We have our first adoption meetings on Thursday & Friday of this week. The meetings are mandatory for all adoptive parents and the topics range from dealing with infertility ( grrrr…) to country specific adoption information. It is a full 16 hours and while I am looking forward to it, I am dreading it at the same time.

The agenda came in the mail and the first time slot on the very first day is devoted to small group discussion of infertility and pregnancy loss in relation to adoption. OK, let me get this straight, you want me to meet people for the very first time and then tell them my deepest emotions and feelings and then shut up when I hear them say that it was not god’s will for them to have a baby so they “just” moved on to adoption? Isn’t this a very personal item for a small group discussion with complete strangers? Although I pour my life out to you on the internet, I don’t openly discuss my feelings in public. Very few friends and family members have ever seen me cry – happy or sad. I may be free flowing with the details of our infertility, but the emotions I hold close. My grief is personal. No offense to others around me, but this is how I am comfortable dealing with it.

Now I have to let complete strangers in? We will see how that goes.

In preparation for this portion of the meeting, I have been scanning the national adoption forum our agency manages. The threads are managed by country or domestic and are open to any one across the country or in the world for that matter. I have been trying to “get into this” aspect of adoption, but as with infertility I am just not a forum gal.

The forum seems to be a great place to share specific information about hair care, dossiers, referrals, and process or information related items, but the true aspects of blogging that I enjoy are not present. I appreciate bloggers for their writing and point of view that is usually (always in the blogs I read) explained in an eloquent nature with an absence of emoticons. :-)    With blogging, I can avoid those who I usually do not agree with, or choose the read them when I can handle the emotions that their comments may stir up.  For example, if you tell me you are sprinkling me with baby dust, I am not ever returning to your site. Period. That crap does not do anything but annoy me.  I do not believe there was immaculate conception in the case of Jesus or the package of the baby dust that arrives with those internet HPTs.  Sorry for the heathen comparison, but my practical brain just cannot grasp it. It also leads me to another reason I can not read the forums.  So many of the authors have a biblical verse below their “stats”.  I am sorry, but I am not OK with GOD and I could not swallow a comment made if it was sprinkled with baby dust or holy water.  I am entirely OK with others having a belief in God, Jesus, Allah, Amum, Zeus/Hera, or who ever, but I do not and having it forced on me will not change my mind, just aggravate me.  The other complaint I have about forums, is that there seems to be the forum master poster who can either make the experience good for all or just be a playground bully and know it all.

I may end up eating my words and will probably check out the forum through this process to either work myself up or calm my nerves, but for the reasons stated above and many others, I do not think forum posting is my “thing.”  We started an adoption specific blog which will be shared with family, friends, & you (if you promise to NEVER link to this site from it) and I plan on keeping this site going in addition.

What are your thoughts?  Do you post on blogs & forums?  If so or not, what are your reasons?

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BTW: spell check is not working so please excuse the spelling errors on my recent posts…