Two very different roads. The choice will change everything.Even as a pregnant, unwed teen in 1974, Sandy Lincoln wanted to do the right thing. But when an ageless woman approached her in a convenience store with a mysterious prophecy and a warning, doing the right thing became even more unclear. She made the best choice she could . . . and has lived with the consequences.More than thirty years later, a pregnant teen has come into her life, and Sandy's long-ago decision has come back to haunt her. The stakes rise quickly, leaving Sandy with split seconds to choose once more. But will her choice decision bring life . . . or death?"The Choice shows the struggles of unplanned pregnancy and the courageous act of adoption in a way that I haven't read before . . ." --Abby Brannam-Johnson, former Planned Parenthood Director and author of Unplanned"Whitlow captures the struggle of many women trapped in the battle over abortion in a truly sympathetic and affecting way." --Booklist

    This fascinating quest, including the author's landmark use of DNA testing, takes readers on an exhilarating roller-coaster ride and concludes with a twist that rivals anything Hollywood has to offer.In the vein of a classic mystery, Hill gathers the seemingly scant evidence surrounding the circumstances of his birth. As his resolve shores up, the author also avails of new friends, genealogists, the Internet, and the latest DNA tests in the new field of genetic genealogy. As he closes in on the truth of his ancestry, he is able to construct a living, breathing portrait of the young woman who was faced with the decision to forsake her rights to her child, and ultimately the man whose identity had remained hidden for decades.Finding Family offers guidance, insight, and motivation for anyone engaged in a similar mission, from ways to obtain information to the many networks that can facilitate adoption searches. The book includes a detailed guide to DNA and genetic genealogy and how they can produce irrefutable results in determining genetic connections and help adoptees bypass sealed records and similar stumbling blocks.

    Angela Patrick was 19 years old, enjoying her first job working in the City, when her life turned upside down. A brief fling with a charismatic charmer left her pregnant, unmarried and facing a stark future. Being under 21, she was still under the governance of her parents, strict Catholics who insisted she have the baby in secret and then put it up for adoption. Shunned by her family and forced to leave her job, Angela was sent to an imposing-looking convent for unmarried mothers in north-east London. Run like a Victorian workhouse, conditions in the convent were decidedly Spartan. Vilified and degraded by the nuns for her 'wickedness', her only comfort came from the other pregnant girls, all knowing they too would have to give up their babies. After a terrifying labour with no pain relief, Angela gave birth to a beautiful son, Paul, with whom she fell instantly in love. At eight weeks he was taken from her and forcibly put up for adoption, leaving Angela bereft and heartbroken. Not a day went by without Angela thinking about him. Then, thirty years later, she received a letter. It was from Paul, and a reunion was arranged. This vital slice of social history is a shocking reminder of how cultural mores have changed around the issue of single motherhood since the early 1960s. It is also an honest, heartfelt memoir that explores the closest of human bonds.

    When Wen is adopted by an American couple, she struggles to adjust to every part of her new life: having access to all the food and clothes she could want, going to school, being someone's daughter. But the hardest part of all is knowing that Shu Ling remains back at the orphanage, alone. Wen knows that her best friend deserves a family and a future, too. But finding a home for Shu Ling isn't easy, and time is running out . . .

    Adopted at birth, Claire is convinced she has some unknown genetic flaw that may be causing her miscarriages. She must find a way to deal with the guilt she harbors. But exoneration will come with a price. With her marriage in dire straits and her father refusing to discuss her adoption, Claire leaves everything she’s ever known, determined to find the answers she needs. But what if the woman who gave her life doesn’t want to be found?

    But upon meeting the children, Levi knew there was no turning back. Six weeks later, Levi, his wife, Jessie, and their three young children sold their home and all their belongings and relocated to Ethiopia indefinitely. No Greater Love documents Levi's journey--from the challenges he faced establishing and running the orphanage to finding adoptive homes for the children.

