Adoption: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice? Reflections by an American Adoptive Mother on Infant Adoption, Birth & Reunion. Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald. 2003. 196p. Publish America. Fitzgerald is both a biological and adoptive mother and in this memoir examines the pros and cons of open, semi-open, and closed adoption practices from the point of view of adoptees, birth mothers, and adoptive parents. The adoption in 1969 of the author’s four-day-old daughter was closed, and Fitzgerald’s family only emerged from the dark woods of secrecy when her daughter’s birth mother and extended family met up with them 29 years later. This wonderful joining of the respective families has enriched everyone’s life, including that of the grandchildren. Today, Fitzgerald is passionately opposed to closed adoptions and advocates the semi-open practice.

Adoption & Loss: The Hidden Grief. Evelyn Burns Robinson. 2000. 250p. Clova Publications (Australia). What becomes of women who give up their children for adoption? Why do so many adopted people feel such a strong desire to seek out their families of origin? In what ways are families with adopted children different from other families? This book by Evelyn Robinson provides the answers to these questions and many others. Evelyn Robinson gave up her son for adoption as a young student. She then returned to study many years later in a bid to understand her experience and its outcomes. She tells her story of an unplanned, teenage pregnancy and its aftermath and then describes the insights that she gained as a social worker into all aspects of adoption and how it affects those who are adopted, those who adopt and those whose children are adopted by others. Her startling conclusion about the future of adoption is challenging and controversial. This book is a brave and compelling exploration of both personal experience and academic research. Her powerful message, about the consequences of adoption, is one which no society in the world can afford to ignore.

Adoption & Recovery: Solving the Mystery of Reunion. Evelyn Burns Robinson. 2004. 250p. (A Companion Volume to Adoption & Loss: The Hidden Grief). Clova Publications (Australia). Evelyn Robinson has followed up the international success of her first book Adoption and Loss: The Hidden Grief (above), with this companion volume. This unique book, based on Evelyn’s personal and professional experiences, is essential reading, both for those who have read and appreciated her first book and for those who want to understand the long term impact of adoption separation on people’s lives and the meaning of the reunion experience.

Adoption Reader, The: Birth Mothers, Adoptive Mothers & Adopted Daughters Tell Their Stories. Susan Wadia-Ellis, ed. 1995. 288p. Seal Press Feminist Publications. The Adoption Reader contains essays and stories by birth mothers, adoptive mothers and adopted daughters. These diverse stories of women’s lives illustrate how women have moved through their adoption journeys in order to name and claim their whole lives. The thirty essays written by well known authors such as Louise Erdrich, Nancy Mairs, Shay Youngblood, and Florence Fisher, along with many less established writers, cover topics such as: open adoption; international adoption; lesbian families; single parent adoptions; bi-racial adoptees; reunions; open records;special needs children and foster parenting. This is a wonderful “gift book” for birth mothers, adoptees, adoptive families and for clinicians and administrators in the adoption field. The book has been favorably reviewed by major adoption organizations (AAC, Adoption, PACT, Roots & Wings, Chain of Life, etc.) and by academic/women’s studies journals alike. [Library Journal, The Women’s Review of Books, etc]. The Women’s Press issued the British Edition of the book in September, 1996. This has become the best-selling book at adoption conferences nation-wide and is being “adopted” by women’s literature and family studies courses through-out the USA and Canada. — Susan Wadia-Ells, 11/18/96

All the Missing Pieces. Alexandra Daye. 1998. 220p. Xlibris Corporation. Finding her daughter Paula is a double-edged sword for Sara. Though Paula reciprocates her birth mother’s love, anger erupts when Sara sees Aaron, whose brief sexual pleasure had shattered her hopes and dreams thirty years before. About the Author: Though living in the beautiful California foothills inspires creativity, Ms. Daye applies her psychological training when writing mainstream novels about how cruel life experiences motivate human behavior.

Being a Birthparent: Finding Our Place. Brenda Romanchik. 1999. 20p. R-Squared Press. Open adoption has taken birth parents out of the closet and into the normal, everyday lives of adoptive families. What does it mean to be a birth parent in an open adoption? How has this experience changed us and how does it effect the other parts of our lives? These are just some of the questions answered in this enlightening guide.

Beyond Happily Ever After. Sally McNamara. 2000. 229p. Gateway Press, Inc. “Another Chappaqua love story (not Bill & Hillary), this is a tale of an April 1995 phone call that blew me away. He said he was the baby I had surrendered for adoption in 1956 while I was a poor college student in NYC. This is the story of a developing relationship, some parts of it great, some not so great—an emotional roller coaster.” The author was a 31 year resident of Chappaqua, now as an empty nester relocated to Waccabuc, NY. About the Author: She is the mother of four, grandmother of seven, a graduate of Hunter College, New York City 1956, and holds an MBA in marketing from Pace Univerity Pleasantville. Married for 38 years to the same man, she had a career in non-profit fund raising and public relations before and after her family arrived. While raising the three children she was fortunate enough to keep she served as a Chappaqua Library Trustee (5 years) and for 10 as board member and then as president of the local and County League of Women Voters.

Beyond the Bridge: The Compelling Story of a Reunion. Linda Ehle Callens. 2005. 326p. PublishAmerica. Beyond The Bridge is an autobiography by Linda Ehle Callens. She was raised in Salinas, CA, during the ’50s and ’60s. After nine years in parochial school, she began attending public school. She was a devout Catholic girl until she fell in love at the age of 16, got pregnant, and was forced to relinquish her baby to adoption. That was in 1967, when few people understood the repercussions of giving up a child. Linda vowed she would find her son someday—to tell him she had always loved him. In 1990, she joined a search and reunion organization and gained a great deal of knowledge about the effects of adoption before she found her son. But nothing could have truly prepared her for the roller-coaster ride she was about to board. When this book was finished, she had been reunited for 13 years—and the ride was still going.

Birthmark. Lorraine Dusky. 1979. M Evans. “They call me a ‘biological mother.’ I hate those words. They make me sound like a baby machine, a conduit, without emotions. They tell me to forget and go out and make a new life. I had a baby and I gave her away. BUT I AM A MOTHER.” When at the age of 23, Loaine Dusky, an ambitious newspaper reporter from the Midwest who was determined to make it to the top, gave away her baby, her life was changed forever. Despite apparent professional and personal success, she has been haunted by the past. This book is her first step in a personal odyssey to find herdaughter and a public statement against the institution of adoption.

Birth Mother Trauma: A Counseling Guide for Birth Mothers. Heather Carlini. 1992. 176p. Morning Side (Canada). Some birth mothers go into a prolonged mourning period following the relinquishment of a child to adoption that can last for years. Birth Mother Trauma offer s Seven-Stage Recovery Program for the birth mother that takes her through the following steps toward healing: Denial, Survival, Awakening, Grief Work, Bargaining, Forgiveness and Transformation.

Birth Mother’s Book of Memories, A. Brenda Romanchik. 1994. 60p. R-Squared Press. This beautifully designed book is meant to be a present from a birth mother to her child placed for adoption. The book begins by giving room for the birth mother to describe her childhood, family, friends and family traditions. Then she can write about her pregnancy and the decision to make an adoption plan. Finally, there is a section for her to recount memorable moments with her children as they grow. There is, of course, plenty of room for photos.

Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their Stories. Merry Bloch Jones. 1993. 296p. Chicago Review Press. Each year, up to 100,000 women in the United States surrender babies for adoption and become “birthmothers.” In this book, more than 70 of these women tell of their experiences—heart-wrenching stories that will inform, fascinate, and deeply affect everyone who reads them.

Birthparent Grief. Brenda Romanchik. 1999. 20p. R-Squared Press. Placing a child for adoption is a huge loss that few understand. Ms. Romanchik, a birthmother, takes the mystery out of the experience by helping birthparents define the loss and understand the grieving process. Not only for birthparents, this is a great book for anyone who wants to help a birthparent through a very difficult time. About the Author: Brenda Romanchik is the birthmother of a 15-year-old son, Matthew, whom she placed in an open adoption at birth. She is the author of a number of open adoption books and publications as well as the owner of R-Squared Press, a publishing company dedicated to bringing the public resources for open adoption. Brenda is a firm believer that for open adoptions to work, those involved need practical information on how to handle the relationships open adoptions create. She also believes that birthparents and adoptive parents need ongoing support. With this in mind, in 1994, Brenda organized the first Lifegiver’s Festival in Traverse City, Michigan with Jim Gritter, the author of The Spirit of Open Adoption. Since that time she has facilitated seven national Lifegiver’s Festivals in Higgins Lake, MI, and is taking it “on the road” to other locations all over the country. She is also involved in organizing The Open Adoption Families Conference, held every even year. She is also a participant in a number of national and regional adoption conferences.

Birthparents’ Perspective on Adoption, The. 1987. 15p. CUB.

Bitter Fruit: Women’s Experiences of Unplanned Pregnancy, Abortion & Adoption. Ann Perkins & Rita Townsend. 1992. 286p. Hunter House. In this stunning work, dozens of women speak openly about their choices and their lives, from backroom abortions to pregnancies within destructive relationships—-and the conflicts, loneliness, and confusion surrounding their decisions. Some of the women are now grandmothers, others still painfully young. Their oral histories, poems, and vivid illustrations reveal what it means to be a child-bearer in our society today. Most of all, Bitter Fruit is an unforgettable study in human courage—-the courage to choose, to endure, and finally, to be heard.

Bittersweet: The Restoration Continues. Gay Lewis. 2008. 235p. Winepress Publishing. What happens to an eighteen-year-old who discovers she’s pregnant her first semester at Bible school? And what happens twenty-five years later when that baby reappears in the life of that young woman, now a wife and mother? The story is Bittersweet, its pain and despair overlaid by the grace and forgiveness of God and the miracle of restoration. About the Author: Gay Lewis is the author of the original Bittersweet (1984) (see cover depicted at right). She is also a speaker, most often dealing with family topics. She believes that the concept and example of “family” is of utmost importance in today’s world. She and her husband, Tom, and other members of their family are presently launching into a speaking and musical ministry, to share a message of restoration and hope. Gay has a life-long passion for writing and has worked at the annual Mount Hermon Writers conference for 21 years. She and Tom also managed a private retreat center in Maryland for four years, with the International Foundation. High school sweethearts, Tom and Gay have been married for 48 years. Their practical, family experience has been gained from four daughters, four sons-in-law, eighteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Child Custody For Men Only, Part Two: The Illicit Adoption of the Author’s Child by Mia Farrow & Woody Allen. Carl Guichard Sr. 2005. 176p. Authorhouse. See, http://www.andythibault.com/columns/cooljustice-9-19-05.htm for a contemporaneous report concerning this book.

Choices, Chances, Changes: A Guide to Making an Informed Choice About Your Untimely Pregnancy. Carol Anderson. 1981. 62p. Concerned United Birthparents. “This booklet was written in response to the many questions CUB members are asked by people who are experiencing an untimely pregnancy. ... We [birth parents] are experts ... because we have all faced unplanned pregnancies ourselves. We hope that sharing our experiences and feelings will help to stimulate your thinking. We hope this booklet will help you to understand how many birth parents feel, and how you might feel if you decide to place your child for adoption. We hope that this booklet will help you to learn and understand more about your choices, because whatever decision you make will affect you for the rest of your life.”

Chuck: An Experience. Carl Sterland. 1969. 181p. Doubleday. The author’s search for his long-lost illegitimate son.

Crying Shame, A: A Moving, True Story of One Mother’s Lifelong Unwavering Love for the Son She was Forced to Surrender to Adoption. Carol J Tieman. 1994. 148p. Sleepy Hollow Publishing. A Crying Shame is the story of a mother’s love for the first born child she was forced to surrender to adoption. Personal, emotionally charged and an expressive, heartfelt story that is shared by most mother’s who were given no choice but to relinquish a child to adoption in the last few generations. About the Author: A mother at 17, unwed and left by the child’s father, Carol was taken to a “home” for unwed mothers where she stayed until the “problem” was resolved. 18 years later she began her search for the son she never stopped loving and worrying about.

