In part one I talked about our original adoption support group, a large international focused one. Although we enjoyed the support and learned much from them, we later became square pegs trying to fit a round hole there. The surprise opportunity to adopt a newborn, independently and rather quickly seemed to distance us from some of our support group members, and well it became not so “supportive” for our family anymore.

I had often wondered if all those who adopt would be able to come together in one solid group to support each other, no matter where or how you adopted and not have to feel like you did not fit the mold. This first experience decided for me, at that time, that perhaps it would be a difficult thing to expect. I certainly did not wish to be the ground breaker for my family back then. I simply wanted to feel included and not so set apart from other parents. Our family was already different and felt isolated because of our adoptive status, but now I was finding that there could also be subtle variations within the adoptive community that could make it harder to find the right support. Our search began for another place to gather and locate adoption support that seemed to fit our needs.

I suppose if we had adopted through an agency we might have found better focused support, but that was not our experience, we were on our own. I began looking for local groups that catered to domestic adoption and infant adoption. Even here we had difficulty. I did locate groups that sprang out of foster parents who adopted domestic children. I also saw that most domestic newborn adoptive families tended to gather at the support group hosted by the agency they adopted through. Most agencies were not interested in including outsiders who had not used their services.

There was one group in the nearest major city of St. Louis, but after attending one meeting we found it to be rather small, mostly with adoptive parents in closed or foster adoptions and not welcoming children at the meetings. Well I for one did not want to hire a sitter for my children so I could go to an adoption support group! My original thought was more akin to what the first international group had followed in encouraging adoptive parents to bring children so they might meet other adoptees and form lasting friendships themselves. Another stumbling block.

With the feeling that perhaps our needs were so different it would be hard to ever find the right group we decided to begin our own. I know there must be better ways to start an adoption support group, but being uneducated as to how, we went about it not too successfully. My husband and I located a place to meet, placed adds in several local community papers announcing the group and meeting dates and waited to see what would transpire. Our first meeting brought out several families with young adopted children, mostly through foster care, a few families with private adoptions like our own, and also a few couples seeking to adopt a first child. An interesting mix, but over the coarse of the first five meetings people dwindled and fell away. I am not sure what we were doing wrong, but we were just unable to keep people involved without a lot of work on our part. The huge amount of work was not something we could do alone, so unfortunatly our little group dissolved. Still wishing for someone to talk to and share adoption issues and insights with, we began looking again at what was available. About that time we also installed the internet at home and we became aware of a new possibility for open adoption support.


Continued in Part Three- Internet Adoption Support