    Grounded in science, but made real with the often heart-breaking and inspiring words of parents who have been there, Dr. Katja Rowell helps readers understand and address feeding challenges, from simple picky eating to entrenched food obsession, oral motor and developmental delays, “feeding clinic failures,” and more. Though written primarily for the adoptive and fostering audience, Rowell, aka, the “Feeding Doctor,” shares that her clients are more alike than different. “This book is a distillation of the advice and support I provide all my families as they transform a troubled feeding relationship into a healthy one, and bring peace and joy back to the family table.”

    Hughes and veteran clinical psychologist Jonathan Baylin guide readers through the intricate web of neuronal processes, hormones, and chemicals that drive—and sometimes thwart—our caregiving impulses, uncovering the mysteries of the parental brain.The biggest challenge to parents, Hughes and Baylin explain, is learning how to regulate emotions that arise—feeling them deeply and honestly while staying grounded and aware enough to preserve the parent–child relationship. Stress, which can lead to “blocked” or dysfunctional care, can impede our brain’s inherent caregiving processes and negatively impact our ability to do this. While the parent–child relationship can generate deep empathy and the intense motivation to care for our children, it can also trigger self-defensive feelings rooted in our early attachment relationships, and give rise to “unparental” impulses.Learning to be a “good parent” is contingent upon learning how to manage this stress, understand its brain-based cues, and respond in a way that will set the brain back on track. To this end, Hughes and Baylin define five major “systems” of caregiving as they’re linked to the brain, explaining how they operate when parenting is strong and what happens when good parenting is compromised or “blocked.” With this awareness, we learn how to approach kids with renewed playfulness, acceptance, curiosity, and empathy, re-regulate our caregiving systems, foster deeper social engagement, and facilitate our children’s development.Infused with clinical insight, illuminating case examples, and helpful illustrations, Brain-Based Parenting brings the science of caregiving to light for the first time. Far from just managing our children’s behavior, we can develop our “parenting brains,” and with a better understanding of the neurobiological roots of our feelings and our own attachment histories, we can transform a fraught parent-child relationship into an open, regulated, and loving one.

    Nothing, however, could have prepared de Blecourt for the twisted nightmare she would endure. During her year-long struggle to extricate her newly adopted little boy from that post-Soviet country's corrupt social service and judicial systems, de Blecourt was insulted, physically assaulted, and arrested. Worse, her months of loneliness, worry, and fear drove her to the brink of spiritual despair. But God had no intention of abandoning de Blecourt or her family. Her amazing story-culminating in a spine-chilling race to freedom-offers dramatic proof that God's light shines on even in the deepest darkness.

    But when she meets another swirly kid and his swirly mom, she finds out that she does belong somewhere . . . with a very special swirly Someone.

    Children who have experienced trauma need to be parented in a special way that helps them feel safe and secure, builds attachments and allows them to heal.Playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy (PACE) are four valuable elements of parenting that, combined with love, can help children to feel confident and secure. This book shows why these elements are so important to a child's development, and demonstrates to parents and carers how they can incorporate them into their day-to-day parenting. Real life examples and typical dialogues between parents and children illustrate how this can be done in everyday life, and simple stories highlight the ideas behind each element of PACE.This positive book will help parents and carers understand how parenting with love and PACE is invaluable to a child's development, and will guide them through using this parenting attitude to help their child feel happy, confident and secure.

    'An-Ya and Her Diary' chronicles the journey of an 11 year old adoptee from China. Written in diary format, young An-Ya reveals her emotional journey as she is catapulted from a Chinese orphanage into a middle class home in America. The diary, into which she journals, was the only item left with An-Ya when she was found as an infant. For 11 years An-Ya has left the diary blank as she patiently waited in China for her biological family to return. Ultimately, after her adoption to America, she feels compelled to write her story down. Inside her diary she strives to connect the two severed worlds in which she has lived. An-Ya's story is one of incredible loss, filled with painful transitions and longed for hope. It is a story that will linger with you after its final page is turned.