Dear Birthfather. Randolph Severson. 1992. 13p. Hope Cottage. Birth fathers are often the forgotten member of the adoption circle. This book hopes to remedy this situation. Its down-to-earth tone will appeal to teenage fathers who are concerned about doing the right thing. Dear Birthfather gives them the information and support they need to make the appropriate decisions during a difficult time.

Dear Son: Letters From a Birth Mother. Angela Dion. 2002. 132p. PublishAmerica. Have you ever wondered about the heart of a birth mother? How could she carry a child for nine months and give him away? How can she overcome the shame and guilt and learn to forgive herself? Does she think about reuniting with her child? What goes through her mind when she signs the adoption papers? How does she feel each year on her son’s birthday? This book will answer these questions and many more. Get a candid look into the heart of a birth mother in letters she wrote over the course of 20 years to the son she placed for adoption. Grow, cry, laugh, forgive, and heal with her. Learn, as she does, that sometimes saying good-bye is the best way to say “I love you.”

Death by Adoption. Joss Shawyer. 1979. 291p. Cicada Publications (New Zealand). Death by Adoption is the death experienced by the real mother. The baby she carried can actually die for her at either the moment of birth or as she signs consent. It would be more bearable if the child really did die, for then she could grieve and so recover from the death. But although the child died for her, it remains very much alive for someone else. And alive for her too. Or it would be, if it weren’t dead. Although some adopted children die in childhood she will never know if one of them is hers and will continue to look in hope (when there is no hope) that one day her child will try to find her. From the moment her child is gone, she must hide the stretch marks and pretend she never had a baby. We do not allow her to grieve and even if we did and she understood why she feels the way she does the grief will always remain unresolved for the simple reason that the child is not dead. About the Author: Joss Shawyer is a New Zealand feminist who pioneered self-help services for single (“unmarried”) mothers during the 1970’s. Herself the single mother of twins born in 1969, she raised her twin son and daughter to adulthood in defiance of the extreme prejudice against single mothers prevalent at the time of their birth. In 1973 Joss founded “The Council for the Single Mother and Her Child.” As a result of the council’s campaigning, many “unmarried” mothers’ homes changed their policies on enforced adoption to assist women to raise their children themselves, while other institutions closed. The council was the recipient of the “Best Use of the Media” award for public education at the 1982 Media Women’s Awards. In 1975, Joss co-authored an information booklet Everything a Single Parent Needs to Know that went into six editions. All money raised by the sale of the publication went to support services for single mothers. In 1976 she became a foundation member of “Jigsaw,” an organization originally set up to help women trace children lost to adoption or find their missing mothers. In 1979, Death by Adoption was published and distributed in New Zealand, Australia and England. The title encapsulates the loss and grief experienced by women forced by social policies and related legislation to surrender children for adoption. The book made a powerful strike against the trade in babies and influenced profound changes to adoption law and practice in New Zealand. There are now fewer than 400 adoptions registered in New Zealand annually. Stories about Joss and her work for women have featured in many New Zealand publications. The Minister of Women’s Affairs recommended her for a Queens Service Medal and she was awarded the 1990 Commemoration Medal by Queen Elizabeth for “raising the status of women in New Zealand.” Death by Adoption is now out of print. Joss is currently researching and writing a North American edition for publication in 2004.

Don’t Ask Her Name: An Adoption Story. Robyn Cooper. 1998. 231p. Cape Catley Ltd. (New Zealand). “Don’t ask her name.” These were the lawyer’s forbidding words to the young couple who had come to sign adoption papers. They wanted the birth mother’s name so they could thank her, and later pass the name on to their children. But first with their baby girl, then their baby son, all contact with the birth mothers was forbidden. Forbidden, that is, until the Adult Adoption Information Act 1985 made it possible for birth parents and their adult children to get together. When the birth parents of Katrina and Aaron made contacts a remarkable series of events was set in motion. Robyn Cooper writes with candour, humour and warmth about her family. The story is interwoven with her own childhood and growing up, and is rich with many aspects life, as well as the whole question of adoption. But there is illness, tragedy and deep anguish too, overwhelming feelings needing courage and determination to work through. Instances of brutality, carelessness, ignorance and insensitivity on the part of some doctors and some social workers seem extraordinary in the New Zealand context. Robyn Cooper doesn’t wallow in the sensational; neither does she gloss over such behaviours. In spite of all this Don’t Ask Her Name is often genuinely, beautifully funny—a most readable and eventually triumphant story of a truly extended family.

Einstein: A Life. Denis Brian. 1997. 509p. John Wiley & Sons. His name is synonymous with genius. His work helped shape the twentieth century and point the way toward the next. In the more than forty years since his death, Albert Einstein has continued to intrigue and inspire new generations. Now, in the first full-scale biography of Einstein to be published in some twenty years, acclaimed author Denis Brian probes the private, public, and scientific personas of the enigmatic man behind the legend. For two decades, Denis Brian pored over the Einstein archives and conducted extensive interviews with the scientist’s friends and associates. In the process, he discovered a wealth of absorbing new information, much of it previously withheld by those closest to Einstein—including Helen Dukas, his personal secretary, and Otto Nathan, the executor of Einstein’s estate (a daughter, Liserl, who may have been given up for adoption; his mentally ill son, Eduard, who died in a Swiss psychiatric hospital; a long string of affairs; and the recent allegations that his first wife, Mileva, was an unacknowledged collaborator in the discovery of the Relativity Theory.). What emerges in Brian’s brilliantly drawn life of Einstein is a down-to-earth and always compelling figure. Exploring this staggering legacy in conversation with many of Einstein’s contemporaries, Denis Brian penetrates the veil of formulas, theories, and experiments to expand our understanding of their meaning. With incisive, intimate detail, he recreates the world in which Einstein worked, in solitude and with others, revered by his assistants and enjoying warm relationships with other physicists. Also included in Brian’s comprehensive portrait are the FBI’s investigation of Einstein’s alleged communist connections, as well as his efforts on behalf of Europe’s Jews during Hitler’s rise to power, and his ardent support of the formation of the state of Israel. See also: Einstein: A Life in Science by Michael White, John Gribbin (1993).

Ever After: Fathers & the Impact of Adoption. Gary Coles. 2004. Clova Publications (Australia). Gary Coles was not present at the birth of his first child in May, 1967. Named “Peter” by his mother, Kay—the woman Coles describes as his “first love”—the boy spent his first 11 days of life in a hospital nursery before being taken into the home of a couple who would be his adoptive parents. It was a decision that Coles and Kay, who were barely in their 20s, had determined was best. With no family support in an era when single motherhood was frowned upon, the young lovers felt that there was no other choice. That moment signalled the start of what business process analyst Coles, 58, came to call his “wasted years”—more than two decades of building a wall around himself and distancing himself from career, friends and even family. Twenty years of wondering what had become of “Peter.” In Ever After, Coles writes for “all those people whose lives have been changed by adoption, but in particular for men who have lost a child through adoption.” About the Author: Gary Coles is a man with an adoption experience. He has a son, who has, since his birth, lived with another family. Like his first-born son, Gary was born, raised and educated in New Zealand. Since 1969, he has been a resident of Australia. For fifteen years he was an exploration geologist, which allowed him to journey into the remote regions of the island continent. After 1985, he moved into managerial and process improvement roles in the resources and energy industries. He has never lost his passion for discovery, travelling to many countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Gary began exploring his adoption experience in 1992. As he has come to understand what it means to be the father of a child he has never seen, he has shared his insights with the public. Since 1998, he has presented papers at international adoption conferences, had over thirty articles published, is a past member of the board of the Melbourne-based state post-adoption services organisation, and, most recently engaged audiences as a speaker at seminars. He wrote and published his first book in 2004. Ever After: Fathers and the Impact of Adoption was considered by reviewers to be a landmark, because it articulated the perspectives of the men who hitherto had been scarcely considered in discussions and writings about post-adoption experiences. With Ever After: Fathers and the Impact of Adoption, his primary objective was to inform readers about how birth fathers are affected by adoption. In his second book, Transparent: Seeing Through the Legacy of Adoption, Gary brings the birth father into the mainstream, as a member of the family (mother, father and child) separated by an adoption. For the first time in adoption literature, the father is acknowledged as a significant contributor to the healing of the emotional wounds suffered by three adults—the mother, the adopted person and himself. Author Photo: James Boddington.

Everything You Need to Know About: Placing Your Baby for Adoption. Aliza Sherman. 1997. (Rev Ed, 2001). 64p. (gr 7-9). Rosen Publishing Group. At last, an easy to understand book for you to read if you are considering making an adoption plan. This book explains the entire adoption process and includes information that will help you to make the decision that is correct for you. It explains how adoption works and discusses the choices that are available. If you are a pregnant teenager, this book will thoroughly explain to you the adoption option. If you are the parent of or are working with a pregnant teenager, you should get her this book. Placing Your Baby for Adoption should be in every school and social services office where young women will see it.

Fifty Years in 13 Days: A Mother/Daughter Reunion. Katie DeCosse & Jackie Maher. 2009. 130p. CreateSpace. It may have been the right choice at the time, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Fifty Years in 13 Days: A Mother/Daughter Reunion tells the story of one Jackie Maher and her reunion with her daughter after fifty years. Originally giving her daughter up for adoption to avoid the stigma of single motherhood in the 1950s, Maher reflects on her past and how she eventually chose to find her daughter and reconnect with what has empty inside of her all these years. Fifty Years in 13 Days is a fine and inspirational read that will make anyone appreciate their mother or daughter so much more.

Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother’s Memoir. Janet Mason Ellerby. 2007. 240p. Syracuse University Press. Set during the sexual revolution of the sixties, this moving work recalls the decade’s prodigious effect on a generation of Americans that came of age during that transformative time of changing mores. Janet Mason Ellerby follows the crooked path she took from a protected and privileged childhood and early adolescence, to her unplanned pregnancy and banishment, and to her daughter’s birth and adoption. She then delves into the complex journey embarked on over the next 35 years, haunted by her first child’s memory and attempting to compensate for her loss. Ellerby crafts an autoethnography, relating and reflecting upon the changes in middle-class American attitudes that informed the conservative suburbs of the fifties, through the political revolution of the sixties, seventies, and into today. In so doing, she provides a personal commentary on the shifts in adoption culture and describes the overlooked heartbreak that many birth mothers endure. About the Author: Janet Mason Ellerby is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She is the author of Intimate Reading: The Contemporary Women’s Memoir, also published by Syracuse University Press.

Forbidden Fruit: The True Story of My Secret Love Affair With Ireland’s Most Popular Bishop. Annie Murphy. 1993. 358p. Little Brown & Co (UK). When Annie Murphy, an American divorcee, went to Ireland in 1973 hoping to find spiritual solace under the guidance of her distant cousin, Eamon Casey, then bishop of Kerry, she got much more than she could have ever imagined. Passion, excitement, and romance culminated in the birth of a son, Peter, whom Casey was ruthless in his attempts to get Annie to place for adoption. When she refused and returned to the states to raise her child alone, Casey sent only sporadic financial help and largely ignored mother and son—until 1992 when Annie returned to Ireland to blow the whistle, forcing Casey’s resignation.

Gianna: Aborted...& Lived to Tell About It. Jessica Shaver. 1995. 223p. Focus on the Family Publications. At the tender age of 17, Tina was frightened and pregnant. Feeling abandoned and desperate, she stepped into the clinic to have an abortion. But in the midst of it, something unexpected happened ... something wonderful. Instead of snuffing out the growing life within, the procedure failed. And with defiance and courage, a baby girl made her way into the world. Gianna is the incredible true story of one girl’s remarkable journey from abortion survivor to steadfast defender and lover of life. This book isn’t about issues it’s about a young woman’s determination to make the most of her God-given opportunities.

