that worries me A LOT.

I also read that the children coming this summer are considerably older than in past years. Not that the children are older, but there are less younger children. While I don't feel like the child I adopt will join my family as an infant, I also feel that my child will join my family way before the teen years. From what I hear, if I host this summer, Invisible Kid may already be a teen. I'm not interested in that. That's not how I see myself as a parent.

Lucky Boy is trying to process this information. We're going on a mini-vacation this weekend (and unlike the promise of a mini-homestudy, or mini-vacation is actually about 1/5 of what we originally budgeted, using his tax return and anticipated rebate). We're going to spend some time planning things out, as I'm no longer confident this is the right option for me. "I don't want to see you go through it a third time," that's LB's feelings, and I definitely DO NOT want to go through "it" again.