    College where she taught, and she realized it was not just her German accent, that had alienated her from her Black colleagues. She discovered under her layers of privilege (private schools, international travel, the life of a fashion model and actress in Europe) that her hidden story is one of disinheritance.The author’s determination to find out who her mother and father really were, and why she was taken from them, tests the love of her White husband and their son, leads her to embrace and then reject the charismatic man she believes to be her biological father, and takes her deep into the jungles of Guatemala to find a family that has kept her memory alive as legend. In the book's shocking ending, she learns the truth about who her mother was, and the callous disrespect committed long ago against mother and child in the name of love.

    The book is an easy read, and explains ideas through stories, scripts, and practical strategies. "The Adoptive & Foster Parent Guide" teaches families as well as professionals, in a step by step approach, how to heal a child’s past trauma and loss. "The Adoptive & Foster Parent Guide" touches on many topics, including: attachment styles (attachment disorder), dysfunctional family patterns unique to adoption and fostering, birth families, how to create healthy attachment, maintaining calm, and managing a team of professionals.The print version of the book is listed at www.forever-families.com

    When she was barely in her twenties her adoptive parents died and a pattern of loss was put into motion that would continue for years as, one by one, those she called family were torn from her life. Struggling to deal with the loss of her family of origin and her adoptive parents, she ultimately reunites with members of her birth family–but there is never a reunion with the woman who gave her life and she continues to feel lost, rejected, and disconnected.Two Hearts charts a course through a complex series of relationships stemming from the author’s adoptive family, her maternal and paternal birth families, and an abusive marriage as the author seeks the one thing she so desperately wants: family. Hoye knows she must come to terms with the bitterness she harbors toward her birth mother when she becomes a grandmother and, soon after, faces the loss of the last remaining members of her adoptive family. She makes one final attempt to find something that will give her the sense of rightness that eluded her for so long.This is the story of a strong and courageous woman’s journey through unfathomable grief; of what it takes to go into the abyss of deep-seated wounding, to feel the pain, and to come out the other side, whole, healed, and thankful.

    In less than three years after that divorce, chances are both mom and dad are remarried, and probably each to someone who has kids of their own. The single most explosive and divisive issue in those marriages? Stepparenting. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived in a bubble gum and sugar plum world where, without a ripple on Lake Placid, kids embraced stepparents and appreciated their contributions? Where stepsiblings didn’t compete for attention and argue over favorites and fairness? Well, we don’t. So what we need when stepparenting is a good plan. A plan for blending, or blendering if you will, the disparate stepchildren and their parents into a chunky smoothie of stepfamily goodness. How To Screw Up Your Kids helps the parents everyone predicts will fail prove all the naysayers wrong. Through the use of practical human relations principles and the author’s own achingly honest and laugh-out-loud funny stories, readers will learn to envision and instill a unique set of family values and culture into their new household, and by God, have fun doing it.

    It expa=lains that children come from our hearts, regardless of how they come to live with us.

    Raising children from tough beginnings, working with the child welfare system, and advocating for the children in your care can be difficult with a steep learning curve. But now, foster and resource parents have a place to turn to for answers, comfort, and a deep community connection. Covering topics both timely and practical, The Foster Parenting Toolbox offers you the help you need whether you re just starting out on your foster parenting journey or you ve already welcomed hundreds of children to your home. This book provides words of wisdom, connections to others who ve walked in the same shoes, and advice for the most difficult situations you might encounter. More than 100 contributors have created this useful resource specifically for foster parents and the professionals who work with them: caseworkers, social workers, judges, CASA s, GAL s and others who are a part of the foster child s team. This is a top of the nightstand resource that offers you access 24/7 to a wealth of useful information from professionals in the field and successful resource and foster parents in the trenches. This is a book you may not read all at once, but you will come back to it again and again. Foster parenting, the toughest job you will ever love...

    While everyone proudly believes she’s fulfilling her dream to dance, Laura insanely thinks she’s a spy for the Illuminati who unwittingly perpetrated 9/11. Will she learn to exist between the highs and lows, ultimately discovering her own Adopted Reality?

