Public Forums

It took me months to get back in and it's hit and miss whether I can log in these days. Very sad as I prefer the anonymity of this type of forum to Facebook groups.

The mumsnet forum these days is the best source of support from other adopters out there. Shame this forum is over.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adoptions

My plan last night was to go to bed and not bother staying up for the new year bells.

however, I clicked on your link, John, and OMG what an absolute hive of activity!

2 hours later, when I checked the time it was after 1 am and I couldn’t then sleep as my brain was well and truly awake!

I also did the same - quite nostalgic I thought!

I’ve saved the link

I’ve signed into Mumsnet but with some mixed feelings about it. Really miss the activity on these boards and the wisdom of adopters who have such valid experience.

The Mumsnet adoption pages look busy and I can see support and some good advice on there under the adoption chat. I do have issues with the amount of negativity bordering on hatred under some of the other headings (eg just looked under feminism chat and didn’t recognise it as feminism - more anti-transgender!) with some posts I can’t believe moderators haven’t removed.

I miss that when posting on this forum (about any issue) the connection to the world of adoption was taken as read, with people replying having a wealth of similar/relevant experiences. Looking under the education pages of Mumsnet I felt it was peeping into a different world (best independent schools / where to park your people carrier when you do school drop of in affluent areas of London. I dug out some really helpful tips of primary education that could help our son, but felt like I had to wade through a lot of posters highlighting their child’s high attainment levels to get to the useful stuff. I don’t mean posts that are celebrating achievements in a positive way. More showy/competitive elements that I haven’t experienced here.

I was hopeful for a long time that the boards could recover but think now it’s sadly beyond that point.

I looked at mumsnet and it was an interesting read on the adoption chat - however I wasn’t actually looking for support / information - or thinking of replying either which would require I presume a whole new registration. I’ve joined potato but don’t really use it as I don’t really like the format with Facebook and of course there’s the issue around data - I also joined adoption free forums but have rarely been on their either - there are a few familiar people but less traffic. One thing I find really hard is the different user names - even some when they come back on here are different - I really miss all the old familiar “faces” / stories! You immediately knew the contributors story and facts about their life / experiences that always added a different layer of perspective. It is very sad that all this has gone completely!

It's really easy to register on Mumsnet Safia, you just need an e-mail address (and username and password). It's instant.

I agree that it is sad that there is very little chat any more. I too looked at the link to Mumsnet, but felt overwhelmed by the length of some of the posts or the number on one subject. I too have mixed feelings about it.

In the past there have been posts around times like Christmas where you felt others understood the challenges or people suggested ideas to help each other.

I have learnt a great deal from other people's wealth of knowledge. It has been helpful too to know others are having similar challenges.

The positive things we may celebrate may be small steps, but would have little relevance to many people we meet.

Thanks to those who have continued to post and hoping things might improve.

I too have some unease about posting on mumsnet. It's a general forum and I'm sure that there are many people reading (and posting) on the adoption threads who do not have the relevant experience (or potential experience - to include prospective adopters!). Although I haven't seen this yet on there, you never know when a "forced adoption" rant is going to kick off.

However, I don't want to look at this in a negative way. I'm sure people log on, find nothing to read and then log out, without contributing. I'll start a new topic next......

It took me a year - and some significant code cracking to get back on here and I still didn’t manage to reclaim my original user name! I’ve been flirting with the Mumsnet Adoption forum but I would be so bold as to suggest that the majority of posters over there are still in their relative adoption infancy and so possibly still in their honeymoon period. I feel like the bad fairy every time I post to suggest (as sensitively as possible) that it’s unlikely that most adoptive parents will dodge the bullet and that there WILL be issues further down the line, regardless of how young the child/ren were when they were placed.

We were the poster kids as the perfect adoptive family with an easy-to-place, no-needs baby. Fast forward 10 years, and my elder adoptive child is registered blind (due to her in utero experiences), has a formal NHS diagnosis of neo-natal abstinence syndrome and we’re finally in therapy to try to stop our family unraveling.

I really miss the advice of the experienced adopters (Shadow & Donatella, it’s great that you’re still here and there may be others, but I’m endlessly confused by the new user names - is Garden still here, for example?). That’s why it would be a tragedy if these forums failed. Prospective adopters really need to know that adoption is not all unicorns and rainbows, but that it can involve violence and anger and depression and mental health problems, as well as breakdowns in relationships and a downturn in finances.

Garden / Flosskirk decided not to come back sadly but contributes regularly to the potato group. On there people use their real names (I assume though maybe aliases - mine is actually an alias as I don’t have an actual Facebook page but made one specifically for potato) so it is hard to know who is who (for me anyway though others may know each other in person of course)