How many references?

Mush-Tastic · July 2012

How many references did your agency require you to have? Were they all from different areas of your life? Did they all have to know you and your DH together as a couple?

We have to get 3 friend references, 2 co-worker references, and 1 pastoral reference.

It's hard because we don't have a ton of "couple friends" that we know well enough that we'd feel comfortable asking to do this for us.

And obviously my co-worker isn't going to know my husband super well or anything.

Can you tell what stage I'm in for this whole process?? Big Smile

Dr.Loretta · July 2012

5

They were from different areas of our lives

They didn't all have to know both of us. They were fine with people who knew just one of us.

Don't worry about it (I know, hard to do). One of our references was DH's boss. I never met him (still haven't). One was a friend of mine who I met on TB and who only met DH when DD was 4 months old. One was my BFF who has met DH twice: once at our wedding and once on a vacation we took as a group. One was a couple who knew DH for a long time, but had only known me a few years.

KdgTeacher · July 2012

I had to get my principal and MH had to get his Lt., we had to have 2 family (our parents, and 3 friends. So, total we had 7

ETA: The ones for our boss was more like Kdg makes $XXX/month, has a good future with employment, has worked here X years, etc." There was an option to add additional comments, which my boss did but MHs didn't.

All 3 of our friends knew MH longer. For example, one couple has known MH since 1st grade but me only the last 5 years. But they were able to answer the questions easily. Another was MH's former Sgt (who is like a dad to MH), but again he knew MH for 9+ years and me for 5.

IRR · July 2012

We needed 5 total - One family member, one business associate who did not really know my DH, and then we used 2 close friends of my husband (who I now know too) and one of my close friends who has kids. We were concerned about not having enough references that have seen us around kids, but it didn't really matter. My friends shared with me the questionnaire. One made me sit with her while she filled it out because she was concerned she might not say the right things. Overall, I am not sure the references matter too much, your SW just wants to get an idea about you and your spouse as a couple and I remember one of the questions which only my SIL could fill out honestly was about how our family will feel and treat an adopted child. None of our other references really know our family members to answer that question. I am sure whomever you pick for references will do fine and you shouldn't worry about it too much.

jenbabe · July 2012

We needed 4, they were not very specific except that one had to be our pastor. The others we used DH's brother, a former co-worker of mine that met DH a couple times but didn't really know him and another former co-worked that turned into our best couple friends.

njdcgirl · July 2012

We needed 3 personal references (not family) - we chose my BFF, DH's good friends who he used to rent an apt from, and a couple who I've known for a long time, but doesn't know my DH very well.

We also needed work references - but more general, like how long we've worked there, our salary, etc.

Our state also required a neighbor reference. I was kind of stressed about that, as we had just moved about 6 mos prior, and didn't really know our neighbors. However, we were allowed to use an old neighbor. We knew them for about 5 years, but not very well - mostly saying "hello", chatting accross the fence and at neighborhood parties. I think it is fine (we're still in the home study stage now)

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