From the Back Cover (4th edition): If you live with your stepchildren, adoption may be a satisfying way to guarantee your family a solid footing. How to Adopt Your Stepchild tells you all you need to know about getting a stepparent adoption—without spending hundreds of dollars in legal fees. Step-by-step, it shows you how to:

• decide if adoption is right for your family

• determine if adoption is legally possible

• choose the correct adoption procedure for your situation

• prepare and file all necessary papers with the court

• take your petition through the court.

Includes step-by-step instructions and all the forms you need to do your own stepparent adoption in California.

Note: This book does not cover private or agency adoptions.

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About the Author: Frank Zagone has been a social worker for more than 20 years. He now works in the Children’s Protective Services Department, helping abused and neglected children.

Mary Randolph gave up the practice of law to write and edit Nolo books, and never regretted it for a minute. She received her law degree from Boalt Hall, the law school at the University of California—Berkeley. She is the author of The Deeds Book, and Dog Law, and the software Nolo’s Living Trust.

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Compiler’s Note: The sixth edition of this book was published in 2003 under the title Do Your Own California Adoption: Nolo’s Guide for Stepparents and Domestic Partners, which is listed separately on this site.

From the Publisher: Discover tremendous and useful information inside of this book! Information such as:

• Requirements for becoming an adoptive parent
In the areas that we can’t give specific information, we’ll give you guidelines for where to look so that you aren’t being bounced around when trying to figure it all out.

• Preparation of YOUR adoption plan
This plan helps you visualize exactly where you are in the process. Instead of sitting by while the adoption agencies and courts decide your fate, you will be able to be proactive in the process.

• Types of adoption
There are numerous types of adoption...and some of these types have subtypes of their own. We’ll break them all down and allow you to analyze which is best for your specific situation.

• What costs can you expect to incur?
Adoptions can be quite expensive, but we’ll offer a few ideas for you to look into that may be able to offset some, or most of the cost involved.

• And more...

It is important to have a most intimate relationship with your children. This book explains some key guidelines to help you have a closer relationship with your children. This book is produced by Conquered By Love Ministries. Authors Imran and Tami Razvi are the parents of 11 children (4 birth children and 7 adopted children). In their dozens of parenting books they teach the unique, practical parenting techniques which make their family so unified. Their adoption books share the skills for healing traumatized children that have helped their family overcome seemingly impossible challenges.

From the Back Cover: How do you create an adoption portfolio that will show prospective birth families why you are the perfect adoptive parent for their child?

■ Do you know which pictures to include and which to leave out?

■ Do you really understand what prospective birth parents care about?

■ Do you know how to make your portfolio unique, and set it apart from the others?

This is a step-by-step guide to creating a portfolio which will reflect your personality, make a strong positive impact and encourage the right birth family to choose you. Madeleine Melcher shares the secrets she has discovered over years of creating successful portfolios, profiles and prospective birth parent letters. She combines simple and effective design ideas and tips for writing and layout with a deep understanding of how portfolios work. Importantly, this book also draws extensively on the experiences of birth mothers and the professionals who support them to examine what they really look for, and it features the questions prospective birth mothers will want to see answered in your portfolio.

From text to design, this guide will give you the confidence to create a portfolio that sets you apart. It is essential reading for prospective adoptive parents, as well as the adoption attorneys and agencies advising those hoping to adopt.

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About the Author: Madeleine Melcher is an adoptee, motherof three blessings of adoption, as well as the owner of Our Journey to You, a company dedicated to designing adoption portfolios and adoption profiles. She has helped countless prospective adoptive parents create their adoption portfolios, her designs have led some of her clients to be chosen within mere days of their portfolio submission. She lives with her husband and children in the Midwest, USA.

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By the Same Author: Encouragement for the Adoption and Parenting Journey: 52 Devotions and a Journal (with Rachel Garlinghouse; 2015, CreateSpace) and Dear Adoptive Parents: Things You Need to Know-Right Now! From: An Adoptee (2015, CreateSpace).