Gift of Sam, The. Michelle Thooft. 2002. 135p. Sword and Trowel Press. This is the story of God’s grace and love in the life of one woman through an unplanned pregnancy and the adoption of her son. The book is written from the author’s voice today, but it centers around the journals she kept during her pregnancy. The journals include letters to God, her baby, and the adoptive parents. With a biblical worldview, the author addresses suffering, loneliness, fear, and faith from the backdrop of a true story. About the Author: Michelle Thooft lives with her husband, Phil, and their four children in Redwood Falls, MN. In addition to supporting Phil’s work as youth and young adult pastor at the Redwood Falls Assembly of God Church, she is a worship leader and home schooling mom. She likes to read, write, and quilt in her "spare" time. This is her first book, with many dreams for more.

Gift Wrapped in Sorrow, The: A Mother’s Quest for Healing. Jane Guttman. 1999. 272p. JMJ Publishing. A memoir spanning three decades of loss and love, regret and remorse. The words serve as a candle in the darkness to those who have experienced the loss a child through adoption. Along the way, amid the many saddening recollections, the author discovers the gifts that are ever-present.

Gifts From the Heart of a Birthmom. Tracy Pond. 2006. 21p. Lulu.com. Contains brief stories written by a number of birth mothers, including the identified author.

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—And the Journey of a Generation. Sheila Weller. 2008. 592p. Atria. Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct. Carole King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City; Joni Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Carly Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Their stories trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation—female version—but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché. The history of the women of that generation has never been written—until now, through their resonant lives and emblematic songs. Filled with the voices of many dozens of these women’s intimates, who are speaking in these pages for the first time, this alternating biography reads like a novel—except it’s all true, and the heroines are famous and beloved. Sheila Weller captures the character of each woman and gives a balanced portrayal enriched by a wealth of new information. Girls Like Us is an epic treatment of midcentury women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them —confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul. About the Author: Sheila Weller is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning magazine journalist. She is the author of five previous books, most recently her 2003 family memoir, Dancing at Ciro’s, which The Washington Post called “a substantial contribution to American social history.” She is the senior contributing editor at Glamour, a contributor to Vanity Fair, and a former contributing editor of New York. To learn more, visit www.girlslikeusthebook.com.

Girls Who Went Away, The: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade. Ann Fessler. 2006. 368p. The Penguin Press. A powerful and groundbreaking revelation of the secret history of the 1.5 million women who surrendered children for adoption in the several decades before Roe v. Wade. In this deeply moving work, Ann Fessler brings to light the lives of hundreds of thousands of young single American women forced to give up their newborn children in the years following World War II and before Roe v. Wade. The Girls Who Went Away tells a story not of wild and carefree sexual liberation, but rather of a devastating double standard that has had punishing long-term effects on these women and on the children they gave up for adoption. Based on Fessler’s groundbreaking interviews, it brings to brilliant life these women’s voices and the spirit of the time, allowing each to share her own experience in gripping and intimate detail. Today, when the future of the Roe decision and women’s reproductive rights stand squarely at the front of a divisive national debate, Fessler brings to the fore a long-overlooked history of single women in the fifties, sixties, and early seventies. In 2002, Fessler, an adoptee herself, traveled the country interviewing women willing to speak publicly about why they relinquished their children. Researching archival records and the political and social climate of the time, she uncovered a story of three decades of women who, under enormous social and family pressure, were coerced or outright forced to give their babies up for adoption. Fessler deftly describes the impossible position in which these women found themselves: as a sexual revolution heated up in the postwar years, birth control was tightly restricted, and abortion proved prohibitively expensive or life endangering. At the same time, a postwar economic boom brought millions of American families into the middle class, exerting its own pressures to conform to a model of family perfection. Caught in the middle, single pregnant women were shunned by family and friends, evicted from schools, sent away to maternity homes to have their children alone, and often treated with cold contempt by doctors, nurses, and clergy. The majority of the women Fessler interviewed have never spoken of their experiences, and most have been haunted by grief and shame their entire adult lives. A searing and important look into a long-overlooked social history, The Girls Who Went Away is their story. About the Author: Ann Fessler is professor of photography at Rhode Island School of Design and a specialist in video-installation art. She won a prestigious Radcliffe Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, for 2004, to complete her extensive research for this book. She is also the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; the LEF Foundation, Boston; the Rhode Island Foundation; the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities; Art Matters, New York; and the Maryland State Arts Council. An adoptee herself, she begins and ends the book with the story of her own successful quest to find her birth mother.

Giving Away Simone: A Memoir of Daughters, Mothers, Adoption & Reunion. Jan L Waldron. 1995. 236p. Times Books. Giving Away Simone is Jan Waldron’s account of her compelling, turbulent, and maddeningly original relationship with the daughter she gave away. Jan’s baby, Simone, was the fifth generation of women in her family to be abandoned by their mothers. Determined to fight this “undertow of conditioned exiting, an affliction of easy farewell,” Jan reunited with her daughter, now renamed Rebecca, when Rebecca was eleven. They spent the next thirteen years trying to come to terms with each other and figure out what kind of roles they were to play in each others’ lives. For birthmothers, there are no simple equations of loss and gain. Each adoption is its own unique universe of complexities and ambiguities. But often the most personal is also the most universal, and there are truths to be found in every story. This beautifully rendered, intensely personal memoir gives essential shading to choices usually reduced to black and white. Waldron does not dispense advice; she probes the emotional fallout, on both sides of adoption, an area in which sedated platitudes have presided for far too long.

Gone to an Aunt’s: Remembering Canada’s Homes for Unwed Mothers. Anne Petrie. 1998. 248p. McClelland & Stewart (Toronto). Anne Petrie examines the purpose of the homes for unwed mothers of the 1950s and ’60s where young mothers were sent in shame to be hidden from society. It is a clear historical account of these homes and the treatment of unwed mothers that briefly reaches back into the 1800s and quickly through the 1970s. Anne uses historical accounts based on information from religious organizations, social work documentation and books, and former administrators and employees to depict their purpose in helping unwed mothers. She intertwines these accounts with her own personal story and those of other mothers who were hidden within the walls of various homes across Canada. The women who tell their stories and the various others who contribute provide a balanced cross-section of how these homes were perceived by the women themselves. Her book also traces the social mores and attitudes toward unwed mothers under the guise of protection and help whereby pregnant single women were stripped of their dignity, self-esteem and identity. She addresses the moral, judgmental treatment that provided no other options to pregnant single women but adoption under the term, “in the best interests of the child.” The personal stories are intertwined with historical facts in a balanced journalistic manner. Anne provides insight into the mindset of the times that demeaned and devalued the pregnant unmarried woman under the guise of helping and redeeming her. She has a clear grasp of the moral concerns that have stigmatized the “unwed mother” in the past and brings it into the present with the stigmatization of the “single mother” or “teen parent” today. — Canadian Council of Birth Mothers

Half a Million Women: Mothers Who Lose Their Children by Adoption. David Howe, Phillida Sawbridge, & Diana Hinings. 1992. 176p. Penguin (UK). Utilizing case histories and interviews throughout the text, this is an examination of all aspects of the experience of giving up a child for adoption. It explores the social stigma of being an unwed mother, the decision to relinquish a baby, the isolation from parents, society and the child’s father, and the fear of being traced by a child in later life. The text also describes the attitudes of society, the laws surrounding the issue and the medical and psychological viewpoint.

Healing the Hole in a Heart: One Birthmother’s Journey into the Adoption Triangle. Nancy Mac Isaac. 1998. 346p. Mac Isaac Enterprises. Healing the Hole in a Heart: One Birthmother’s Journey Into the Adoption Triangle is written to help others find their way through the reunion mine field. Learn how to shift from the mania and exuberance of first contact to a love-filled friendship developed over time. Healing the Hole in a Heart is a guide to surviving reunion, making adjustments, and building relationships. It helps the reader to face their fear and find friendship. If you or anyone you know is touched by adoption, then this book is just what the doctor ordered. Healing the Hole in a Heart chronicles how Nancy, a “childless” high-achiever, managed the impacts of reunion on her once “normal” professional and personal life. A life that was irreparably altered by a letter. Healing the Hole in a Heart offers the reader a series of techniques, exercises, and resources demonstrating the adjustments needed to become a recovered birth parent—a fact demonstrated by Nancy finally summoning up the courage to search for and find her daughter’s birth father. It can be a template to follow for those who wish to grow a friendship based in mutual respect and trust. About the Author: Nancy “Nan” Mac Isaac, JD, is a birth mother and entrepreneur. She is founder and President of Mac Isaac Enterprises, a Del Mar based consulting firm which assists corporations, organizations, executives and individuals with issues related to communication, marketing and team building. Ms. Mac Isaac is on the faculty of the University of Phoenix, where she conducts graduate and undergraduate courses in Marketing. Ms. Mac Isaac was honored with the “Outstanding Instructor of the Year Award for Graduate Business—1999”. Ms. Mac Isaac holds a BA in Social Science from San Diego State University and earned her JD from Thomas Jefferson University School of Law.

Heartbeat I Heard at Conception, The: Chronicle of a Birthmother. Elyse James Johnston. 2008. 72p. Booklocker.com. In this slim, self-published volume, Johnston relates her experience of becoming pregnant with her first child and the subsequent surrender of that child into the closed-adoption system. The book also serves as a platform for the author’s religiously based anti-abortion beliefs. In a brief excerpt available from Booklocker.com, as well as a review of the author’s website, one gets a real sense of a tragedy that has yet to be resolved. In the book excerpt, Johnston relates how she refused to allow her child to be adopted by relatives, thereby deliberately relegating his fate to the vagaries of the closed-adoption system; and in her website, she relates how she has had some mediated contact with her son’s adoptive family, but has not yet experienced a reunion. Even despite being a self-identified birth mother, Johnston nonetheless describes herself as the mother of three (the three being the children she apparently had within a now-defunct marriage). Johnston holds herself out as a paid speaker on various topics, including motherhood; effective teaching strategies; effectively dealing with adolescents; public speaking techniques; Catholicism; unplanned pregnancy; parenting; abortion alternatives; and marriage. — William L. Gage

Heartbreak Option, The: An Inspiring True Story. Lori D Cartagena. 2009. 300p. Lori D Cartagena (Australia). This is the amazing-but-true story of Lori Dawn Cartagena, a glamorous young Australian entertainer who traveled to America after spending over twelve months, from 1968 to 1969, entertaining American and Australian troops in Vietnam during the war. After surviving numerous ambushes and mortar attacks, Lori eventually flees war-torn Asia and arrives in Canada. After a brief affair with a handsome, charming Toronto businessman, she moves to Florida to join a stage show where she finds herself in another desperate situation. Lori discovers she is pregnant and eventually has to make the most heartbreaking decision of her young life. as soon as her newborn son was taken away from her, Lori vowed she would one day find him again. She tried several times, but to no avail. However, 34 years later, he found her. The reunion was the most wonderful event both mother and son could only have dreamed of over those long, agonising years. About the Author: Born and educated in Brisbane, Australia, Lori showed a love of entertainment from a very early age. At just 17 years, she ventured to Sydney where R&R was in full swing in 1967, to pursue her passion. It wasn’t long before an American entrepreneur recruited Lori a show already touring war-torn Vietnam in Southeast Asia. For over a year she entertained American and Australian troops before returning to Australia briefly. A six-month romance with an American soldier in Vietnam was the original reason Lori journeyed to the USA, but she eventually landed in Canada. For several months Lori taught ballroom dancing in Toronto before leaving the freezing Canadian winter and headed south to sunny Florida. This would ultimately change her life forever. For over 13 years, Lori spent her life in both Canada and the U.S. living in Toronto, Montreal, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale, constantly experiencing many new adventures and career changes. She also travelled extensively throughout other parts of America as well visiting surrounding islands in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It wasn’t until the 1980s that Lori, her new husband, Greg, and six-month-old infant son, Chris, left the United States to reside in Australia. In 1989, after making several trips back and forth to America they eventually settled in Australia permanently. However, in 2005, another life-changing event took place. This was the catalyst that finally gave the author the inspiration to complete this story. She had made attempts to put her version on pen and paper for years, but there was something missing, and she just couldn’t work up the courage to divulge so much of her past life. In May 2005, Lori’s secret son whom she gave away for adoption in Miami, FL, in 1970 suddenly reappeared in her life. She had just about given up hope of ever finding him, but after a ten-year search, he found her in Australia. The wonderful story of this heart wrenching reunion was published in a two-page story in the June 26, 2006 issue in the Australian Woman’s Day. Along with the encouragement of award winning author and journalist Alan Veitch, the project began and three years later the manuscript was completed. Lori wants this story to be an inspiration for everyone out their searching for their own missing links and encourage them not to give up hope.

