Today I took the big step--I called our social worker and made our first homestudy appointment.  I'm sooo excited.  I hope everything goes okay!  There's so much we need to do to the house before she gets here.  I didn't realize what filth we lived in until I started cleaning for this visit . . .

June 13, 1998

    Today was the big day--our homestudy visit.  We needed some supplemental documents such as:

    - income tax returns
    - birth & marriage certificates
    - letters of good health from our doctor
    - autobiographies
    - letters of reference

She'll also be gathering our child abuse checks from somewhere.  The few days preceeding our visit, we were panicking, but we shouldn't have worried.  Chatting with our social worker really was like visiting with a friend.  She asked us about our families, how we planned to help our daughter know her Chinese heritage, about our church, and how we felt about infertility.  Some people have told me that these questions seem intrusive.  We, personally, didn't think so--it was her job to try to determine whether we'd make good parents.  She did tour the house, but it wasn't the white-glove inspection that I'd feared.  She wanted some approximate measurements of our daughter's future room.  But, contrary to what I'd heard, she didn't look in our closets, our cabinets, or our garage (which were all immaculate I might add!)  She also didn't check to make sure we'd baby-proofed--as she put it, we've got a year to get those things done.

    All in all, I'd rate this as a pretty positive experience.  She says it should be ready in about a month!