Explains in simple language Florida’s adoption laws. About the Author: Gudrun Nickel is an attorney and author of numerous self-help law books.

Adopting a child can be a long process. Finding the right agency for your family is an important first step on your journey to becoming a parent through adoption. Written by experts in the field, Quick Easy Guides share little-known trade secrets and helpful hints to get you moving in the right direction. Quick Easy Guides gives you books you can judge by the cover. Our books are short, sweet and cheap. You can see for yourself.

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “I would love to adopt, but it’s just so expensive and we can’t afford it!” then this is the book for you! As much as I understand that concern, I also know it’s a myth. If you long to bring a child into your home through adoption, you can afford it! You just need to know how. How to Fund Your Adoption was written to equip you with the tools and ideas you need to move forward and take those first steps to realizing your adoption dreams. More couples would step forward to adopt if they would stop believing the lie that only the most wealthy families can adopt. It is my prayer that this helpful and encouraging guide to funding adoption will motivate more families to take a step of faith and open their hearts and homes to children who need them.

Filled with fascinating and moving stories, How to Get My Kids Back From Child Protective Services is one mother’s true account of a twelve-year ordeal with the Justice System. Fed up with the coded language and bureaucracy which only a few seemingly understand, the author has written with simplicity and the average person in mind. All who are concerned with preserving the health and well being of the family structure will find this book both compelling and rewarding. Although some stories are deeply disturbing, it will provide critical information, little known secrets and advice to empower all who read it. Our kids are being taken by staggering unbelievable numbers each day. A cautionary tale for all.

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About the Author: Gloria Evans is a freelance writer and author who has written various articles pertaining to the welfare of children. As founding editor of her college newspaper, Gloria won the Colleges’ Outstanding Journalism Award. She left the corporate world of tax account management and consulting to devote her life to helping children. Since then she and her husband Obie have fostered over 20 children and adopted six through the foster care system. Originally from the South, Gloria now resides in the Midwest with her husband of 30 years, six beautiful children and three parakeets, Sunny, Peanut and Sky.

Adoption is a great way to grow your family. My wife and I have adopted two wonderful boys but the journey was not always magical. Think about it. Adoption can be a big decision financially and it is filled with emotions. Our journey has had its ups and downs and now that we have found the end of the adoption road for us, we have a lot to share that can hopefully help you.

From the Publisher: How to Hold On is a guidebook from an inside perspective on how to hold on to our biological, adoptive and foster children. It gives direct insight on what parents and adults need to consider, enforce and instill in the youth of today—the leaders of tomorrow. How to Hold On will not only give you a first-hand perspective on the journey foster parents are on, but it will also help you to understand the resources that are needed prior to entering this commitment. It is meant to equip parent with a new perspective on parenting, which will allow you to remain forever connected to your children. The book’s intent is to publicly and directly draw attention to the area of foster care that needs to be changed. It will give people everywhere a challenge to mirror the behavior that they want to see in the youth of today.

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About the Author: Donna Guinnip is from rural Pennsylvania where she resides with her husband, two children, and an ever-changing group of foster children. Donna is passionate about seeing change in the foster-care system. Being a cancer survivor has taught her that you weakest moment can be your strongest motivator. Donna and her husband continue in their journey as foster parents, allowing each child and each encounter to change and strengthen them. In writing How to Hold On, her second book, her desire is to promote a new way of thinking for handling, loving and holding on to our children, especially children in care. Donna continues to expand her knowledge, and is presently taking course in psychology to facilitate a stronger understanding of the children that grace her home.

Are you considering special needs adoption? Please read on. Written by experts in the field, Quick Easy Guides share little-known trade secrets and helpful hints to get you moving in the right direction. Quick Easy Guides gives you books you can judge by the cover. Our books are short, sweet and cheap. You can see for yourself.

