Final Post-Adoption Report

Today was our final meeting with the social worker for Sasha's post-adoption reports. We had to have the face-to-face meeting early since Sasha will be away at school when the report actually has to be filed in October, so there will still be a telephone update just before the report is finalized and sent to Russia. Still the bulk is completed and there will be no more! They weren't a big deal, but they always seemed to fall during inconvenient, harried times in our lives, and my camera or photo printer always managed to go on the fritz when I was trying to get together the required seven poses. The required shot with Sasha, Ben and me together in the same picture always was a pain and turned out awful since Ben or I always take the pictures, so that means we must depend on a child to get that shot for us. It's usually one of the younger children too because we don't plan ahead and it seems that the teenagers are always gone when we think about it. Even though I know the home visits don't actually include a home inspection, I can't help but stress over getting the house spotless beforehand. Of course the others hate that time because I put the whole family to work picking up, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms and even scrubbing out the refrigerator! Besides the extra time and preparation needed for the home visits, our agency just started charging mileage even though we'd pre-paid for all the post-adoption reports long before the adoption was finalized. The mileage adds up to $50 per visit, so that's a little bit we no longer have to spend! Here's a favorite photo from our last report.