    

    Her lonely travels through a world that feels dark. At times she finds a friend to ride along in this journey called life."Biography of the author: "Wendy is an adoptee who was born in Columbus Ohio in 1972 and adopted at 5 days old. She spent much of her life dreaming of her first mother and had high hopes of meeting her once again someday.After searching for her truth for 14 years she finally received her first mothers name, Dottye, and then found out she had died at the young age of 24 in a car accident.Wendy has spent most of her life expressing herself through the written word and has put together a selection of her poems pertaining to feelings surrounding her adoption in the book Shadows of a Dark-Alley Adoptee. Her hope is that her book will help others to understand her personal struggles with being adopted as well help others who share those struggles.For Wendy, being adopted and finding her first mother at a grave both have a huge part in defining who she is."

    Based on a true story, DELIVERED sheds light on adoption from the perspective of the birthmother. This personal account tells the story of Michelle, who gets pregnant and watches as her world implodes. Realizing she is alone, she enters a maternity home and makes the difficult choice to give her child up for adoption. As her pregnancy comes to term and the adoption proceeds, Michelle's heart is awakened to who she is and what she believes, while redemption begins to infiltrate her life in unexpected ways. Raw and revealing, DELIVERED gives a voice to an otherwise silent population who call themselves birthmothers and inspires others to consider that the giving of life to one has a ripple effect, bringing life to many.

    There was no crime. Then why were we sitting in the accused chairs? As an infant, Daniel entered the foster care system as a result of severe neglect, which manifested in violence and aggression later in his childhood. Desperate to get their adoptive son, Daniel, into a residential treatment center and keep their other children safe, the state of Illinois left Jim and Toni Hoy with two options. If they brought their son home from the psychiatric hospital for the 11th time in 2 years, the Department of Children and Family Services threatened to charge them with child endangerment for failure to protect their other children. Mental health professionals recommended abandoning him at the hospital after the state denied all viable sources of funding for his treatment. Making that choice would trigger a child abuse investigation and subsequent neglect charges. Daniel re-entered the foster care system for no other reason than he was mentally ill.     A year later, Daniel’s mother discovered that his treatment was covered by a funding source that he was awarded as part of his special needs adoption. The EPSDT provision of Medicaid. How could they get the state government to understand the federal law and re-gain custody of their son? "Second Time Foster Child" is the story of parents who never gave up on their son, despite being prosecuted and persecuted in exchange for his medically necessary treatment.

    In this book we see the father and son from Old Bear and His Cub meet for the first time--and grow to love one another.With the same bold art and humorous twist on parenting, Olivier Dunrea's tumbling bears will melt your heart and show how strong the bond is between any father and son pair.

    Years of longing for parenthood and failed infertility treatments had left them heartbroken and discouraged. The idea of adopting brought them a lot of needed encouragement, but they soon realized that they were just one couple waiting on a list of 921 other couples with the same agency. The day finally came when they received that long-awaited letter from a young expecting mother-to-be, but there was a big problem. Her teenage boyfriend didn’t want to parent, but he also refused to sign any adoption papers. Would she be forced to drop out of school at age fifteen to raise this child, or could she find a way to solve this dilemma? Would this hurdle even be the toughest problem to solve during the journey? Bringing the child home for the first time is actually just the beginning of their story. Open adoption means so much more than that. It means that their relationship together would go on and on. It means that Russell and Jammie’s family tree now includes the birth parents and their extended family. This true and inspiring story is such a roller coaster ride of emotions that you would think it was fiction.

    Scars of communism left their mark on this infant, and Debra searched for many years for answers for her troubled son. She found some answers, but what she didn't expect to find was that her relationship with God was much like that of an orphaned child who didn't really trust her adopted heavenly father.Dane didn't know how to trust the love of his parents due to his early abandonment and attachment issues. In his confusion he would say, "Mommy, are you nice or mean?" As she learned ways to connect to her son, Debra realized a twenty year course in clinging to God paralleled her parenting journey. She came to understand that her doubts about God were rooted in fear and pain, just like her son's maladaptive behaviors.As an adoptive mother in the role of healing parent, she gained insight into knowing God as her healer through lessons she learned in her relationship with Dane. In her transparent and humorous way, Debra shares how she went from living as a "spiritual orphan" to a trusting daughter in her daily walk with God.

