Tomorrow--stay tuned for a we met Kiya 5 months ago and she has now known us as long as she had known Ethiopia.
But today I need to VENT. I am angry, hurt, frustrated, mystified, saddened, freaking out and more.
Yesterday I was SHOCKED to find out that CHSFS, our agency, has decided to unexpectedly close their forum. I am at a loss. I 'met' and met some amazing people through this forum. It was my life line while we were waiting for Kiya. I honestly am not sure I could have survived the process without the amazing support I found there.
For all of you blog readers, I started this blog because of the people I met on the forum. I found their blogs inspiring and informative and wanted to connect with more adoptive families. You all are amazing. I feel honored to be in your company. I truly thank you all for your words of wisdom, virtual hugs and support. You are an amazing group of people that I am proud to call my friends.
We are in the process of trying to pick up the pieces and find a way to continue. We are emailing everyone we know to get them moved over to a new place. We are writing anyone and everyone in our agency pleading with them to change this. There is a WEALTH of info on that forum from adoption ethics, hair care, travel tips, packing lists, medical questions, tax questions, parenting tips, the unofficial list that I so faithfully counted down when we were waiting for Kiya.
As we are gearing up for adoption #2, we have a lot of thinking to do. I was looking forward to the forum and members of it is as we started our wait again. I am having a hard time imagining how adoption number 2 will be without that support system. It was one of the more appealing qualities of CHSFS. We have some soul searching to do. I check that forum daily and have posted more questions than I care to say.
I will deeply miss the community, the love, the honesty, the support, the hugs, the joy, the tears, the sense of family. The worst part is we as members of this forum are not getting ANY answers as to why they are doing this...it just doesn't make sense to close this off.
I would have been lost without all of you. I found everyone one of my blogging buddies either directly or indirectly through that forum.
6 comments:
When we were with our first agency, Children's Hope International, they unexpectedly closed the yahoo forum. They said it was because parents were being irresponsible (ie: questioning the agency on some topics), so the parents bandied together and created a NEW yahoo group. It's now being going strong for over a year. Oh, and the agency re-opened the forum when they realized the families were going to get together no matter what.
I wish your group the very best...hopefully you will all create a new yahoo group together!
I know! It is so disheartening and frustrating! I am so thankful that I had that forum in the first several months of our adoption process, and now I rely on the AGCI yahoo group for that kind of support...and all of you blog friends that I met through the forum and beyond. Why take a way such a useful tool to families? I appreciate you letting me know via email and for inviting me to join the new one. I'm pretty excited about the new group too. Thinking of you during your soul searching friend!
HI Cathy!
I just ran across your blog and noticed you live in WI....whereabouts? We are right outside of Milwaukee.
I also wanted to share that Bethany has forums that are available and are not just for Bethany families. If you go to Bethany.org and then forums, you can sign up. There are also forums at www.ethiopiakids.com that you can sign up for too. That one is non-agency specific!
Your little girl is just precious! Congrats!
I just recently found that forum, like last week after my social worker recommended it...and now it's shutting down...so sad! It seems like the best place online for ET adoption chatting too - everyone seemed to congregate there. I can only imagine how veterans feel after having been on that forum for so long now...so sorry!
It's been a pleasure getting to know you on the forum! And I hope we'll keep up over on the new Ning site. I can't believe the whole thing either. Am still in shock.
I'm with you Cathy! What a terrible dis-service to the families and clients of CHSFS. I'm shocked, too! There's a Korean forum called Kuenzel Forum---that was started by a CHSFS family and it's BIG now! Maybe we should start our own forum?? Let me know if you want to talk more about this!
Ann (newmomma2b)
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