Adoption Motherhood

Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. Wellington's timely–and deeply researched–account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.

This gripping memoir details a California woman's quest to adopt a baby girl from Guatemala in the face of overwhelming adversity. At only 32 years old, Jessica O'Dwyer experiences early menopause, seemingly ending her chances of becoming a mother. Years later, married but childless, she comes across a photo of a two-month-old girl on a Guatemalan adoption website and feels an instant connection. When the process drags on for more than a year, Jessica quits her job at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and moves to Antigua, Guatemala, to finish the adoption herself.

In the late 1960s, at the age of eighteen and living far from home amidst the thriving counterculture of Ottawa, Marilyn Churley got pregnant. Like thousands of other women of the time she kept the event a secret. Faced with few options, she gave the baby up for adoption. Over twenty years later, as the Ontario NDP government’s minister responsible for all birth, death, and adoption records, including those of her own child, Churley found herself in a surprising and powerful position–fully engaged in the long and difficult battle to reform adoption disclosure laws and find her son.

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.

Angelina Moehlmann invites listeners to journey with her on a raw and emotional path to motherhood through adoption. Faced with the challenges of infertility, unexpected setbacks, and the overwhelming uncertainty of the adoption process, Angelina never gave up on her dream of becoming a mother. In this heartwarming memoir, Angelina shares the struggles, tears, and ultimate triumph of her adoption story, capturing the moments that made her stronger along the way.

Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Memoir/Biography In this searing and uplifting memoir, a young Black queer woman fresh out of college adopts her baby brother after their incarcerated mother dies, determined to create the kind of family she never had. Growing up, Nikkya...

Red Clocks: A Novel: Booktrack Edition adds an immersive musical soundtrack to your audiobook listening experience! * Five women. One question. What is a woman for? In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the...

How does a mother cope when she is forced to walk away from her three children and never see them again? That is what happened to JB's mother, Myrtle. Eventually, rescued from her despair by tall, dark, and handsome George Rowley, who fell in love with her, Myrtle started a new life and had seven more children. She buried the grief of losing her first children deep within and kept her pain secret. JB and her siblings were unaware of the existence of Myrtle's first three children until after she died.

Intimate and honest essays on motherhood, marriage, love, and acceptance. Brown White Black is a portrait of Nishta J. Mehra's family: her wife, who is white; her adopted child, Shiv, who is black; and their experiences dealing with America's rigid ideas of race, gender, and sexuality. Her...

For all women looking to find “hope in a hopeless world and bravery in an age that seems to lack it,” comes a searing memoir by Shannon Dingle, a writer and disability advocate who has navigated loss, trauma, abuse, spiritual reawakening, and deep pain—and come out the other side still...

In this practical guide, adoptive parent Helen Oakwater helps you to understand the ins and outs of adoption. Using Helen’s insights and tips, you will become better at understanding what makes you tick, and learn how to become calmer, kinder to yourself, and identify what helps or hinders. Only when you have learned how to look after yourself can you nurture a hurt child.

Shattered by infertility, Anna Maria knew that adoption was the only way to realize the family of her dreams. That is how she found herself in a Mexican orphanage ready to meet a six-year-old girl. Once in their forever home, her new daughter cried and pleaded to return to the women who had cared for her since birth. Anna Maria was devastated.

For Emilia Greenleaf, life is by turns a comedy of errors and an emotional minefield. Yes, she's a Harvard Law grad who married her soul mate. Yes, they live in elegant comfort on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But with her one-and-only, Jack, came a stepson, a know-it-all preschooler named William who has become her number one responsibility every Wednesday afternoon.

She never imagined the pursuit to parenthood would involve the emotional assault of an adoption agency's flexible morality or invasive surgical procedures that brutalize both their bodies - but it did. Lauri M. Velotta-Rankin and her husband were sent overseas by an unscrupulous adoption agency to chase the ghosts of children they'd never bring home. After turning to in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a life-threatening diagnosis sent them reeling with fear and to the brink of emotional collapse.