Renee Gelin of Saving Our Sisters Endorses WONDERLAND with a Fabulous Review and Excellent Commentary
A guest post by Renee Gelin, Founder and President of Saving Our Sisters (SOS)
Our wonderful Renee Gelin just posted an amazingly well written review of WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption. As to be expected, she brought her stellar advocate voice, expertise and first parent perspective, to address the core issues in adoption and the need for reform that this book strives to illuminate. Thank you Saving Our Sisters
Book Review
Wonderland: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption — Patricia Knight Meyer
Wonderland is one of those books that stays with you long after you finish reading it.
Patricia Ann Knight Meyer is an incredibly descriptive writer. I often felt like I was sitting quietly in the corner of the room, watching her experiences unfold. From childhood through adulthood, she masterfully weaves together her life experiences.
Her story resonated deeply with me because so much of what she experienced reflects what I believe is deeply unethical about the U.S. infant adoption indu$try.
While reading, I kept coming back to questions that I couldn’t shake.
- What happened in that hospital?
- Who knew?
- Who allowed it?
- What happened to the records documenting her birth?
- And most importantly, did anyone consider ensuring Patricia was safe?
Adults made decisions.
Money changed hands.
Secrets were (and are still) kept.
And a child was left to live with the consequences.
Patricia’s story challenges the assumption that placing a child with an adoptive family automatically ensures their safety or guarantees a happy ending.
Her experiences also raise important questions about reunion.
How can people separated by adoption truly understand one another when they’ve spent decades living with entirely different narratives, expectations, and unresolved trauma?
Reunion isn’t automatically healing, particularly when those involved haven’t had the opportunity to deconstruct the adoption narratives they’ve been given.
But what troubles me most is how familiar the practices of secrecy and deception in US domestic infant adoption remain in place today.
The adoption indu$try professionals control the process, the information, and the narrative. How can anyone provide truly informed consent when someone else controls what they’re permitted to know?
Meaningful ethical safeguards are of little value without enforcement, transparency, independent oversight, and accessible paths to accountability. Sealed records and missing information can leave adopted people searching for answers about their own existence, while those responsible for unethical practices rarely face consequences.
And the harm doesn’t end with one person or one adoption.
People are forever changed.
Families are forever changed.
Generations are forever changed.
Wonderland is beautifully written, deeply personal, and incredibly important. It is yet another reminder of what happens when an indu$try involving vulnerable families, infants, secrecy, and significant financial interests operates without meaningful accountability or an unwavering commitment to truth, informed consent, integrity, ethics, and respect for the people whose lives it permanently alters.
This is why our work at Saving Our Sisters (SOS) matters so deeply to me. Family preservation isn’t just about helping mothers parent. It’s about preventing unnecessary separations, challenging coercive practices, and ensuring families have the information and support to make informed decisions.
I encourage everyone, especially those involved in adoption, to read or listen to Patricia’s story.
Read/Listen to Wonderland.
Question the narratives.
Challenge the practices.
Demand change.
Out Nov. 3!
Pre-Order WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption – Get it on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4xcQ4Wx
Get the Audiobook version on Audible here: https://www.audible.com/pd/Wonderland-Memoir-of-a-Black-Market-Adoption-Audiobook/B0HNLYPKWF
Renee Gelin is Founder and President of Saving Our Sisters (SOS). SOS is dedicated to ensuring no family makes a permanent decision during a temporary crisis. savingoursistersadoption.org
Renee will be joining me at the Down the Rabbit Hole event at the Bullock. She is one of our panelists. We hope you join us. You can attend via the free live stream or in person via this link. Register for tickets.