I Called Him Jeremy. Julie Posey & Eric Blumanhourst. 2009. Lulu.com. The book, I Called Him Jeremy is more than a story of a birth mother’s tedious search for the son she gave up for adoption two decades ago. Woven into the story are details of true crime unfolding as Julie Posey shares the horrific details of how she survived being sexually abused throughout most of her childhood and then became pregnant. Not only did she suffer the loss of the joys of being a kid, she also suffered the grief of having to give up a newborn baby whom she loved dearly. Readers get an inside view into Posey’s life and how she toiled endlessly to find her needle in a haystack. Since her son’s name was changed and she relinquished him in a “closed records” state, she had only his date of birth as a clue for her search. Posey never gave up the search for her son and it paid off in 2006 when she tried a little known search technique and found him and sent him e-mail. Co-author Eric Blumanhourst, gives readers a true insight about how he felt when out of the clear blue his birth mother just appears in his life. Blumanhourst also reveals his story of growing as an adopted child and how he faced heartaches and joys as well. Posey and Blumanhourst were reunited for the very first time on The Montel Williams Show in 2007. They each talk openly about the emotional experience of sharing their reunion on TV.

I Choose This Day: Mournings & Miracles of Adoption. Sharon Fieker, with contributuions by Lori Smith. 2006. 126p. Tate Publishing & Enterprises. Have you faced a difficult decision concerning an unexpected pregnancy? Sharon Fieker uses I Choose this Day to convey how the circumstances of the darkest period in her life evolved into the brightest time. She includes the challenges and blessings surrounding her pregnancy. The heartache of “not knowing” what happened to her baby and the beautiful story that unfolds as she meets her birth daughter are inspirational. When going through difficult times, Sharon sometimes wondered how God could allow such troubling things to happen. Her story demonstrates how He had a plan for her—one filled with hope. He also allowed her free will to make her own choices. If you’re facing or have faced an unplanned pregnancy, you will benefit from reading I Choose this Day. About the Author: Sharon Fieker is a volunteer at the Pregnancy Care Center in Springfield, MO. Her education includes a B.S. in Criminal Justice, Psychology, and Sociology. She co-founded Adoption Triad of the Ozarks, a support group for anyone touched by adoption. She and her husband live in Springfield, MO. They enjoy traveling and spending time with their children and grandchildren, their families, and their friends.

I Hope You Have a Good Life: A True Story of Love, Loss, & Redemption. Campbell Armstrong. 2000. 248p. Crown Publishing Group. A memoir written as a promise to a dying loved one is bound to be a heart-wrenching tale, and in I Hope You Have a Good Life, novelist Campbell Armstrong delivers. The book is a paean to his former wife, Eileen, who died of cancer in 1998. It’s also a tribute to her daughter, Barbara, whose decades-long search for her biological mother ended in the discovery that they shared the same devastating disease. In reading about Eileen’s courageous battle, her reunion with the daughter she gave up at the age of 17, and the support of her stalwart friends, we enter a small circle of strong, fighting women. At his best, Armstrong paints these women with a gentle, almost reverent brush, portraying the lives of ordinary people striving to surmount overwhelming circumstances. Unfortunately, however, this loving picture is framed against the intrusive backdrop of his own struggles: substance abuse, affairs, alcoholism, his frequent uprooting of his family. While he’s straying into his attempts to dry out and subsequent lapses into what he terms “Slipsville,” one wonders impatiently when Barbara will finally make contact. Whether Armstrong chose to highlight Eileen and Barbara’s courage by contrasting it with his own failures is uncertain, but the result is not exactly flattering. The author’s regretful musings on life and death are sometimes insightful, but more often, they distract. His narration, however, is engaging. Glimpses of the young couple’s beginnings in 1960s Glasgow fascinate but are fleeting, and it’s not until Armstrong’s persona steps out and Barbara’s search for her mother comes forward that the reader really becomes involved. Ultimately, Eileen’s final days of fear and hope, the unswerving devotion of her newfound daughter, and the emerging strength of her three sons are a moving testament to the power of family—extended, reunited, troubled, or otherwise. It’s with the vividness of this portrait that Armstrong fulfills his promise to Eileen. — Lisa Costantino

I Will Always Love You: A Grief Book for Teen Mothers Releasing for Adoption. Connie Nykiel. 1996. 50p. For Teen Moms.

I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean Birth Mothers of Ae Ran Won to Their Children. Sara Dorow, editor. 1999. 144p. Yeong & Yeong. I consider it an honor to be associated with this important book, unique because it invites the reader to hear and understand the voices of Korean women who have made the difficult decision to place their children for adoption. These letters are both heart-wrenching and hopeful. In editing this collection, I wanted to be mindful of the similarities of birth mother experiences across time and place, but also respectful of the unique context of Korea and of individual birth mothers. But most of all, I wanted the letters to speak for themselves—for adoptive parents and mature adoptees to be able to interact openly and thoughtfully with them. I hope that in the end this collection is both challenging and helpful. — Sara K. Dorow

I Wish You Didn’t Know My Name: The Story of Michele Launders & Her Daughter Lisa. Michele Launders & Penina Spiegel. 1990. 216p. Warner Books. In this heartwrenching and often shocking book, Michele Launders steps forward to reveal how a young mother who had never even sung her baby a lullaby somehow found the strength to accompany her daughter to her final sleep. Abandoned by her own father when she was four, Michele did not discover the security of a man’s arms until, at 19, she fell deeply in love. Kevin seemed to be the ideal boyfriend. When she became pregnant, however, she told neither him nor her parents, a subterfuge in which she was aided and abetted by her doctor, Michael Bergmen, who arranged for the teenager to reside with his receptionist and referred her to the man who would ultimately be responsible for the death of her daughter—a lawyer named Joel Steinberg.

I Would Have Searched Forever. Sandra Kay Musser. 1979. Jan Publications. From the Back Cover: Twenty-five years ago, Sandra Musser surrendered her child to adoption. As aresult of that decision, her entire life was affected. It was not easy for her to overcome her anger and confusion at a system that imposed secrecy upon her. She finally learned to trust God who “works all things together for good.” During the past three years Sandy has presented workshops at adoption conferences on “How to deal With Giving Up a Child.” She has served on the Board of the Adoption Forum of Philadelphia and is the Pennsylvania/South Jersey Coordinator of Concerned United Birthparents. The pain that follows relinquishment, the desire over the years to know her child, her decision to search, and the hard-earned truths she discovered, all provide a very moving story. I Would Have Searched Forever is relevant to every reader—espeically those who have difficulty accepting life circumstances. By the Same Author: What Kind of Love is This?.

If You Think You Are My Daughter. Karen Sweet & Jeanne Biedrzycki, as told to Lewis M Elia. Introduction by Pat Rutherford of World Wide Tracers, Inc. 2003. 182p. Trafford Publishing. Jeanne is sixteen years old and is forced to give up her baby girl for adoption. She never gets to see or hold her but she never forgets. And so begins a journey, a search for a lost child which will last thirty years. Join these two women on a spiritual journey as they learn the meaning of family and love which ends at Jeanne’s new home overlooking the Ashokan Reservoir in upstate New York. Or is that where the story begins? About the Authors: Karen Sweet is currently a financial services consultant for a large mid-western bank. She is currently on leave and is a mother and homemaker. She resides in Ohio with her husband, Kevin and son, Brendan. Jeanne Biedrzycki-Cohen is currently working as private duty nurse. She resides in Upstate New York with her husband, Paul. Chronicler, Lewis M. Elia is a retired teacher and former associate editor with MPC Educational Publishers of Tarrytown, NY and has two other publications to his credit: The Garlic in the Melting Pot, a memoir and Lord, I Am Not Worthy, a novel (written under the name of E. M. Lewis) both with Trafford Publishing. He resides in upstate New York with his wife Linda.

“I’m Pregnant, Now What Do I Do?”. Robert W Buckingham & Mary P Derby. 1997. 228p. Prometheus Books. “I’m Pregnant, Now What Do I Do?” is a valuable resource for young women, their partners, and their families. Which choice to make—parenting, placing the baby for adoption, or having an abortion—is something each girl must determine for herself. This book provides candid discussion and firsthand accounts from young women who have been in this situation, allowing the reader to make her own fully informed decision. Includes a chapter entitled, “Considering Adoption.”

Letter From Mom, A. Mimi Thelma James. 2007. 64p. Llumina Christian Books. A Letter from Mom was written by the author to her son and daughter. It is a touching, inspiring, sad, and heart-warming missive addressing the needs of adopted children and adoptive parents. It explores the feelings most birth mothers experience, and attempts to explain to the child she gave up, how letting go was the hardest thing she ever did. Though she thought her child would have a better life without her, this sacrifice was the source of lifelong pain and sorrow.

Letter to Louise: A Loving Memoir to the Daughter I Gave Up for Adoption More than 25 Years Ago. Pauline Collins. 1992. 206p. HarperCollins. In 1964, in a bare room in Waterloo, a young actress gave her baby for adoption. They were to be parted for more than 20 years. The actress was Pauline Collis and the baby was her daughter Louise. This is a memoir of the months leading up to that day in Waterloo. In it, Pauline Collins recalls the idyllic time spent in rep in Killarney, playing in a different play every night, seven days a week, living in digs and falling in love. After the season had finished, she found she was pregnant. Frightened and alone now, she decided to have the baby, hiding the fact from family, agents and friends. Going to ground, she waited for the baby to be born in a home for unmarried mothers, buoyed up by the kindness and humour of the other residents, and the nuns who cared for them. Yet soon she came to realise that she had no choice but to give her daughter away. Reluctantly she got on with life, finally achieving success and personal happiness. But she never forgot Louise and their story has the ultimate happy ending, the day they were reunited 22 years later.

Lifegivers: Framing the Birthparent Experience in Open Adoption. James L Gritter. 1999. 234p. CWLA. This book examines all the ways in which birthparents are marginalized in society and from the adoption process. It provides a glimpse of the birthparents’ emotional roller coaster ride as they struggle with grief, ambivalence, and regret. Lifegivers makes the persuasive case that the best interest of the child is served when birthparents and adoptive parents work together to ensure that the birth parents remain a part of their children’s lives. It challenges us to treat everyone involved in the adoption process—birth parents, adoptive families, and the children—with honor and respect.

Living Mistakes: Mothers Who Consented to Adoption. Kate Inglis. Illustrated by Martin Hendry. 1984. 195p. George Allen & Unwin (Australia). This is a book about mothers who do not know their children and whose children do not know them. They are the mothers of children given up for adoption. Their experience was regarded as a mistake to be hidden; a regrettable event to be forgotten; a personal problem to be solved by the state-run service of adoption. This book gives a voice to these silenced and hidden women who relinquished their children and their parental rights. Their stories are fragments of the unrecorded history of women whose children were conceived and born outside marriage. It is a history so at odds with our beliefs about women and mothers as to be inviisible. These mothers speak out of that invisibility to tell us of the stigma of pregnancy; of the isolation of disgrace; of the shame of sexual ignorance and imposition; of family ambivalence, pressure and betrayal; and of the grief of becoming, and remaining, a mother whose motherhood was a ’mistake’. They tell us what it is to wonder, when looking in the faces of strangers, ’Is that my child?’ They tell of fears that they will never meet their child and of the fears that they will. Most of all their stories of loss confront us with the contradictions and vulnerability at the heart of the socially constucted insitution of motherhood.