    These monologues were developed and performed around the United States in academic, clinical and child welfare settings to wide acclaim over the last sixteen years. They will be of immediate interest to scholars of race, identity, emotional intelligence, adoption, child welfare, as well as clinicians and those directly impacted in families created by adoption. The book will also speak to writers, performers and individuals interested in developing their voice through self-exploration. In her narratives the author explores in depth: the impact of foster care during the first 14 months of her life; her relationship with her unknown birth father; the role of race and racism for transracial adoptees who grow up in white communities; the development of her racial identity and a model derived from these experiences, and the relationships between her different identities or mind constructs, her inner strengths and vulnerabilities, and the outside world. There is a progression one chapter to the next, chronicling greater understanding, deeper reflection, and a developing voice. This is an original and sophisticated exploration of the inner life of a transracial adoptee and the forces that helped shape her life. It is at once a case study and an observation of the human condition with universal appeal.

    Despite the grumblings and protests of the other animals, Baby Brown Bear learns family is family, no matter the differences, and all bears need love.

    find the kind of life you have always wanted to discover." -Tom Davis, President of Children's Hope Chest and author of Fields of the Fatherless, Scared and Priceless"The global orphan crisis is too serious to ignore, the biblical call is to plain to miss. I'm thrilled to see Journey to the Fatherless!" -Tony Merida, author of Orphanology, and Lead Pastor, Imago Dei Church and Associate Professor of Preaching, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary"The Journey will move a church from thinking to action in responding to the needs of fatherless children." -Jayne Schooler, author of Wounded Hearts, Healing Homes and The Whole Life Adoption Book"The Journey to the Fatherless is life-changing ..." -Paparao Yeluchuri, President, Missions to the Nations, IndiaDOES THE CHURCH CARE FOR THE WORLD'S CHILDREN? The evidence on display tells a troubling story with an ever-increasing number of orphans in the world, kids aging out of foster care, AIDS babies in Africa, and toddlers in Haiti whose hair has turned orange from severe protein deficiencies. What makes this situation especially tragic is that given our wealth, talent, and resources, the Church can be a powerful agent of change-and we have the biblical mandate to do so.Do Christians have a responsibility to intercede for and sacrifice their resources for vulnerable children? What happens to the Church when we do? And when we don't? How do we begin? The Journey to the Fatherless is written by a former agnostic, corporate executive and inventor who was chased down by the Hound of Heaven. God then took him to the "fields of the fatherless" so he could experience what breaks the heart of God. What he discovered in serving the least of these has been captured for the Church to use to prepare others for their journey. The Journey takes the reader beyond Fields of the Fatherless and The Hole in Our Gospel into a deeper understanding of the problem and the biblical call to action.

    Instinctively, she knew God was speaking to her, but she did not want to listen if His message required action as life-changing as adopting an orphan. Dread lingered in the aftermath of the disturbing suggestion, and a debilitating fog of uncertainty settled over her life.A journey of a thousand miles (or five thousand, in this case) might begin with a single step, but Debbie was not eager to take that first step. Though God was relentless, she remained adamant. She was determined to ignore the nudging. But God would not be ignored! God pried Debbie out of her comfortable existence and opened a door to a life she didn't know existed. But the Greatest of These is Love is about much more than adoption. It is a story about the powerful and astonishing ways God uses ordinary people to accomplish His divine intention that we love one another.