A guide for people who would like to consider adoption but are reluctant because they believe that the process is too expensive. It is also for families who—caught up in the emotions of adopting—may not have given serious thought to some of the less obvious financial aspects of adoption. Discusses the expenses most common to most adoptions, as well as those that are unique to the adoption of waiting children, to independent adoptions, and to international adoptions. Also gives information about financial assistance and tax breaks available to adoptive parents.

From the Back Cover: How to Open an Adoption: A Guide for Parents and Birthparents of Minors by Patricia Dorner is both a guidebook ad a reference book. Ms. Dorner takes us through the process step by step, examining along the way the emotional issues for all involved. She gives readers the tools they need to make opening their adoptions the best experience it can be. It is also an invaluable tool for the adoption professional.

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About the Author: Patricia Martinez Dorner is a licensed therapist who has 17 years experience helping birth families and adoptive families open up their relationships with each other. Author of Talking to Your Child About Adoption and Adoption Search: A Guide for Professionals [see Compiler’s Note], and the co-author of Children of Open Adoption, Ms. Dorner is a nationally recognized leader in open adoption education. In addition to her counseling practice, Ms. Dorner lives in San Antonio, Texas and is the mother of two children in open adoptions.HR>

By the Same Author: Children of Open Adoption (with Kathleen Silber; 1990, Corona Publishing Co.) and Talking to Your Child About Adoption (1991, Schaefer Publishing Co.), among others.

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Compiler’s Note: All efforts to find any publication information regarding the book Adoption Search: A Guide for Professionals have been unsuccessful.

From the Dust Jacket: How to Raise an Adopted Child is a comprehensive “how-to” book that anticipates nearly every possible situation adoptive parents may encounter. Recognizing that adopted children differ in many ways from birth children, the authors tell parents what they need to know before—and after—adoption. From securing information about the health of the child you plan to adopt, to choosing a pediatrician for the youngster you’ve adopted, from how to tell your child that he or she is adopted, to reacting “properly” upon learning that your son or daughter is searching for his or her birth mother—this is the ultimate resource for parents of adoptees.

Hundreds of questions that parents ask most often are interspersed along with typical problem situations. For instance, what should you do if your adopted child begins stealing from your birth children? How can parents discipline an adopted youngster who’s been physically or sexually abused in the past? What’s the proper response to a bigoted neighbor who uses a racial epithet against the black child of white parents? Or, if you decide that your adoptee requires the services of a therapist, should you and your spouse accompany your child?

Sensitively and thoughtfully, the authors of this book show us that—first and foremost—adoption is an act of love, but it is successful only when parents recognize it comes with its own special set of needs and circumstances.

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About the Author: Judith Schaffer and Christina Lindstrom are psychotherapists and family therapists, and are cofounders and codirectors of the Manhattan-based Center for Adoptive Families.

What began as a simple but very serious question in the middle of a Wal-Mart store turned into a life-changing adventure. My wife and I decided to adopt a baby that day. Our story is filled with trials and tribulations as we weather storms (literally a hurricane and a tree on our house), discover one is now two (twins, we couldn’t believe it!), and finally bring Garrett and Andrew home...as two become four. This book was written to give hope and to inspire people to adopt. There are thousands of kids out there who need a loving family. If we could do it, through all our experiences, then anyone can do it.

Sarah Simmons was born in a small city. She moved to a smaller town at the age of fourteen and met and married her high school sweetheart, Pastor Abraham Simmons. She is the mother of three boys: Morris, Kevin, and Jonathan. She also serves as assistant pastor beside her husband, with whom she hosts a weekly television broadcast. How We Survived Our Adoption Story describes how you can make it through any process that may be filled with turmoil, trouble, and trials, even from the very beginning. It allows her to express the challenges associated with raising children, adopted or natural. It also shows the deep love of God the Father in navigating through perilous times. Sarah Simmons believes that reading this book will allow you to see that all things are possible through Jesus Christ, and “her Best Friend, Holy Spirit.”