Looking For Oliver: A Mother’s Search for the Son She Gave Up for Adoption. Marianne Hancock. 2003. 240p. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (UK). While clearing through her dead mother’s bedroom, Emma happens upon the thirty-year-old newspaper clipping announcing the birth of the baby she gave up for adoption. Now a wife and mother of two teenage children, Emma is transfixed by this reminder and link to her first-born. Vividly recalling the stigma of her schoolgirl pregnancy and the pain of adoption, the story follows Emma’s search for and reunion with Oliver and the consequences this has for her family life. This absorbing novel, while dealing with the grief and guilt of adoption, provides hope to all those affected by the adoption process.

May the Circle Be Unbroken: An Intimate Journey into the Heart of Adoption. Lynn C Franklin & Elizabeth Ferber. 1998. 288p. Harmony Books. In the 1960s, when she was an unmarried college sophomore, Lynn Franklin surrendered her newborn son for adoption. Using her own story as a point of departure, Franklin examines the changing face of adoption and explores the uncertainties and emotions that surround it with rare honesty and perception. May the Circle Be Unbroken is both a poignant memoir of a woman who reunited with a child she gave up for adoption and a no-nonsense book that gives readers an intelligent and well-informed approach to adoption. The two are woven seamlessly into a complex and engaging story that is, in fact, many stories from many people that form a complete picture of the varied and often fulfilling experience of adoption. Since finding her son, Franklin has come to know his wife and children, who also have become an important part of her life. In so doing, she has closed one of life’s most precious circles.

Missing Piece, The. Lee Ezell. 1986. 172p. Harvest House. The true story of a mother’s painful loss of her daughter—and their triumphant reunion.

Mississippi Moon: A Survivor’s Story. Theresa M. Lennon. 2009. 228p. CreateSpace. Theresa Lennon was born on the Mississippi River at the tail end of the sixties. Her mother died in a car crash on a stormy nighta few years later and left her alone with her stepfather and father. She reluctantly left home to join the Navy, where she met her ex-husband. Their marriage ended after three years. Lennon never remarried, choosing to devote her life to her friends and their families becauseher own family want little or nothing to do with her. She twice became pregnant and twice surrendered her baby for adoption. Following the birth of her second daughter, she developed full-blown paranoid schizophrenia and became homeless. She also develped an addiction to marijuana. For seven years, she battled her demons, finally recovering and wrtiing this autobiography to tell her story of survival of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as serious mental illness and addiction. About the Author: Theresa M. Lennon is an ordained Christo-Pagan priestess living in the midwest. She is also an artist and a poet, plays drums, step-dances, and does visual arts.

Mom, Dad... I’m Pregnant: When Your Daughter or Son Faces an Unplanned Pregnancy. Jayne E Schooler. 2004. 208p. NavPress. “Mom, Dad...I’m Pregnant.” These are words you never want to hear from your unmarried daughter. In an instant, your dreams and hopes for your daughter or son permanently change. You feel battered by an array of conflicting emotions. What you and your family need now more than ever is compassion, understanding, and direction. Long-time educator, writer, and speaker on family life issues, Jayne Schooler offers a comprehensive guide to the challenges faced by parents of children who experience unplanned pregnancies. As a mother and grandmother, Jayne also chronicles her own family’s experience—from the initial heartbreak and shock upon hearing her daughter’s news to a new level of love, maturity, and spiritual commitment. By sharing her own story and those of other parents, as well as the expertise of a broad range of professionals, Jayne offers deep insight and hope to those who need to know that God’s love and grace is readily available for all. About the Author: Jayne E. Schooler is the author of four other books, including the award-winning Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child, with Betsy Keefer (2000). A nationally known educator, writer, and speaker on family life issues, Jayne regularly conducts workshops and brings insight and empathy to audiences of both families and professionals. She holds a master’s degree in life issues counseling from the Master’s Graduate School of Divinity. Jayne and her husband, David, live in Dayton, OH. By the Same Author: Searching for a Past: The Adopted Adult’s Unique Process of Finding Identity (1995); Journeys After Adoption: Understanding Lifelong Issues, with Betsie L. Norris (2002).

Mother of the Disappeared. Karen Salyer McElmurray. 2001. 256p. Hill Street Press. Mother of the Disappeared, part memoir and part poetic journey, is a Kentucky birth mother’s story of the relinquishment of her son to adoption in 1973, a time of social and political upheaval. 1973 meant Roe vs. Wade. It meant Kent State and Watergate and a disaffected American youth on the road in search of selves lost between Sixties free love and Eighties high-tech. More than a story of a time and a place, however, this is a story of the consequences of loss. At the age of fifteen, McElmurray relinquished a son to adoption, and also relinquished part of herself. Mother of the Disappeared explores that loss and its consequences and enters a difficult landscape—the mind and heart of a birth mother who gave her child up for adoption due to insurmountable circumstances—a decision which haunts her today. Authorities gave her two different dates for her son’s birth when she went in search of him. “One of these days is my son’s birthday, so I celebrate both. ... The truth is I never saw my son’s face. I see a face I have created. It is one I want, one I believe in, twenty-six years later.” Juxtaposed with McElmurray’s portrayal of her own mother, a mother who could not give her what she needed, this moving memoir sends the reader on a journey to explore the meaning of motherhood. As McElmurray searches for her son, she searches for her mother and for herself. Recovery in this book is recovery of a family lost, and also recovery of a self that must be found.

Motherhood Silenced: The Experiences of Natural Mothers on Adoption Reunion. Ruth Kelly. 2006. 221p. Liffey Press. In a major piece of research Ruth Kelly, a social worker specialising adoption has recorded the stories of a group of single mothers in Ireland who have been reunited with the children they placed for adoption. Motherhood Silenced: The Reflections of Natural Mothers on adoption Reunion tells a story of the terrible assumptions society makes about these women. Ruth says, “Until recently, it was thought and sometimes even expected that these mothers would forget about the child whom they had relinquished and that they would continue with their lives as if their child did not exist. It was presumed that they would never want to know what happened to their child, nor ever want to meet their child again. We now know that this is not what happens for mothers who place a child for adoption, in fact we know that they never forget their child and even if they are not in a position to be reunited, they always want to know how their child has fared in life.” This much-needed study will be of great use to anyone involved in adoption and will be of particular help to those coming to terms with being adopted.

Motherless Child: Stories From a Life. Sarah Gordon Weathersby. 2008. 268p. Sarah Weathersby. Imagine you gave a baby up for adoption forty years ago, and after years of trying to find her, she finds you. Now come the hard questions. She’s healthy, beautiful, and successful, but she wants to know why you gave her away and why you didn’t marry her father. And there is also the unspoken question of “What kind of black woman gives her baby away?” How do you explain to her that giving her away was the best gift you could offer? This is Sarah Weathersby’s first published work, a coming-of-age-in-the-sixties-single-black-pregnant and on the way to Germany, memoir.

Mothers Who Think: Tales of Real-Life Parenthood. Edited & Introduced by Camille Peri & Kate Moses. 1999. 282p. Random House. An intermittently provocative and entertaining collection of essays, most reprinted from othe online magazine Salon, on many aspects of motherhood. Peri and Moses, editors at Salon, present close to 40 first-person narratives by mostly new voices deliberating on the joys and sadness of motherhood. Among the more refreshing is that of Joyce Millman, Salon’s television critic, who humorously depicts her half-hearted decision to become a classroom volunteer in her son’s kindergarten class and its unsuspected consequences. For the first time in her life, she achieves popularity and gains school spirit. But, even more, she gains enormous respect for teachers, “not just for the workload they carry, but for the emotional load.” On a more serious note, Ariel Gore, editor of the parenting zine Hip Mama, vividly describes the nightmare of her six-year odyssey in a dysfunctional family court, while seeking protection for herself and her daughter against her daughter’s criminally insane father. And writer and editor Kim Van Meter describes the wrenching decision she made, together with her partner, Margi, not to adopt an emotionally troubled five-year-old girl who was likely to need a lot more than “someone to love her.” Also on the theme of adoption is writer and editor Ceil Malek’s moving and enlightening account of giving up a baby girl in 1965 and reuniting with her 20 years later. NPR contributor Karen Grigsby Bates describes her attempts to instill black pride and awareness in her daughter, who is growing up in a privileged white world. The most powerful essay is by editor Peri, who, in relating two tales, vividly describes the unbearable pain the loss of a child brings. — From Kirkus Reviews. Copyright © 1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

My Child, Your Child: A Childless Couple’s Yearning and an Unwed Mother’s Decision. Terry Treseder & Terrilyn Ainscough. 1991. 170p. Deseret Books. This is the poignant true story of a young couple unable to have a child, a young single woman who becomes pregnant and decides to allow them to adopt her child, and the blessings that come to all of them as a result.

My Search for Catherine Anne. Barrie A Clark. 1989. James Lorimer & Co (Canada). In 1981, Barrie Clark found out he was a father, the child was a girl named Catherine Anne, and she was put up for adoption. Clark tells how he explored every possible source of information that might lead him to his daughter. He also tells how, unknown to him, his daughter was looking for him at the same time he was looking for her. A poignant, heartwarming tale of two human beings and their hopes and fears as they persevere, despite the odds against them, in their searches.

Natural Parents Documentation Guide. Mary Jo Rillera. 1977. 25p. Triadoption Publications. “A natural parent has the right to all files and documents pertaining to themselves and the child they gave birth to prior to the date they relinquished their legal rights.” So begins this slim volume containing information about obtaining such records, and addresses of state and other agencies who maintain such records.

None to Give Away. Elsie Doig Townsend. 1970. 242p. Herald Publishing House. What should a mother with five pre-school children—including two sets of twins—do when her rancher husband suddenly dies? Should she struggle to keep the family togheter of let some of the children be reared in other homes where they would have greater physical comforts and more financial security? If she should decide on the latter alternative, which youngsters would she keep and which would she give away? Few people have to make such excruciating decision. The author did. Out of her experience comes this story of determination versus despair. Beset by illnesses, harsh Montana weather, and trying to keep food on the table, Widow Doig managed to mix levity with her loneliness and fatigue.

Notes From Nobody: A Loving, Caring, Helping Gift for One Mother’s Adopted Out Lives. Claudia Turner Vanlydegraf. 2001. 137p. AmErica House Book Publishers. This is a book about and by a birth mother who found her two babies (35 and 33 years later) whom she had surrender to adoption at their births. It tells about the ramifications in her life from the beginning to present day. It reflects present-day reunion stories that are on TV all the time and tells what the shows don’t, by delving into the feelings and needs that are brought to the surface in finding long lost children. Most books on the market deal with the reunion, this one deals with including long-lost adopted-out children into the life of the birth mother and her family and she in theirs. There are many aspects of the human heart and mind to understand, this is my way of trying to make some of these a bit clearer to the woman or adult lost child who may be hoping to, or has found the part of them that is missing. Visit the Authors website.

Odyssey of an Unknown Father: The Complete Book on Wrongful Adoption. David Archuletta. 2008. 248p. Wheatmark. Imagine telling your adopted son or daughter that his or her biological father never agreed to the adoption. Even if you didn’t know this until after the adoption was finalized, this would still be a very troublesome issue for you and your child to deal with. Plenty of books guide prospective parents in how to adopt, but Odyssey of an Unknown Father will teach you how NOT to adopt. David Archuletta recounts his personal struggle to make contact with his biological son, who was adopted by another family without his knowledge or consent. He battles with unscrupulous adoption agencies and unconcerned state agencies in this telling volume. No adoptive parent wants to be in the position of explaining to a child that she was taken from her father against his will. This book will teach you what to look for to spot fraud or unethical maneuvers in the adoption process, and to avoid this terrible scenario when you welcome a child into your home. About the Author: David Archuletta resides in Colorado and continues to fight a Parkinson’s diagnosis of ten years, and has continued his struggle against the New Jersey Department of Human Services for the last five. As a result of his efforts, the Children of the World Adoption Agency, which was funded by Rosie O’Donnell, has since had its license revoked. He maintains, “One day I will see my son.”

