i think we’ve found “the one”

the AGENCY, i mean.

Yesterday evening, J and i met with agency #4 from the post a few days ago.  we both liked her very straightforward, easy to understand manner.  She seems very honest and willing to tell us the truth, even if it’s not great news and she seemed very organized (a good trait to have in this field!).  I think it was clear from that other post that we weren’t interested in working with the only-in-state agency, and we both liked this social worker better than the first one we met with.  the other, bigger agency…. well, when I called them to try to schedule a private (for an extra $100 fee) meeting, it turns out that their social worker just retired (we actually had heard that from our friends) and that the new one wouldn’t start until the Monday after next (May 18) and would be in training all the first week, so our best bets are to attend the free meetings (May 12, three hours away from here OR wait until May 27 for the local meeting).  But then, we’d likely be assigned to this new local social worker.  Hmmmm…. I’m not sure I want to be someone’s first client.  Even if they’ve got history in the field…. I don’t want to help someone learn the system.  And I don’t think we’re interested in driving to some faraway location to find an agency, so…. hooray!  the only catch?  it sounds like this social worker encourages us to choose our own out-of-state agency to work with.  She suggested a few agencies that she’s got experience working with (and I did like a few of them) but we get to do a little of our own legwork calling these agencies to ask them some basic questions.  In the end, I think I’ll like this measure of control over the process, but … sometimes it would be nice to just have someone else make at least one of these million decisions for us!