The real-life, true story of a family from northeast Texas and their incredible journey through the justice system of Cass County, Texas. A fascinating account of a family who could be your neighbors; just a normal foster-adopt family until tragedy brought them to the adverse attention of local law-enforcement officials and they were persecuted [sic] by a rogue District Attorney in pursuit of his own personal political ambitions.

Hungarian Rhapsody is a heart-warming account of an Indiana couple who set out to adopt a child from an orphanage in Eastern Europe but wouldn’t stop until they had brought home six children. Fighting red-tape all the way, Jim and Kim Derk were determined to reunite a split-up family and then keep them together at all costs. A must-read for anyone considering international adoption, this heart-felt book offers much insight into what really happens when Americans head overseas to foreign orphanages.

The Hybrid Family: Understanding Trans-Ethnic Adoptive Parenting is written as a guide for the mental health practitioner and adoptive parent. It covers topics such as the importance of: language of origin, attachment and bonding, ethnic origin identity, lifebooks, open vs. closed legal arrangements and much more. Here’s a quote directly from the text: “Adoption waiting after official paperwork is complete can be anywhere from a couple of weeks, months or years. It is a time of preparation for a change in lifestyle, as well as an opportunity for the adoptive parents to educate themselves on the special needs of a trans-ethnic adoption. It has been suggested that if the adoptive parents take this time to get up to speed on diversity sensitivity and attachment, the success rate of immediate adjustment after adoption is much greater. Many times adoptive parents get caught up in paperwork and then family adjustment. They fail to seek preventative assistance before there is a crisis. Attachment is a process that many times can be better facilitated by a mental health professional, rather than the adoptive parents taking it on themselves alone. A resource list is advised. Diversity issues that naturally arise for an adoptee in adolescence can be largely tackled in the same way, preventively.”

Claudia Chapman has some big questions. Questions like: were all my friends this obnoxious before they had kids? Will the social worker notice if I only vacuum the middle of the rooms? Does God really hate me, or does it just feel that way? And, most importantly, will anybody find out that sometimes, I pretend my cat is a baby? Claudia doesn’t want to have these questions. Claudia and her husband Jay want children, but they find out fast that it isn’t going to happen the fun way. Confronted with the choices of a medically risky pregnancy, remaining childless or adopting, they decide to adopt internationally. After all, thinks Claudia, how hard can it be? Ha. From England to Ethiopia and back again, this memoir is the story of what happens next. It’s a story about doing something different from what everybody else is doing. It’s a story about getting the house really, really clean. It’s a story about paperwork, pregnancy announcements, wrestling with God, falling down, getting up, coming to terms, and—eventually—it’s a story about becoming a mother.

Everyone has a story to tell and this is mine. In 1981, my husband and I decided to adopt a baby from Honduras. We thought it would take only three weeks, yet it took over three months. It was a journey of a lifetime.

Are you ready for maybe inadequate behavior from your future adoptive children? Are you ready for the fact that the love for those children will not appear until later or maybe not at all, that they will remain “ strangers” in your family?

I want to learn how to be supportive of adoptive families. What would adoptive families like me to know? This book will give you the tools to participate in caring for children in need of families by being encouraging to and supportive of adoptive families.

From the Dust Jacket: She puts salt in the pepper shaker and pepper in the salt shaker because then if she gets mixed up, she’s right. She shortens the electric cords in the house to save electricity. That’s the character Gracie Allen has played for years. And for all that time people have asked George Burns, “How do you stand it? Why do you put up with it?” And for twenty-eight years George has been answering, “I lover her, that’s why!”

This story of the life George Burns has led, both B.G. and A.G. (before and after Gracie), is genuinely funny and genuinely moving. Nobody knows more jokes than he—he’s used only his best here; nobody knows so well how far down down can be, while very few have been at the top so long. He tells it all, and he tells it well (he admits unblushingly that he has the best collaborator in the business). And he has succeeded in making his love letter to Gracie a letter that will delight anyone lucky enough to read it.

After a certain amount of dickering, a friend of George Burns’s called Jack Benny agreed to write the prologue.