One Girl, Two Names. Jaye Fleming Lowe. 78p. Jaye Fleming Lowe. From heart wrenching to heartwarming follow the chronicle of Jaye, who writes an emotional saga detailing the decision to place her newborn for adoption, as only a birth mother can tell it. The story takes a vivid twist in 2001 when Jaye and Jennifer are reunited, finding they have more in common than mere genetics. The similarities between the two women will keep you yearning to know more about their amazing relationship. This is the perfect story for any adoptee who wonders why their birthmother opted for adoption, and for any birthmother who hopes to again meet her child. Not only a useful and remarkable tale, but the author intends to use her profits from your purchase, toward future visits with her daughter. Available to download as e-Book (PDF format).

One Woman’s Choice. Karen Whitaker. 2002. 110p. iUniverse. In One Woman’s Choice, the author discuss her heartfelt choices and emotional experiences from abortion to adoption to inter-racial dating to single parenting. Making the choice to be a birth mother, she soon found herself lingering in sorrow and guilt. Trying to cope with her choice and the absence of the child that she had conceived, she browsed on bookstore shelves hoping to find some comfort in words on pages that could help her deal with the emptiness and pain she felt. To her despair and amazement, she was unable to find a book that related to her experience as a birth mother. The few books that were available had a small part dedicated to birth mothers, but had a somewhat outdated and non-spiritual view. After having conversations with friends, she decided to listen to their suggestions and go within herself. As she continued to write about her personal struggle with adoption, she noticed that many other aspects of her life had a story that needed to be told. She felt as if she was being guided by a higher power. One Woman’s Choice is not about pro-choice or pro-life, but instead about one woman’s choice. About the Author: Karen Whitaker grew up in a small town on the northeastern coast of the United States. She has always had the love of writing, and prior to writing this book, she focused more on poetry and song writing. However, the events in her life took her down a path that would lead her to tell this story.

Other Mother, The: A Woman’s Love for the Child She Gave up for Adoption. Carol Schaefer. 1991. 296p. Soho Press. When Carol Schaefer gave up her baby boy for adoption in 1966, the nuns at the Catholic home for unwed nothers promied that Carol would forget the whole experience and go on with her life. But 17 years of longing for her firstborn son sends Carol on a quest to find him—a quest that takes two years, exposes psychological and emotional wounds, and brings great joy.

Out of the Shadows: Birth Fathers’ Stories. Mary M Mason. 1995. 272p. OJ Howard Pub.Two out of every five children in America do not live with their birth fathers. Now, the least represented, least considered, least heard voices in adoption tell their stories. Interviews with 17 fathers comprise the heartbeat of this book. Through powerful stories and photos, Out of the Shadows examines the invisible population of birthfathers ... men who become fathers but who may never get to hear their children call them Daddy.

Parents, Pregnant Teens & the Adoption Option: Help for Families. Jeanne Warren Lindsay. 1988. 208p. Morning Glory Press. Based upon extensive interviews with birth grandparents, adoption counselors, and birth parents, this book offers help in coping with the shock of learning one’s teenage daughter is pregnant or one’s teenage son has fathered a child.

Pieces of Pie: Surviving Love. Pie Dumas. 2005. 242p. Skye’s the Limit Publications, LLC. Pie Dumas’ new book opens to a lonely little girl sitting in a cardboard house, decorating its interior walls with the smiling faces of imaginary family members. That image seems to linger—as indelible as the colored marker young Pie draws with—all the way through to the book’s final, moving paragraphs. Flimsy as the cardboard walls are and no matter how often they must be rebuilt, redecorated and refastened with brown shipping tape, they are the youngster’s only sanctuary from the horrific betrayal she is subjected to almost daily, and which she represses entirely from her awareness. Well into young adulthood, Pie similarly must build and rebuild her own fragile identity, until such time she can face her darkest nightmares and connect with her genuine self. On one level Pieces of Pie tells a raw and candid story of Pie’s inner struggle with the bewildering implications of childhood incest—and for this reason alone, it’s a book for anyone who longs to reconnect with their authentic spirit. On another level, it is a richly detailed and readable travelogue and adventure story, which takes the reader from a drab inner office in Ohio where young Pie is forced by her father into years of child labor to the carnival circuit, where she lugs her father’s merchandise display cases, to seedy, brutal underworld encounters, affairs with black men, fashionable life in a swank Central Park apartment, and a private audience with the king of Thailand. Ultimately, this is an exhilarating tale of self-discovery, of a reunion of spirit, and of a full life that only really begins as the last page is turned. About the Author: Pie Dumas today is president of Virginia-based Skye’s the Limit Coaching, a life-coaching practice that empowers individuals to map their futures and forge the life of their dreams. Pie’s own colorful life has included mentoring female inmates, manning a suicide hotline, volunteering at animal sanctuaries, filmmaking, writing, accounting, time-management consulting, reuniting with a daughter given up for adoption, and pursuing a singing career. An experienced speaker, Pie is available for interviews and speaking engagements.

Postadoption Experience of Surrendering Parents, The. EY Deykin, L Campbell & P Patti. 1984. 10p. (Repr from the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, April 1984). CUB.

Pregnant? Adoption is an Option. Jeanne W Lindsay. Illustrated by Jamie Moffett. 1996. 224p. Morning Glory. Adoption has changed. Today, birthparents take the responsibility of choosing the adoptive parents for their child and working out a plan for continuing contact. Planning is the key—whether it’s a parenting plan or an adoption plan. Pregnant? Adoption is an Option encourages birthparents to start with a counselor/facilitator who will help them make that plan—someone who will be there whether they decide to parent or to provide their child a different family through adoption.

Pregnant By Mistake: The Stories of Seventeen Women. Katrina Maxtone-Graham. 1973. 435p. Liveright. Based upon personal interviews conducted by the author, Maxtone-Graham presents the stories of 17 women who deal with their unintended pregnancies in various ways, including surrendering the child for adoption.

Pregnant Too Soon: Adoption is an Option. Jeanne W Lindsay. 1980. (teacher’s ed. avail.; wkbk.) (gr 7-12). Morning Glory. Teenagers tell their stories about the most difficult decision they will ever face — to be or not to be a school-age parent.

Promise, The. Karen Easter. 2006. 149p. Review & Herald Publishing. “Karen,” a divorced guidance counselor becomes pregnant. “Rick,” a Christian recording and concert artist, is the father. The Promise is the story of one woman’s struggle to do what is right despite the pressures of the man she loves, and the results of revealing the social stigma. You’ll see, first hand, the struggle to follow God’s plan, no matter how bizarre it seems and the ultimate comfort He provides for the hurting soul.

Reconnections. Mary Bradford Clark (with Kathy Pauck). 2000. 128p. Galde Press. Reconnections is the story of the reunion of Mary Bradford Clark with her daughter Kathy, whom she had given up for adoption many years before. Herself an adopted child who had been reunited with her birth mother, Mary was ecstatic when Kathy tracked her down and gave her a call: “Kathy’s phone call to me was the best award any mother could get. I was instantly healed from the hurt of my own abandonment as a baby and the many years of mother worry about Kathy’s safety and well-being.” Reconnections is a product of love and support from Mary’s daughters, Kathy and Hannah. She knows who she is now. About the Author: Mary Bradford Clark is a manager at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Her career highlights involve servicing children and families, first as a nursery school teacher and then as a clinical social worker. For the past 20 years, she has dedicated herself to providing therapy to children and families in poverty. She is a graduate of Stanford University. Mary was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and placed in a foster home. She was adopted at the age of six weeks and raised by loving parents. However, she struggled with problems of identity until she was reunited with the daughter whom she herself had given up for adoption 25 years before.

Restorative Grief: A Guide To Healing From Adoption. Cynthia Christensen. 2010. 100p. HighWay. Birthmother grief—a type of grief many dont know at all, yet some know all too well. The author, Cynthia Christensen, trudged through her own grief after the adoption of her son, Joshua. Being a private person, she did not want to do one-on-one counseling so she decided to travel the path with only one counselor—Jesus. Walking alongside Jesus proved not only to be healing but restorative, and life-changing. While counseling at an adoption agency and talking with others whose lives have been touched by adoption, the author recognized that many post-adoption birth mothers/birth fathers/family members never fully recovered from the grief of adoption. Restorative Grief is a bible study written for the sole purpose of restoring broken hearts and shattered lives, by dealing with the pain of separation that follows the extremely emotional events leading up to the relinquishment of a child. Through her willingness to share the emotional and physical struggles she faced, Cynthia has used her experience to provide a step-by-step recovery process that will help lead the reader to a full recovery of mind, body and soul through the healing power and love of Jesus Christ. Restorative Grief should leave its readers ready to rise up from the ashes and stand tall, as Daughters of A King! About the Author: Cynthia and her husband Eric reside in the Phoenix, AZ area with their two young boys. She currently homeschools her children and is studying for her Bachelors of Ministry.

Returned With Love: A Story of the Pain & Joy of Adoption. Katheryn J Page. 2005. 112p. Winepress Publishing. From the Publisher: Unmarried with a young son, and heart broken with sorrow, I ached to hold my newborn daughter. I wasn’t permitted to know who adopted my baby; I was only told they were “fine Christian people.” However, when I signed the adoption papers my eyes caught their names—never to be forgotten. Grief would become a familiar companion. Twenty years later my daughter was returned to me through a series of events orchestrated only by God—a divine appointment. We cannot see around the bend, yet He is there. I write my story especially for those with wounded spirits. We must all live with the consequences of our choices; fortunately God offers comfort for the broken heart and hope to the searching. I gave my baby away, and God gave her back! Only He can give beauty for ashes. “Kathy,” has given away a baby for adoption and later adopted another child, experiencing adoption from two perspectives. Through a remarkable series of events she was reunited with her daughter, though neither were searching for the other. About the Author: Kathy and her husband Ken live in Phoenix, Arizona. With blended families they have 6 children, 16 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.

Reunion: A Year in Letters Between a Birthmother & the Daughter She Couldn’t Keep. Katie Hern & Ellen McGarry Carlson. 1999. 250p. Seal Press Feminist Publishers. After decades of separation, 26-year-old adoptee Katie Hern writes to her birthmother, Ellen McGarry Carlson. Written over a course of one year, this book follows the women’s progress—from elation to understanding to accepting—and efforts to create an honest relationship. After several months, mother and daughter finally meet face-to-face in an emotional and exhilarating reunion.

Same Smile, The: The Triumph of a Mother’s Love After Losing Two Daughters. Susan Mello Souza, with Joanne Medeiros Harrington. 2002. 166p. Gateway Press. Spanning thirty years, this true-life story is an emotion filled journey of painful choices, loss, survival and hope. Recounted in the voices of the author, Susan Mello Souza, and her daughter, Joanne, it sheds light on their individual perspectives. The social stigma attached to unwed mothers during the Sixties gives seventeen-year-old Susan no choice but to give up her baby for adoption. In the eight days she spends with her daughter, she develops a special connection and resolves to search for her when the latter turns twenty-one. Unfortunately she is unable to keep her promise as tragedy strikes again and she loses her sixteen year-old daughter, Jackie, to leukemia. Overcome with grief and heartache, she postpones her quest, and only much later, when her first-born is thirty, is she able to summon the strength to finally trace her. The same determination and courage that enable Susan to endure teenage pregnancy and relinquishment of her baby, also sees her through a divorce, the trauma of Jackie’s death, and eventually helps her to reunite with Joanne and heal her own life. Her story is a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit and the bonding power of motherhood. Birth mothers and adoptees will be able to identify with Susan and Joanne’s candidly shared experiences. About the Authors: In 1968, at the age of seventeen, Susan Mello Souza surrendered her first-born daughter to adoption. Her birth mother experience has led Susan to become an active member in various birth mother support groups, while providing her the opportunity to assist several individuals in their reunions. Born and raised in New Bedford, Susan lived there until 1988 when she and her husband, Jay, moved their family of three girls, Jackie, Kristine and Beth, to Acushnet, MA. Joanne Medeiros Harrington was adopted in October 1968, when she was just three weeks old, and named after her adoptive parents, Joe and Ann Medeiros. She grew up in Fall River, MA with three younger brothers, Jay, Don and Rick, who were each a surprise to Joe and Ann since the doctors had informed them of their inability to conceive, hence Joanne’s adoption.

