PRIDE training was all over and we had handed in all of our paperwork. We were ready for our call to set up the home study. Only that call didn't come. I regularly called our trainer to find out where we stood. I called about once every two weeks and emailed about as often. Every time I talked to them, it turned out that there was extra paperwork that we needed.
For example, we needed background checks from each state that we had lived in over the last 10 years. We sent those out, but it takes time to get the results. We also had to get our gas lines checked to make sure there were no leaks. There was a lot of confusion on that topic. We were told to contact the city and arrange for an inspection. However, we we called them, they didn't know anything about that process. We called out a regular plumber, but he said that the house needed at least $500 of work to bring it up to code.
We were a bit at a loss at this point. We were renting our house and didn't want to pay that much for a place that wasn't ours. Our landlord wasn't going to pay them, and I don't blame them (it wasn't their decision to adopt kids). After a couple of months trying to find alternatives, we hired another plumber. After looking at the house for about 15 minutes, he gave us a clean bill of health. We sent the invoice in and that was sufficient. Lesson learned - don't make things more complicated than they need to be.
There were other odd bits of information that seemed to hold up our process such as not having our siblings' occupations. I'm not sure why my sister in Wisconsin's occupation has any bearing on our ability to raise kids, but whatever. We submitted that as well.
This wasn't just a month or two process. It took a year from the time we finished our PRIDE training to the time we were finally approved for a home study. Patience. Lots of patience.
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