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By the Same Author: Gracie: A Love Story (1988, Putnam).

From the Publisher: Alice, aged four, is snatched by her mother the day she is due to arrive at Cathy’s house. Drug-dependent and mentally ill, but desperate to keep hold of her daughter, Alice’s mother takes her from her parents’ house and disappears.

Cathy spends three anxious days worrying about her whereabouts before Alice is found safe, but traumatized. Alice is like a little doll, so young and vulnerable, and she immediately finds her place in the heart of Cathy’s family. She talks openly about her mummy, who she dearly loves, and how happy she was living with her maternal grandparents before she was put into care. Alice has clearly been very well looked after and Cathy can’t understand why she couldn’t stay with her grandparents.

It emerges that Alice’s grandparents are considered too old (they are in their early sixties) and that the plan is that Alice will stay with Cathy for a month before moving to live with her father and his new wife. The grandparents are distraught—Alice has never known her father, and her grandparents claim he is a violent drug dealer.

Desperate to help Alice find the happy home she deserves, Cathy’s parenting skills are tested in many new ways. Finally questions are asked about Alice’s father suitability, and his true colors begin to emerge.

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About the Author: Cathy Glass has been a foster carer for over 25 years, during which time she has looked after more than 100 children, of all ages and backgrounds. She has three teenage children of her own; one of whom was adopted after a long-term foster placement. The name Cathy Glass is a pseudonym.

Cathy has written 16 books, including bestselling memoirs Cut, Hidden and Mummy Told Me Not To Tell.

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By the Same Author: Damaged: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Forgotten Child (2006); Hidden: Betrayed, Exploited and Forgotten: How One Boy Overcame the Odds (2007); Cut: The True Story of an Abandoned, Abused Little Girl Who Was Desperate to be Part of a Family (2008); Saddest Girl in the World: The True Story of a Neglected and Isolated Little Girl Who Just Wanted to Be Loved (2009); The Night the Angels Came (2011); A Baby’s Cry (2012); Another Forgotten Child (2012); Please Don’t Take My Baby (2013); Will You Love Me?: The Story of My Adopted Daughter Lucy (2013); Daddy’s Little Princess (2014); and Saving Danny (2015), among many others.

From the Back Cover: He’s the man of your dreams.

But he doesn’t share your dream of having a child.

He seems to have all the makings of a great dad: He’s kind, fun, and thoughtful—and you’ve even seen him goof around and play with his nieces and nephews. But what do you do when he says, “I’m just not ready to be a father”—and you're ready to start a family? In I Want a Baby, He Doesn't, authors Donna Wade—who wanted a baby when her husband didn’t—and licensed marital therapist Liberty Kovacs, answer your most worrisome questions, including how to:

• Begin those difficult conversations about having a baby

• Deal with personal and practical challenges—from money to fertility

• Understand and show respect for his emotional concerns

• Resolve the conflict amicably—for both of you

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About the Author: Donna J. Wade has successfully faced the challenge addressed in I Want a Baby, He Doesn't with her husband. She first told her family’s story in a self-published book. Through extensive world travel, Donna has performed volunteer work as an editor in a newsletter for the American Women's Club in Lausanne, Switzerland. She lives in Sacramento, California, with her husband, Ken, and their Dalmatian, Bella.

Liberty Kovacs, Ph.D., M.F-T., is a licensed marital/family therapist and holds a Ph.D. in marital/family therapy from the California Graduate School of Family Psychology. Dr. Kovacs has published articles about marriage in a number of professional journals and mainstream publications, such as Family Therapy, The Sacramento Bee, Body and Soul, and Good Housekeeping, London. Dr. Kovacs lives in Sacramento, California.

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Compiler's Note: See, particularly, Chapter 15: Treating Infertility (pp. 151-162) and Chapter 16: Adoption as an Option (pp. 163-173).

A story of one family’s trials and frustrations in the process of adopting foreign children and how the adoptees were integrated into the family unit.