Search of a Lifetime, The. Kathryn M Denton & Teresa M Cummings. 2000. 490p. The Search of a Lifetime, written by sisters Kathryn Denton and Teresa Cummings, is a true story and a unique perspective on the subject of adoption reunion searching. Kathy was only 18 when she gave up her firstborn daughter for adoption. When her daughter turned 18 in 1996, and Kathy began to actively search, she quickly realized that she didn’t have a clue where to start. But she did know, from her job as a technology manager at a major national bank, that the burgeoning new Internet would link her to people who could help. There, she made connections with kindred souls that answered her questions, provided support and taught her the ropes in the convoluted legal labyrinth of vital statistics offices and public records. Today, she is the Midwest Regional Director of the Adoption Registration Coalition (a mutual consent registry service) and her search tips have helped many people realize their dreams for reunions with lost family members. But The Search of a Lifetime is more than the story of Kathy’s search and her hopes for a reunion. It is a handbook for novice searchers and is filled with useful hints, addresses, and Internet addresses. It also explores the national grassroots campaign for open adoption records. And if all that’s not enough, what helps make this book truly unique in its field is the allegorical tale, “Spynet, A Fable.” Its chapters are interspersed throughout the book and the fast paced exciting story provides a light-hearted break in the intensely emotional “Search.” In the story, Wiley is a single mom working with Spynet to locate a missing town. Spynet tells Wiley: ’Tina Town is invisible. It could be anywhere. We’re pretty sure its not named Tina Town anymore. We don’t even know the name of the state or country where it is. But we know that if you start on the Long Twisty Road you’ll be headed in the right direction.’ Along the way, Wiley encounters many obstacles including Eugene’s Bridge of Euphemisms, The Fiche River Ferry and the E. Motional Mixmaster. And that’s just for starters.

Secret-Sharing With Loved Ones: Personal Stories of Telling Children & Others. Marsha Riben & Mary Cohen.

Shadow Mothers: Stories of Adoption & Reunion. Linda Back McKay. 1998. 155p. North Star Press. The idea for Shadow Mothers grew out of conversations between author McKay and friends who had also placed a child for adoption and were reunited with their son or daughter years later. The women felt that they could heal their own wounds and help promote understanding of adoption in an earlier era by coming out of the shadows and telling their stories. According to its publisher, Shadow Mothers is the most comprehensive work to date on the subject of birth mothers, revealing these women lived their lives and surrendered their children in an atmosphere of secrecy and deception that existed when they were young and pregnant. Ms. McKay also offers a pamphlet, Top Ten Ways to Help Ensure a Positive Reunion and Relationship.

Patricia Taylor & her Family

Shadow Train: A Journey Between Relinquishment & Reunion. Patricia E Taylor. 1995. 338p. Gateway Press. This book describes one woman’s story as she moved through her life after relinquishing her first-born child to strangers. Not only was she continuously affected by her loss — her entire family dealt with the effects of this outcome, thrust upon her as the only possible solution, despite the fact that she wanted to raise her child herself. Shadow Train also describes the courageous journey to reunion undertaken by the author, her daughter, the author’s family, her daughter’s adoptive family and the birth father’s family. The book outlines the emotional experience of rebuilding a relationship after a nineteen year forced separation and the depth of pain which must be overcome by the author and her daughter in building their relationship. Visist the Author’s website.

Shar’s Story: A Mother & Daughter Reunited. Sharon Shaw Elrod. 2005. 112p. Word Wright International. The touching story of a mother who loved her child so much, she gave her away, and their reunion thirty-six years later. Hear the author summarize her story in her own words in this promotional video on YouTube!

Shattered Dreams—Lonely Choices: Birth Parents of Babies With Disabilities Talk About Adoption. Joanne Finnegan. 1993. 184p. Begrin & Garvey. Joanne Finnegan shares her personal experience and that of several families she interviewed who, like herself, explored options other than raising their child with a disability. Parents express with candor the overwhelming pain they felt when receiving “the news,” the frustration when searching for options, the “no-win” feeling of decision making, the resolve with a final decision, and finally, life after the decision. Parent quotes also address issues such as spiritual dilemmas and interactions with friends, family, their other children, and medical professionals. Words of advice for new parents include how to build support systems and gather information, how to search for an adoptive family, and arranging the details of communication between adoptive and birth parents. Interviews with adoptive parents, poetry, and extensive resource lists complete the book. About the Author: Joanne Finnegan is a high school mathematics teacher who, because of her personal experience with a child born with Down syndrome, has written articles for magazines and journals about adoption of children with special needs. She speaks to medical groups about the adoption option, and actively participates in a nationwide telephone support network for parents who are considering this option. Ms. Finnegan lives in Essex Junction, VT, with her husband and daughter.

Shedding Light on ... The Dark Side of Adoption. Marsha Riben. 1988. 189p. Harlo Press. “Marsha Riben’s presentation of the facts of the experience of parents by birth of children given to adoption is important reading. For such a book to be written requires first obtaining the confidence of such parents, and then present their experience in valid form. This Riben has been able to accomplish. It is an impressive achievement. Though painful to some to read, it is truth, rather than the pretense we are so accustomed to relative to this complex subject.” — Jean Paton

Should I Have This Baby? What to Do When Your Pregnancy is Unexpected. Carl Jones. 1996. 210p. Birch Lane Press. Renowned childbirth expert Jones provides guidance on choices in the first, second, and third trimester, how to handle pregnancies resulting from contraceptive failures, pros and cons of abortion, and more.

Should I Keep My Baby?. Mary Zimmerman. 1983. 112p. Bethany House. Offering girls a message that exhibits Christ’s love for the individual and upholding a strong biblical emphasis on the preciousness of life, this book explores the issues of economic support, parental approval, marriage, health, adoption, and much more.

So I Was Thinking About Adoption...: Considering Your Choices. Mardie Caldwell. 2008. 132. Carriage House Publishing. Whether you just found out about an unplanned pregnancy or have been considering adoption as an option for some time, you are not alone. Take the time to explore your options and come to the best decision for you, your child and your situation. Women from all backgrounds, in many different situations have chosen adoption. This book has compassionate answers to all your questions. Did you know that three out of five people are touched by adoption in some way; over two million of women will face unplanned pregnancy this year. Adoption is not goodbye forever; you can have contact and updates through open adoption. This book will give you caring, honest answers to all your questions about adoption, as well as guidance in telling your parents, the father and your friends.  It will alos provide you with understanding all about adoption, and resources you need to make an adoption plan. This book is a helpful and supportive guide for women of all ages. About the Author: Mardie Caldwell, C.O.A.P., is the Founder and CEO of Lifetime Adoption and the host of the popular radio talk show, Lets Talk Adoption with Mardie Caldwell. She is an adoption professional and expert who assists in over 120 adoptions per year and is an award-winning author, educator and lecturer. She has appeared on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, the BBC, PBS, Dr. Laura and numerous other radio and TV shows. She has been quoted and consulted for print articles in national and local newspapers, and publications including Parenting and Adoptive Families magazines. An adoptive mother and infertility patient, Caldwell has experienced firsthand the joys and challenges of adoption. It became her lifes work when she realized the critical importance of safe and secure adoptions.

Soul Connection: A Memoir of a Birthmother’s Healing Journey. Ann H Hughes. 1999. 264p. Otter Bay Books. Have you ever wondred if there could be a Plan for your life? Or is it all merely random cruelty and luck? Have roadblocks ever mysteriously appeared in your path? Have closed doors suddenly sprung open? Is there a chance we’re being led by the Higher Realm? Soul Connection is about healing through expanded awareness — and about using spiritual alignment to create miracles. In 1966, a young unmarried woman must surrender her baby for adoption. Afterwards, she stumbles along a healing path that transforms her understanding of Life. She puts this new knowledge to the test in 1989 when she undertakes a search for her birth daughter using spiritual process. An inspiring memoir of inner and outer discovery. — Back-Cover Copy

Soulless: An Escort Memoir. Susan Stafford. 2007. 212p. iUniverse, Inc. Susan Stafford was introduced into a lifestyle of prostitution and worked for a high class escort agency in the 80’s and 90’s and loved her lifestyle. “I loved the limousines, money, men, sex and attention. If someone tried to talk me out of my lifestyle I always told them look, this is what I do for a living and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,” says Susan. Then unexpectedly, the only world she knew shattered and was turned upside down, leaving behind the one thing she treasured the most while learning the representation of true love. Would the profitable income that the escort industry promised be enough to save her and her son? If there was ever a time in your life when parting from someone you loved came hard, soulless just might show you the way. About the Author: Susan has authored three published works and is known for her intriguing style. Her testimony was recently aired on The 700 Club, several newspapers and regularly appears on a variety of nationally syndicated radio broadcasts. She founded the nonprofit organization, Another Chance Ministries, which benefits women in the escort industry.

Straight Talk About Teenage Pregnancy. Paula Edelson. 1998. 144p. Facts on File. An earnest addition to the Straight Talk series tackles the explosive issue of teen pregnancy. In an effort to be clear, fair, and evenhanded, the text is plodding and even dull in the descriptions of how pregnancy occurs. Edelson covers, in the same dutiful but lackluster manner, options of abortion, abstinence, and adoption; what it means to a teen’s life to keep and raise a child; and how society views teen parents. Both liberal and conservative points of view are laid out (if erroneously: partial birth abortions were not outlawed by federal legislation in 1996). Among those viewpoints represented are teen couples who have had unprotected sex, those who have chosen not to have sex yet, and those who are already teen parents; the variety allows Edelson to present many options, nearly all of them difficult. Exercises for self-esteem, active listening, and decision-making are included. While some of the language is so clumsy as to be almost farcical. Like many things in life, sexual intercourse can be a lot of fun and it can also have consequences that are not so much fun the book will suffice for readers seeking out basic information, with helpful back matter on various organizations. — From Kirkus Reviews; ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Surrendered Child: A Birth Mother’s Journey. Karen Salyer McElmurray. 2004. 249p. University of Georgia Press. Surrendered Child is Karen Salyer McElmurray’s raw, poignant account of her journey from the teenager who put her newborn child up for adoption to the woman desperately searching for the son she never knew. In a patchwork narrative interwoven with dark memories from her childhood, McElmurray deftly treads where few dare—into a gritty, honest exploration of the loss a birth mother experiences. The year was 1973, a time of social upheaval, even in small-town Kentucky, where McElmurray grew up. More than a story of time and place, however, this is about a girl who, at the age of sixteen, relinquished her son at birth. Twenty-five years would pass before McElmurray began sharing this part of her past with others and actively looking for her son. McElmurray’s own troubled upbringing and her quest after a now-fully-grown son are the heart of her story. With unflinching honesty, McElmurray recounts both the painful surrendering and the surprise rediscovery of her son, juxtaposed with her portrayal of her own mother, who could not provide the love she needed. The dramatic result is a story of birthright lost and found—and an exploration of the meaning of motherhood itself.

Teardrops Down the Nile. Deb Finney. 2008. 328p. Enlighten Press. Years of addiction, failed relationships and destroyed lives had taken their toll on Deb. None of these had affected her so deeply as the loss of Ryan. Teardrops Down The Nile is Deb Finneys amazing true account of how, in the midst of extraordinary hardships, she found strength in the most unexpected places. It began with the author’s encouragement to an adoptive couple. A surprising, anonymous reply from Jennifer, the adoptive mom, ignites an ongoing exchange of letters no one is fully prepared for. Along the way, Deb discovers inspired evidence that there are no accidents, only events orchestrated by or allowed by an Ever Almighty God. Filled with coincidence, twists and turns, disappointment and triumph, Teardrops Down The Nile is an emotional roller coaster ride culminated by a consequential decision each woman must ultimately make to protect the ones they love. Whether our decision can hold up to societys untimely justice, surely time will tell, I told myself. And until then, only God could know enough to judge our intentions, our actions, and results destined for eternity.

