My husband and I had a really good experience with Cyndi and Second Chance.  From the moment I first spoke to Cindy, I felt like I had found someone who could help guide me through the process of placing our son with a family better suited to meet his needs.  Obviously by the time you come to this decision, you are pretty broken down and unsure of yourself and what is best for your child.  I really appreciated that she seemed to understand what we were going through and that she was so positive about what things could be like for our son with a new family without giving me false hope.  She also had a very specific process laid out that I knew we would have to follow, so I was able to anticipate what steps came next.  I felt like the process was thorough and that she wouldn’t present us with a potential adoptive family without them being screened thoroughly.  I had contacted a couple of other agencies or groups that definitely did not help you through the process or to screen families.

Our son was 8 years old this summer when we decided to contact Cyndi and we found his new family within a couple of weeks of his profile going up on the Second Chance FB page.  We immediately connected with the adoptive parents, and I felt like Cyndi did a great job of making sure they met the criteria that we had laid out (homeschooling, opportunities to be outside, other children, an understanding of the challenges associated with FASD and RAD, etc.).  Cyndi was on the phone calls with us and really helped guide that process, as well as how to handle the first meeting with the new family.  She also helped us find a social worker in our state that could help us through the legal aspects.

Our son was placed with his new family in early July and he is doing really, really well.  He is eating so much better than he ever did for us, participating in homeschooling, and is much calmer and more content.  We keep in close contact with the family (this was something that the new family and our family decided we would navigate as they got to know our son and what would be best for him) and we actually just got to visit him at Thanksgiving.  The whole process has really been a blessing for our son first and foremost (because he is thriving in the new family), us as we have been able to see that our decision was the right one for him, and the new family, who loves him and is doing well.  I know not every situation will work out exactly like this or that it would be best in every situation, but we have really enjoyed forming a close relationship with our son’s new family and that has been such a great thing for our other children, as they have been able to see their brother happy and doing well.

I would definitely recommend Cyndi and Second Chance.   I am so grateful for people and families like you who are willing and able to make such a positive difference in a struggling child’s life by providing them with a new, loving family that is more suited to their unique needs.

My husband and I had been trying to adopt for almost two years. The first agency we used stopped returning phone calls and emails after receiving half of their fees. We decided to try again using a different agency. The owners and staff were wonderful, caring people but the children we had chosen were from a country that had impossible demands and used heartbreaking threats constantly.

On July 15, 2010, my 38th birthday, I received an email from RainbowKids.com with a picture of the cutest little boy that had been disrupted by his original adoptive parents. I quickly contacted the listing agency, Wasatch International Adoptions, and requested more information on him.

I was immediately contacted by Cyndi Peck and after our first conversation I knew I had found an organization that truly cared about the children AND about us! Once we were considered a match, Wasatch and Cyndi went above and beyond their duties to put us in contact with the agencies needed to revise our home study and helped us find an attorney qualified to handle the ICPC paperwork.

Three months after seeing that sweet face in my inbox, our son was home! Cyndi and I have stayed in touch and she assures me that I may call her whenever I have a question or am not quite sure how to handle a situation involving Noah. She recommends books, websites and shares the experiences she’s had with her own adopted children.

Our family is now complete and I am experiencing the sweet joys of motherhood.  Noah is thriving and we feel so very blessed to have the child we’ve dreamt of our entire life.