The process...part II

I left off with getting our BCs and marriage license--only the start of the paperwork! We got a local police records check for each of us here in St. Louis, and also got fingerprinted. The fingerprint cards went with me to Jefferson City (about a 1.5h drive) for our child abuse and neglect search and state police records check. The funny thing about this--our SW told us sometimes it's faster to take the forms than mail them. So I called the office in Jeff City and asked how long it would be if we mailed them v. bringing them in. The answer? SIX WEEKS if we mailed them--if I brought them in they would be done within an hour. *laugh* Tough decision, huh?
We had to turn in medical reports (physicals--more on this later) for each of us, and an employment letter for me and a letter from Mark's department stating he is a full-time student. Mark was able to get a physical (for free!) from the on-campus clinic since he is a student. We completed a home study application, an adoption worksheet, a financial statement, signed a services/fee schedule, and copied our last 1040 form (top page only).
After we'd turned most of our paperwork in, our SW sent us a list of questions to answer as our autobiographies. This covered just about everything you could think of, from how we were disciplined as children to our families' opinions on adoption! After our autobiographies were complete, we each met with our SW for individual interviews. I'm not sure what's supposed to be covered in these, but she and I (Courtney) spent most of the time discussing TV and kids who don't get enough sleep--and I had plenty to say on both of those!!