Teenage & Pregnant: What You Can Do. Herma Silverstein. 1989. 154p. (YA). Julian Messner. A handbook presenting the options available to a teenage girl who finds herself pregnant. Includes information on legal rights, the birth process, parenthood, adoption procedures, programs for young mothers, and school and employment training.

Thank You, Son, for Finding Me: A Birthmother’s Story. Beth J Kane. 1999. 200p. Aslan Publishing. My book is about a birth mother who was found by my son six years ago. We have a wonderful reunion and relationship. I discovered that not all birth mothers are like me. Some are still in hiding and still living with their deep secret. Other birth mothers have been found but are rejecting their children. If these birth mothers could see the pain and sorrow that I see on the faces of these adoptees, they couldn’t to that to their children. I have seen their pain and it is heartbreaking. Adoptees have a right to know who they are and where they came from. — Beth Kane, January 20, 2000.

Third Choice, The: A Women’s Guide to Placing a Child for Adoption. Leslie Foge & Gail Mosconi. 1999. 200p. Creative Arts Book Co. Family and child counselors Foge and Mosconi provide solid advice about adoption, intended primarily to help a pregnant woman think through the possibility of allowing another family to adopt her child... Readers can expect both practical information (in terms of pregnancy, hospitalization, and birth) and coverage of emotional issues (in terms of grief and loss and gradual adjustment). The section on how different types of adoption play out as the adopted child grows up is particularly helpful. The book is full of quotes from birth mothers whose children were adopted; charts, checklist, and suggested questions are plentiful; and a resource guide rounds out a well-conceived book. — Booklist

Time to Be Born, A. Bonnie Shullenberger. 1996. 120p. Cowley Publications. Shullenberger’s vivid account of surrendering her baby for adoption, her subsequent conversion to Christianity, and her ongoing struggle with the ethical and spiritual consequences of her choice compel us to think through the ethics of abortion and urge us to arrive at a distinctively Christian response to those who are caught in painful dilemmas over abortion, adoption, and high-risk pregnancies.

To Keera With Love: Abortion, Adoption or Keeping the Baby, The Story of One Teen’s Choice. Kayla M Becker, with Connie K Heckert.. 1987. 170p. Sheed & Ward. To Keera With Love is the dramatic story of one teen’s journey from early childhood in a healthy, happy and protected home environment to the harsh reality of becoming a mother too soon. Kayla Becker and her two brothers, raised by a divorced mother, a successful regional media broadcaster, learned that a family can stick together and deal with a personal crisis productively. To Keera With Love is a story of courage and of pain many teen mothers go through while making live decisions for herself and her child.

To Love & Let Go. Suzanne Arms. 1983. 228p. Knopf. In To Love and Let Go, Suzanne Arms, a photojournalist, filmmaker and author whose own photographs illustrate the book, gets to the heart of what adoption is really like in America today and shows how the whole process can be made much more flexible and humane. In a series of case studies—closely observed, personal, individually moving—we learn what adoption means to the children, the adoptive parents and, especially, the women giving up their babies.

Torn From the Heart: The Amazing True Story of a Birth Mother’s Search for Her Lost Daughter. Louise Jurgens. 1992. Aslan Publishing.

Transparent: Seeing Through the Legacy of Adoption. Gary Coles. 2005. 216p. BookSurge Publishing. Transparent: Seeing Through the Legacy of Adoption is a landmark book, because, for the first time, it exposes the benefits of the three members of the family of origin—the mother, the father and the adult adopted person—working collaboratively to mend the wounds caused by their separation. About the Author: Gary Coles is a man with an adoption experience. He has a son, who has, since his birth, lived with another family. Like his first born son, Gary was born, raised and educated in New Zealand. Since 1969, he has been a resident of Australia. For fifteen years he was an exploration geologist, which allowed him to journey into the remote regions of the island continent. After 1985, he moved into managerial and process improvement roles in the resources and energy industries. He has never lost his passion for discovery, travelling to many countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Gary began exploring his adoption experience in 1992. As he has come to understand what it means to be the father of a child he has never seen, he has shared his insights with the public. Since 1998, he has presented papers at international adoption conferences, had over thirty articles published, is a past member of the board of the Melbourne-based state post-adoption services organisation, and, most recently engaged audiences as a speaker at seminars. He wrote and published his first book in 2004. Ever After: Fathers and the Impact of Adoption was considered by reviewers to be a landmark, because it articulated the perspectives of the men who hitherto had been scarcely considered in discussions and writings about post-adoption experiences. With Ever After: Fathers and the Impact of Adoption, his primary objective was to inform readers about how birth fathers are affected by adoption. In his second book, Transparent: Seeing Through the Legacy of Adoption, Gary brings the birth father into the mainstream, as a member of the family separated by an adoption. Acknowledging birth fathers to this extent is a first in the literature about post-adoption matters.

Unmarried Father, The: New Approaches For Helping Unmarried Young Parents. Reuben Pannor, Fred Massarik & Byron Evens. 1978. 196p. Springer.

Unplanned Pregnancy Book for Teens & College Students, The. Dorrie Williams-Wheeler. 2004. 136p. Sparkledoll Productions. I think I’m pregnant. What should I do? Educate yourself. Make a plan. Take action. Okay, you’re pregnant and this is now how you planned things. It was a surprise, an accident, and unexpected event and you just don’t know what to do. The Unplanned Pregnancy Book for Teens and College Students is a helpful guide written to provide you with information and resources that can help you come to terms with how to handle your unplanned pregnancy. This book is not written to influence you or to change your mind about how you should deal with your unplanned pregnancy. This book aims to education. Only you and the people who are helping you with your current situation can help you determine what is the best thing for you to do. Whether you plan to continue your pregnancy and become a parent, decide to terminate your pregnancy, or if you decide that adoption is the best option for you, The Unplanned Pregnancy Book for Teens and College Students is here to help you. Special features include: prenatal care guide, new baby item check list, DNA paternity testing information, listing of universities that offer family housing, information about programs such as WIC, Food Stamps, and Medicaid for low income mothers, information about mandatory waiting laws and parental consent and notification laws, information about types of adoption, birth control guide, web links and other valuable resources. Also includes real life stories from women who faced unplanned pregnancies.

Unplanned Pregnancy: Your Choices: A Practical Guide to Accidental Pregnancy. Ann Furedi. 1996. 176p. Oxford University Press (UK). Written for all those who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant, Unplanned Pregnancy is packed with information on the options that a woman has, and explains exactly what will be involved if she decides on adoption, abortion, or motherhood. It also discusses why unplanned pregnancies occur and what happens to a woman’s body in early pregnancy.

Violets Blooming in a Late Spring Snow: A Birthmother Reflects on Adoption. Jacqueline Ramthun, Patricia Hoolihan & Robin Mueller (Editors), Illustrated by Jessica A Johnson. 1998. 100p. Worlds A Stage.

Waiting to Forget: A Mother’s Search for Her Secret Son. Margaret Moorman. 1996. 368p. Norton. When Margaret Moorman was 16 she became pregnant, endured the stigma of teenage pregnancy, and was essentially forced by her parents and society into first a cover-up and then the giving up of her son for adoption. She was told to get over it and forget. As Moorman reveals in this stark memoir, forgetting was not possible. At age 40, with a daughter whom she could not bear to be separated from without anxiety, she confronted the past, began searching for her son, and wrote this searing condemnation of the social prejudice that had trapped her as a 16-year-old. She writes with angry clarity of the strangling embrace of cultural mores, and of the “climates of approval or disapproval” that remove the possibility of choice and create feelings of guilt.

Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy & Race Before Roe v Wade. Rickie Solinger. 1992. 328p. Routledge. Those who want to put today’s debates on race, poverty, and pregnancy into historical perspective should read Wake Up Little Susie, Rickie Solinger’s timely and perceptive analysis of the years after World War II and before the legalization of abortion.

Wanted: First Child: A Birth Mother’s Story. Rebecca Harsin. 1991. 144p. Fithian Press. Becki is an unmarried high school girl when she conceived her first child. As a member of a strict, conservative faily, she had no choices and very little to say about her plight. She spent time in an unsupportive “home” for unwed mothers, gave birth to a daughter, and then was coerced into signing the papers that would put her child up for adoption. Even as she signed those papers, Becki knew that she would one day find her daughter again. It was the beginning of a search frustrated by sealed files and closed doors. The search lasted nearly two decades, and it ended happily.

What Kind of Love is This?. Sandra Kay Musser. 1982. 224p. Jan Publications. “As I completed my first book, I Would Have Searched Forever, I realized it was a story that would never end. Adoption never does. It’s a lifelong paradox from all three perspectives. What Kind of Love Is This? deals primarily with post-reunion experiences, which can be as difficult as the reunion itself. ... It is for that reason I share the various stages of my own search, reunion, and reconciliation.” — Sandy Musser. By the same author: I Would Have Searched Forever

When Your Child Is Gone: Learning to Live Again. Francine Toder. 1984. 215p. Capital Pub Co. From Library Journal: Anyone who has lost a child whether through death, disappearance, custody decision, adoption, miscarriage, or abortion will find hope and understanding in this book. The author, a psychologist, writes from personal and professional experience. Moving personal narratives highlight the intense emotional conflicts that such losses generate and illustrate how personal growth can take place. Toder offers techniques for dealing with the hurts and self-recrimination; illustrates how to reconcile the often destructive thoughts such loss engenders; describes types of coping behaviors; and offers strategies for dealing with the immediate “post-loss time” as well as longer-range planning. Practical help on where to look for community resources, as well as guidelines for choosing professional help, are provided. A brief discussion of legal issues completes the work. —Jodith Janes, University Hospitals of Cleveland Lib. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With Courage & Love: A Journal for Birth Mothers. Janet Sieff. Illustrated by Ben Sieff. 1993. 12p. Centering.

Within Me, Without Me: Adoption—An Open & Shut Case?. Sue Wells. 1994. 256p. Scarlet Press (UK). This book explores the impact on birth mothers of giving up a child for adoption. Based on research into the social and psychological effects of secrecy in “closed” adoption, it juxtaposes the radical experience of “open” adoption allowed by New Zealand’s adoption law with the legislative proposals currently under scrutiny in the UK. Over the last 40 years more than three quarters of a million women in the UK alone have given up their children for adoption. This book voices their moving and often harrowing stories.

Without a Map: A Memoir. Meredith Hall. 2007. 248p. Beacon Press. Meredith Hall’s moving but unsentimental memoir begins in 1965, when she becomes pregnant at sixteen. Shunned by her insular New Hampshire community, she is then kicked out of the house by her mother. Her father and stepmother reluctantly take her in, hiding her before they finally banish her altogether. After giving her baby up for adoption, Hall wanders recklessly through the Middle East, where she survives by selling her possessions and finally her blood. She returns to New England and stitches together a life that encircles her silenced and invisible grief. When he is twenty-one, her lost son finds her. Hall learns that he grew up in gritty poverty with an abusive father—in her own father’s hometown. Their reunion is tender, turbulent, and ultimately redemptive. Hall’s parents never ask for her forgiveness, yet as they age, she offers them her love. What sets Without a Map apart is the way in which loss and betrayal evolve into compassion, and compassion into wisdom. About the Author: Awards include a Pushcart Prize, “notable essay” recognition in Best American Essays, the Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation; also a finalist for the Rona Jaffe Award. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, Five Points, Prairie Schooner, Fourth Genre, and several anthologies. She is a writing instructor and assitant director of the writing program at the University of New Hampshire and a summer workshop instructor with the Maine Writers & Publishers

Yesterday They Took My Baby: True Stories of Adoption. Ben Wicks. 1993. 276p. Lime Tree (UK). A collection of experiences of children & parents who set out to rediscover their missing families.