    Join the Murphy family as they embark on a faith-filled journey to bring home their son, Daniel, then experience the most joyful—as well as the most difficult—time of their lives. Walk with Lisa and Jim as they come face-to-face with the unthinkable, and watch as amazing miracles unfold. Lisa Murphy’s moving, personal narrative of love, loss, and courage is inspirational and others hope for when things don’t go according to plan. This family’s remarkable, true story demonstrates how living with an open heart and trusting in God’s greater plan can result in unexpected blessings—with ripple effects beyond our imagination.

    The Duck family has more love they long to share. Watch and see how God brings these lovable animals together as a family in a unique way through the gift of adoption.Read together with your children and explore how families are created not because you look the same but because God perfectly orchestrates families.

    In this book, Teri, who is an adoptee and psychotherapist, talks about several of the issues that adoptees struggle with and how they get in the way in relationships. She also covers how to heal these issues, what recovery looks like, and how to work with the partner to move past these issues to have a healthier and more enjoyable time together. Teri also discusses how how the partner might help the adoptee with some of the struggles.

    Allison Campbell is a young, single woman who discovers that a moment of excitement has led to an unplanned pregnancy and overwhelming heartache. Deep love paves the way for sacrifice as the lives of these two women touch.

    Focusing particularly on the experiences of those who have lost their children to adoption, Briggs analyzes the circumstances under which African American and Native mothers in the United States and indigenous and poor women in Latin America have felt pressed to give up their children for adoption or have lost them involuntarily.The dramatic expansion of transracial and transnational adoption since the 1950s, Briggs argues, was the result of specific and profound political and social changes, including the large-scale removal of Native children from their parents, the condemnation of single African American mothers in the context of the civil rights struggle, and the largely invented "crack babies" scare that inaugurated the dramatic withdrawal of benefits to poor mothers in the United States. In Guatemala, El Salvador, and Argentina, governments disappeared children during the Cold War and then imposed neoliberal economic regimes with U.S. support, making the circulation of children across national borders easy and often profitable. Concluding with an assessment of present-day controversies surrounding gay and lesbian adoptions and the struggles of immigrants fearful of losing their children to foster care, Briggs challenges celebratory or otherwise simplistic accounts of transracial and transnational adoption by revealing some of their unacknowledged causes and costs.

    Trace DeMeyer-Hentz and Patricia Cotter-Busbee, the co-editors and adoptees, located other Native adult survivors of adoption and asked them to write a narrative. The adoptees share their unique experience of living in Two Worlds, surviving assimilation via adoption, opening sealed adoption records, and in most cases, a reunion with their tribal relatives. Indigenous identity and historical trauma takes on a whole new meaning in this adoption anthology. This anthology covers the history of Indian child removals in North America, the adoption projects, their impact on Indian Country and how it impacts the adoptee and their families. Since 2004, DeMeyer-Hentz was writing her historical biography "One Small Sacrifice: A Memoir." She was contacted by many adoptees after stories were published about her work. More adoptees were found after "One Small Sacrifice" had its own Facebook page and her blog on American Indian Adoptees was started in 2009. In 2011, Trace was introduced to Patricia and asked her to co-edit the anthology. Two Worlds is the first book to expose in first-person detail the adoption practices that have been going on for years under the guise of caring for destitute Indigenous children. Every reader will be intrigued since very little is known or published on this history. As DeMeyer-Hentz writes in the Preface, "The only way we change history is to write it ourselves... and the truth shall set us free...

    No Stone Unturned is the saga of Bart’s struggle to regain his life. Told from his father’s point of view, the book chronicles the family’s ordeal, and flashbacks fill in Bart’s life since he arrived from Korea at the age of five months. Considering every possibility in their search for remedies to Bart’s catastrophic injuries, the Goldsteins explored several promising alternatives, including craniosacral, hyperbaric oxygen, sensory learning, and vision restoration therapies. Bart’s remarkable recovery resulted from a combination of conventional medicine and alternative and emerging therapies.TBI has now become the “signature injury” for thousands of wounded warriors returning from Iraq and Afghanistan; this timely book offers profound insights into what survivors and their families must face. Anyone struggling with this “invisible” disability will find the book insightful, inspiring, and useful.