First Post-Placement Visit

Wednesday was our first post-placement visit. Or maybe it's called an "arrival visit." Anyway, it was our first visit from the agency after Isaac's arrival. This was the first time Laura, our social worker, saw Isaac as well. (She was out of town the night he came home.) I was so relieved to get this on the schedule this week. YAY!

The visit went well--at least, I hope it did. Laura was here about an hour. She mainly just asked us questions about how Isaac was doing, how he was eating and sleeping, how bonding/attachment was going, etc. I had a list of questions for her, too. So it was nice to exchange some information. Laura suggested that only family members hold Isaac for a while longer. We also got permission to travel out of state, which was another one of my questions. We hope to go to Tennessee soon to visit my family there.

Laura said that we will have two more post-placement visits--one at three months, and one at six months (these mean after Isaac's arrival--I asked just to be sure). Because Laura is getting ready to have a little bundle of joy of her own, she probably won't be around for our next visits (or at least for the three-month one). She was telling us that there will be some new faces at our agency. Hopefully we will meet them soon at an upcoming waiting-families dinner, which is supposed to be scheduled in the very near future.

Laura also mentioned that we can hire an attorney and start the finalization process after our three-month visit. As you can imagine, Tanna is very excited about those upcoming attorney's fees. LOL! I cannot wait to have this adoption finalized so that Isaac is legally and officially our son. We have had some issues with his name for insurance, etc., so I just want his name to be official and everything done and complete. It would be awesome (although doubtful) if we could finalize this year. That way, we can get the adoption tax credit when we file our taxes next year. But we probably won't finalize until early 2011, which means we'll be waiting until 2012 for that awesome tax break. Not that it's a big deal or anything, but it is a very nice bonus!

Laura will be writing a report from her visit with us. I asked if we would receive a copy of it and she said that we would not--but our attorney will when we are in the finalization process. We were asked to prepare some photos for her report. Laura requested about 10 pictures--photos of our whole family, of Isaac and Kate, and of Isaac in various activities since he's been home--mounted on 8.5 x 11 paper. I had some trouble getting my images uploaded on Tuesday night (we just scheduled our Wednesday-morning meeting on Tuesday afternoon), so I didn't have them ready when Laura was here. The good thing is ... the adoption agency office is not far from us, so it was no big deal for me to run them over there yesterday afternoon. As you can imagine, I had plenty of pictures from which to choose. :o)



While I was at the office, I picked up another placement letter from LaWanda. This one includes Isaac's Korean name as well has his American name. Hopefully this will be enough documentation for our insurance agency. (We received notice that they needed more documentation to add him to our policy.)

I will leave you with this, which hangs in the reception area of Bethany's Atlanta office: