A comprehensive list of adoption resources including podcasts, search angels, organizations, and events.
In “Grief A Comedy,” Alison recounts how, after decades spent with Mr. Wrongs and/or Mr. Right Nows, she happened upon THE love of her life — an Indian expat named Bhima. She shares how she found Bhima and sadly how she lost him — too soon, waaaay too soon — and she explains how she managed to carry on after her fiance’s tragic and unexpected passing, and how he returned to her in spirit to help her write their love story and urge her to find love again.
by Barbara Demick
A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work.
by Brendan Watkins
A stunning memoir of one man's search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church. Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties, he started searching for his birth parents and eventually discovered the identity of his birth mother: he was told she was a Catholic nun. And she wanted nothing to do with him. For the next thirty years Brendan had no clues as to the identity of his birth father. In 2018, a DNA test provided the answer: he was the son of a priest. His father had studied in a Trappist monastery in Ireland, returned to Australia and become a celebrated outback missionary. After decades of searching and obstruction from the Catholic church, the whole truth was finally exposed. Brendan Watkins' birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. Tell No One reveals the moving story of that incredible discovery, and explores the questions, anxieties and reflections arising from his hidden past.
by Anthony Akerman
When he was ten years old, the author was told he’d been adopted. It was a seismic event that turned his world upside down. Nobody was who he thought they were. His mother wasn’t his mother; his father wasn’t his father; his sister wasn’t his sister; his grandparents weren’t his grandparents; he wasn’t related to any of his relatives; he didn’t know where he came from or who he was. This was at a time when adoption was shrouded in secrecy and shame. Birth mothers and adoptive parents signed non-disclosure agreements. Adoption records were sealed. In Lucky Bastard Anthony Akerman takes the reader on his quest to find out where he came from. Anthony Akerman’s memoir is a significant achievement. It is moving, funny, light to the touch, insightful, wry, self-reflective and witty. It is also poignant. Richly illustrated with photographs, and vividly written, it is a profoundly informative reflection, not just on adoption, his own adoption, and the perilous paths all those who adopt and are adopted are obliged to trudge, but on the tender anguishes and idiocies of being human. Justice Edwin Cameron. Follow this riveting odyssey of an adopted man in this compelling memoir. He defied the odds, crafting plays and words and conquering the world with resilience and passion. Herman Lategan, author of Hoerkind / Son of a Whore.
by Kit Myers
The Violence of Love challenges the narrative that adoption is a solely loving act that benefits birth parents, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents—a narrative that is especially pervasive with transracial and transnational adoptions. Using interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis, Kit W. Myers comparatively examines the adoption of Asian, Black, and Native American children by White families in the United States. He shows how race has been constructed relationally to mark certain homes, families, and nations as spaces of love, freedom, and better futures—in contrast to others that are not—and argues that violence is attached to adoption in complex ways. Propelled by different types of love, such adoptions attempt to transgress biological, racial, cultural, and national borders established by traditional family ideals. Yet they are also linked to structural, symbolic, and traumatic forms of violence. The Violence of Love confronts this discomforting reality and rethinks theories of family to offer more capacious understandings of love, kinship, and care.
by Heidi Marble and Alysa Zalma MD
Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble's lived experience as an adopted person. The story is led by Heidi as she pieces together her identity and comes home to her true self. Each chapter is followed by psychiatrist Alysa Zalma's commentary, which extracts the essence of what is happening psychologically and spiritually. Pulled by the Root is an awakening not only to the experience of being adopted but also to the experience of being human.
by Lynne Leppard
Each person has their own unique story, and as Lynne Leppard's early life included foster care and adoption, she often found herself wondering about her origins and heritage. Her loyalty to her adoptive family was real, but so too was her longing to find out more about her first family and the story of her biological parents. In these pages, woven together with faith and family, Lynne vulnerably shares the untangling of the threads of adoption as she searches for answers to questions of identity, security and belonging.
by Alice Stephens
Lisa Pearl is an American teaching English in Japan and the situation there―thanks mostly to her spontaneous, hard-partying ways―has become problematic. Now she’s in Seoul, South Korea, with her childhood best-friend Mindy. The young women share a special bond: they are both Korean-born adoptees into white American families. Mindy is in Seoul to track down her birth mom, and wants Lisa to do the same. Trouble is, Lisa isn’t convinced she needs to know about her past, much less meet her biological mother.
by Colin Curruthers
“I doubt that another human being will tread this same unconventional path.” This is an intimate and emotive account of an adult adoptee’s journey as he spent nearly three decades searching for his biological parents. Capturing his thoughts, emotions and physical encounters along the way, this rollercoaster ride demonstrates the determination and resilience of an adopted person to achieve his personal quest. There’s no doubt that this account will provide support, comfort, and inspiration to those thinking of searching for their biological parents, and those who have already started out on this journey, as well as those interested in wider adoption matters. Discover the relentless challenges and amazing encounters faced in pursuit of the truth when no stone is left unturned.
by Fiona Myles
The day that I believed adoption trauma was a thing was the start of my journey to a whole new me. Growing up I had been under the impression that I was just bad, naughty, and at one point in my childhood the adjective ""evil"" was applied. Of course I completely bought into the adjectives used to describe me. Even when the odd teacher spoke to me about my good attributes: caring, kind, and compassionate. Still I veered towards the negative. Adoption trauma is very real. Had it been recognized as a ""thing"" when I was a child, and if someone had picked up on it, things may have been different for me. I can’t change anything, but I can walk towards inner healing. So can you. Do you want to take a step towards confidence, acceptance, and well-being? This audiobook is my inward look at adoption trauma with some helpful tips that I have used over the past six years to help me overcome the feelings of unworthiness, anger, fear, and rejection that plagued me for 50 years.
by Joyce Maguire Pavao
Full of wonderful stories that give insight into a wide variety of adoption issues, now revised in light of recent developments, The Family of Adoption is a powerful argument for the right kind of openness in adoption. Joyce Maguire Pavao uses her thirty years of experience as a family and adoption therapist to explain to adoptive parents, birthparents, adult adopted people, and extended family, as well as to those who work with children professionally the developmental stages and challenges one can expect in the life of the adopted person. The Family of Adoption is truly the most insightful and healing book on the adoption shelf.
by Julie Ryan McGue
Belonging Matters supports the adoption community while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption. The collection explores the pursuit of identity and the boundaries of family and kinship. It challenges the reader to embrace all of who we come to be, and to discern with whom and where we belong. Because belonging defines the human experience, and it is what nourishes our spirit, fuels us with purpose, and compels us to soar beyond the limitations of our lived experience.
by Barbara Attwood
This is the true story of Barbara’s adoption by a family who lived in a town on the banks of the River Mersey. They were a loving family but Barbara always felt different. Her mother, Florrie, never wanted her to know the truth. At age 12, after Barbara accidentally discovered that she was adopted, Florrie lied to her about her birth mother, Carole, and the facts surrounding her birth. As a teenager, unable to deal with the shock of what she’d learned, she rebelled against her parents, finding solace in the exciting 1960s’ Liverpool music scene. Against her parents’ wishes, she got a job in Liverpool as a secretary. She went to lunch time sessions at the Cavern where she saw The Beatles, and often stayed out late in Liverpool drinking. Decades later, Barbara discovered tear stained letters from her birth mother, containing heart-breaking words that would send her on a challenging 26-year quest to find Carole and discover the secret of the blue plastic cow.
by Hadassah Bauer
Ready to dive deep into your adoption journey? My journal, Unraveling Your Adoption Journey, was created with adoptees in mind—those of us navigating identity, trust, and belonging. It’s more than just a journal; it’s a space to process your emotions, dig into your story, and explore who you really are, all while feeling seen and understood. With each prompt, you’ll have the chance to reflect, get creative, and truly explore the layers of your own narrative. Whether you’re wrestling with issues of identity, trust, abandonment, or just trying to make sense of the complex emotions around adoption, this journal helps you make space for those feelings and encourages you to dive deeper into what makes you, you. Inside, you’ll find a blend of thoughtful exercises and prompts that not only encourage self-reflection but also help you express yourself in ways that feel right for you. It’s a way to unravel your story piece by piece and make peace with it, reconnecting with your true self along the way. Whether you’re just starting to explore your adoption journey or looking for a new perspective, this journal offers guidance, comfort, and a reminder that you’re not alone in your experience. Unraveling Your Adoption Journey empowers you to reclaim your narrative, embrace your story, and find a sense of belonging that feels authentic to you. Open it up, and let this be the start of your healing, your self-discovery, and your journey toward acceptance and understanding.
by Sherrie Eldridge
As an adoptee, do you have mixed feelings about your adoption? Sherrie Eldridge is an adoptee and adoption expert, and in this book she draws on her personal experiences and feelings relating to adoption as well as interviews with over 70 adoptees. Sherrie reveals how you can discover your own unique life purpose and worth, and sets out 20 life-transforming choices which you have the power to make. The choices will help you discover answers about issues such as: Why do I feel guilty when I think about my birth parents? Why can't I talk about the painful aspects of adoption? Where can I gain an unshakable sense of self-esteem? Sherrie also addresses the problem of depression among adoptees and common dilemmas such as if, when and how to contact a birth mother or father. This fully updated second edition includes new material on finding support online, contacting family through social media, and features three new chapters, including Sherrie's story of reuniting with her birth brother, Jon, in adulthood.
by Linda Hoye
Linda Hoye was in her early twenties when she found herself parentless for the second time. Adopted at five months of age, her heritage, medical history, and access to information about who she was or where she came from was sealed. It was as if she had never existed before being adopted.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.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.She 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 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.
by Paige Adams Strickland and Wendy Hart Beckman
In 1961 Paige was put up for adoption, a more taboo and secretive topic than it is today. Paige's adoptive family chose not to focus on the adoption, but instead function as a regular family with natural children. However, being adopted made her feel vulnerable and unreal. She longed to know more about her true self. In Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity, Paige tells stories from the perspective of a child and adolescent, growing up with a closely guarded secret. Through vignettes, Paige relates feelings about her adoption to forming and maintaining relationships, caring for pets, moving to new houses and neighborhoods, losing loved ones and entering young adulthood. Her need for acceptance is juxtaposed with her adoptive father's increasingly erratic behavior. This is a tale of family joys and hardships, friendships, falling in love and the need to belong. It is set in the era of free love, social unrest and unexpected change during the 1960s, 70s and 80s
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
Elene S. Hall
Through Adopted Eyes explores the world of adoption from the viewpoint of adoptees. Russian adoptee Elena S. Hall shares her own story and thoughts on the subject of adoption in addition to interviews from other adoptees of different ages, heritages, and perspectives. Whether you are an adoptive parent, curious about adoption, or an adoptee yourself, this unique collection of memoirs provides real insight into lives directly impacted by adoption.
by Cameron Lee Small
Adoptee and counselor Cameron Lee Small names the realities of the adoptee's journey, narrating his own and other adoptees' stories in all their complexity. He unpacks the history of how adoption has worked and names how the church influenced adoption practices with unintended negative impacts on adoptees' faith. Small's own tumultuous search for and reunion with his mother in Korea inspired him to help other adoptees navigate what it means to carry multiple stories. His adoptee-centered advocacy helps adoptees regain their agency and identity on a journey of integration and healing, with meaningful relationships in all their family systems.
By Diane Wheaton
A touching memoir of self-discovery, Finding Loretta is Diane’s tale of searching for history, roots, and family. Adopted as an infant, Diane Wheaton has always heard conflicting versions of the truth of her origins—but it’s not until she is forty-seven years old that she begins to search for her biological family. Amid search and reunion, however, Diane’s adoptive parents become ill—and while overseeing their care, she is told about a secret they have kept from her for more than fifteen years. This shocking disclosure requires Diane to face an important decision, which results in a level of healing she never could have anticipated.
By Jean Kelly Widner
An ambitious book by Jean Kelly Widner, an adult adoptee, who explores the current and historical culture of American adoptions. Widner examines the unaddressed pain and systemic flaws in the system, and calls for a more transparent and compassionate approach to adoption.
By Julie Ryan McGue
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Julie's search for her birth relatives spans years and involves a search agency, a PI, a confidential intermediary, a judge, an adoption agency, a social worker, and a genealogist. By journey's end, what began as a simple desire for a family medical history has evolved into a complicated quest―one that unearths secrets, lies, and family members that are literally right next door.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Tracy O'Neill
Tracy transforms her pandemic-era search for her Korean birth mother into a genre-defying detective story, earning widespread critical acclaim pre-publication.
By Marianne Novy
Marianne analyzes 45 adoption memoirs, identifying patterns in how adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents process trauma, race, and reunion experiences.
By Janet Sherlund
BJanet challenges adoption's "happy ending" narrative through her exploration of the primal wound theory and her personal journey of discovery through DNA testing.
By Brandi Cox
Brandi shares her Appalachian story of adoption intersecting with poverty, addiction, and trauma, offering practical healing strategies while highlighting rural America's unique challenges.
By Patti Eddington
Patti's DNA test launches an investigation into sealed records and family secrets, revealing how adoption secrecy shaped her understanding of identity.
By Shannon Gibney
Shannon, a transracial adoptee, blends adoption memoir with speculative fiction in this Printz Honor Book, exploring parallel lives while incorporating official documents and family records.
By M. Rosales
M. Rosales recounts her journey as a Korean adoptee, taken from her homeland at age five. Her search for birth family after 29 years illuminates the complex emotions and cultural identity challenges faced by international adoptees.
By Linda R. Sexton
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By Lori Evans Ermi
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By EM Blake
EM delivers a graphic memoir about five siblings separated by foster care and closed adoption. Through illustrated storytelling, she traces her journey as an Ojibwe/Anishinaabe and European adoptee searching for belonging, culture, and her first family. Her unique visual narrative explores how five siblings, placed in foster care and adopted into three different families, found their way back to each other.
By Anne Heffron
In To Be Real, Anne Heffron provides a many-voiced picture of adoption. With the help of fellow adoptees Hannah Andrews, Dawn Conwell Mulkay, Leah E. Cooper, Brad Ewell, Shelley Gaske, Sharon Stein McNamara, Andrew Glynn, Tonni Johnston, Kathleen Shea Kirstein, Elisa Nickerson, Kristen Steinhilber, Kimberly Van Den Hoek, and other special guests, To Be Real lifts up the voices of the community as they share personal stories of self-discovery.
By Susan Kiyo Ito
A poignant and beautifully crafted narrative that explores the author's experiences as a trans-racial adoptee. Growing up with adoptive Nisei parents, Ito knew only that her birth mother was Japanese American and her father was white. Finding and meeting her birth mother in her early 20s was only the beginning of her search for answers, history, and identity. Ito does a masterful job of demonstrating the difficulty of managing expectations around reunion and the longing to be accepted by her newfound first mother.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Betty Jean Lifton
Betty Jean Lifton, whose Lost and Found has become a bible to adoptees and to those who would understand the adoption experience, explores further the inner world of the adopted person. She breaks new ground as she traces the adopted child's lifelong struggle to form an authentic sense of self. And she shows how both the symbolic and the literal search for roots becomes a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.
Stephanie Foo
A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.
By David B. Bohl
In this poignant and powerful memoir, David B. Bohl reveals the inner turmoil and broad spectrum of warring emotions—shame, anger, triumph, shyness, pride—he experienced growing up as a “relinquished” boy.
BY Emma Stevens
When Emma learns her birth mother wrote and signed a letter about her to the adoption agency, she knew she had to have that letter if she were to ever discover her birth mother's true identity.
by Susan Wadia-Ells PhD
Adoption has always been a woman's issue. With eloquence and conviction, more than 30 diverse birth mothers, adoptive mothers and adoptees tell their adoption stories and explore what is a deeply emotional, sometimes controversial, and always compelling experience that affects millions of families and individuals.
by Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh
An expose of unethical and coercive adoption industry practices during a short period in American history known as the Baby Scoop Era (Post WWII - 1972). By sharing the actual printed words of social caseworkers, maternity home personnel, lawyers, judges, medical and mental health practitioners, the methods used to ensure that "unwed" mothers would surrender their babies to mostly infertile strangers will be revealed. These crimes against nature resulted in more than 1.5 million vulnerable new mothers being permanently separated from newborns that they might have parented had they been informed of their civil, legal, human and Constitutional rights.
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
by Patricia J Florin
Closed adoption, heralded as the answer to the problem of unplanned pregnancy, shows its other side in A Life Let Go, A Memoir and Five Birth Mother Stories of Closed Adoption. These women tell how they experienced unplanned pregnancy in the restrictiveness of the last decades of the twentieth century. All gave up a child in closed adoption--the only option--understanding they would never see them again, a dark contract made under great duress.
By Beth and Joseph Syverson
Beth Syverson and Joseph Syverson, an adoptive mother and adoptee, collaborate to address adoption's hidden mental health crisis. Drawing from groundbreaking research, they combine personal stories with practical resources to support families and professionals.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Loraiine Dusky
In the days before Roe v. Wade, an ambitious young journalist, abandoned by her beau, leaves Michigan for a dream job on the city desk of a Rochester, New York newspaper. Burned once, she's eager for love, but as the only Girl in the newsroom, she's more concerned with finding allies and making friends. When a new leading man appears, she recognizes a kindred spirit. Soon her bylined stories claim front-page space. However, when she becomes pregnant, she must switch her attention from deadlines to decisions. With adoption on the horizon, she pushes her man to make a commitment. Sadly, he wants her, but not their daughter. Will Dusky ever find the little girl she longed to raise, and if she does, what will be the fallout from their years apart?
By Amy Seek
God and Jetfire is a mother's account of her decision to surrender her son in an open adoption and of their relationship over the twelve years that follow. Facing an unplanned pregnancy at twenty-two, Amy Seek and her ex-boyfriend begin an exhaustive search for a family to raise their child.
By Candace Cahill
The first time to adoption and the second not long after reuniting with him. In this heart-wrenching and heart-warming memoir, Candace Cahill offers an intimate view of child relinquishment and child loss, the definition of motherhood, and how two things can be true at one time.
If you know of an event you would like added to this list, email me at patricia@myadoptedlife.com.
The Adoption Files with Ande Stanley
Ande Stanley talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about being trafficked for the purpose of adoption, an adoption that never legally took place. They discuss Texas adoption law and original birth certificates, and her memoir, WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption, out November 3, 2026 from Unsolicited Press.
Notes From the Edge with Lisa Lacy
Lisa Lacy talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about being handed over as an infant along a Texas hospital curb with no agency, no judge, and no legal adoption paperwork, discovering at 12 that she had no birth certificate, and finally receiving one at 47. They explore black market adoption, adoption trauma, people pleasing, and the complicated emotions of reuniting with biological parents.
Positive Talk Radio with Kevin McDonald
Kevin McDonald hosts a panel conversation on adoption reform with Patricia Knight Meyer, Jean Widner, Renee Gelin, Founder and President of Saving Our Sisters, and Paul Kimball.
People United with Allan Campbell
Allan Campbell talks with Patricia Knight Meyer, journalist, adoption reform advocate and board member of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents, about her memoir WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption on KOOP 91.7 FM in Austin.
Social 333 Podcast with Chris D. Bentley
Chris D. Bentley talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about being sold as a baby, the search that led her to her true family, and her memoir WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption.
Bookwild with Kate Hergott
Kate Hergott talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about the illegal transaction that shaped her identity and childhood, growing up with an alcoholic, abusive mother, the complicated emotions of reuniting with biological family, and why she believes adoption reform is urgently needed.
Thriving Adoptees with Simon Benn
How can talk therapy heal preverbal trauma that we have no words for? It can't. So what do we do instead. Listen in as we dive deep into healing with adoptee Patricia.
Plot Twist Radio with Erin Egnatz
What if everything you believed about your identity turned out to be a mystery? Host Erin Egnatz talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about the search that led her to both biological parents, the attorney who facilitated her placement, and the true story behind her memoir.
Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano
Part two of Patricia’s story: the search that began with no birth certificate and no adoption records finally leads her to her birth mother, and to a reunion that was not what she had imagined.
A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets
Patricia Knight Meyer returns to Family Twist ahead of the release of WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption. She joins Corey and Kendall to discuss sharing her story with readers and turning her book launch into an event focused on truth, community and adoptee rights.
Women Like Me Stories & Business with Julie Fairhurst
Imagine growing up without knowing whether the birthday you celebrate is even your real birthday. Julie Fairhurst talks with Patricia about being sold as an infant through a black market adoption in Texas, adoption trauma, identity, and belonging.
Adoption Uncovered with Charlyn Spiering
Charlyn Spiering talks with Patricia about the work that went into bringing WONDERLAND to publication, the surprises along the way, and what’s ahead in 2027.
The Resilience Project with Julie Brumley
Julie Brumley talks with Patricia about WONDERLAND, growing up with a birthday nobody could confirm, the nightmares of The Dark Man, her reunions with both birth parents, and grief that showed up years after she thought she had processed it.
Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano
Part one of Patricia’s story: handed over as a newborn on a Texas hospital curb in 1970, with no legal adoption and no paperwork, and the search for the truth that became WONDERLAND.
Positive Talk Radio with Kevin McDonald
Patricia makes the case that every person deserves the truth of their identity. Handed over on a Texas hospital curb in 1970, she began searching at 39 and received her first legal birth certificate at 47.
Who’s On My Mind Podcast
Patricia talks about her black market adoption during the Baby Scoop Era, learning as an adult that no adoption was ever filed, and reuniting with both of her birth parents.
Hines On Air with Matt Hines
Patricia describes being handed over outside a Texas hospital with no judge, no agency and no legal paperwork, and the 20 year search through missing and conflicting records that followed.
Louisiana Anthology Podcast
Part two of Patricia’s conversation with Bruce Magee and Stephen Payne about her illegal adoption and her memoir WONDERLAND.
Louisiana Anthology Podcast
Bruce Magee and Stephen Payne talk with Patricia about her origins in an illegal adoption ring and her memoir WONDERLAND.
Mind Over Masculinity Podcast
Identity is the story we tell ourselves about who we are, but what happens when the earliest chapter of that story is a question mark instead of a memory? Host Sayan talks with author and adoptee-rights advocate Patricia Knight Meyer about growing up as a black-market adoption survivor, tracking down her biological parents decades later, and what that search revealed about authenticity, belonging, and the masculine expectation to have it all figured out. Patricia also opens up about the absence of legal protections for birth fathers in the U.S. and how abandonment, whether through adoption or an absent father, can quietly shape the way men show up in relationships and work. This conversation reframes identity questions not as flaws to fix, but as part of being human.
Healthy Mind by Avik
How adoption trauma shows up as identity fog, anxiety and a search for belonging, including the separation wound, genetic mirroring and the adoptee chameleon instinct.
Professor of Perseverance Podcast
Patricia joins Dr. James Purdue on the Professor of Perseverance podcast to trace her journey from black-market baby to the truth about her own identity. She talks about reuniting with both birth parents, the remarkable relationship she built with her birth father, and the emotional challenges of reunion that no one prepared her to face.
A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets
In this episode, Patricia Knight Meyer returns to talk about reunion with both of her birth parents, the remarkable relationship she built with her birth father, and the emotional challenges that no one prepared her to face.
A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets
This week, Corey and Kendall welcome adoptee, author, advocate, and National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP) board member Patricia Knight Meyer. Patricia shares what it was like growing up with unanswered questions, why she always feared someone might come to take her away, and how years of searching eventually led her to the truth.
Lisa Cooper Ellison
"Author Platform Strategy: Why Less Effort Gets Better Results with Human Design." A conversation with Lisa Cooper Ellison on building a sustainable author platform, working with your natural strengths instead of against them, and why doing less of the wrong things gets better results.
The Mindful Journey Podcast
Patricia joins Sana on The Mindful Journey Podcast to discuss "Writing to Heal: Reclaiming Identity and Truth Through Memoir." A conversation about turning a fractured origin story into a memoir, and how the act of writing became its own path through trauma toward reclaiming identity and truth.
Hosted By Peggie Ardvison
A conversation with Peggie Ardvison on Adoptees at Work Podcast about how being adopted impacts my work life and has influenced career choices and direction.
Hosted By Charlyn Speiring
Patricia shared a conversation with Charlyn Speiring about her adoption story and (at 20 min in) the healing power of writing to heal adoption wounds.
Hosted by Mike Trupiano
Patricia shares her story with Mike Trupiano. Mike is the creator of Secret Son, an adoptee podcast about searching, identity, and secrets.
Hosted By Janeice Garrard
Part two of Patricia's talk with Janeice Gerard about reuniting with her birth father.
Hosted By Janeice Garrard
Patricia joins host Janeice Gerrard to discuss her reunion with both her birth mother and father.
Hosted By Haley Radke
This is not the usual adoption talk. You will find real, raw, and deep feelings addressed in these interviews. No sugar-coating here! Come and laugh, cry, learn and heal with us. I promise you'll have a "me too" moment. Adult adoptees share stories of search, reunion, and secondary rejection. Adoptees On also curates recommended resources to encourage and educate the adoption community about adoptee issues.
Hosted by Marcella Moslow & Amy Wilkerson
Adoptee centered podcast elevating experiences and the lived experience of those impacted by the complexities of adoption. Amy & Marcela are both international & transracial adoptees as well as licensed clinical social workers. Their insights are both personal and share a clinical lens.
Hosted by Dr. Lia Noelle
In this podcast we deconstruct the romanticism holding up the adoption industry and expose the lies, abuse, and pain that gets silenced. We’re here to unwrap the shiny bow around adoption and speak our truths as adoptees.
The Adoption Files with Ande Stanley
Ande Stanley talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about being trafficked for the purpose of adoption, an adoption that never legally took place. They discuss Texas adoption law and original birth certificates, and her memoir, WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption, out November 3, 2026 from Unsolicited Press.
Notes From the Edge with Lisa Lacy
Lisa Lacy talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about being handed over as an infant along a Texas hospital curb with no agency, no judge, and no legal adoption paperwork, discovering at 12 that she had no birth certificate, and finally receiving one at 47. They explore black market adoption, adoption trauma, people pleasing, and the complicated emotions of reuniting with biological parents.
Positive Talk Radio with Kevin McDonald
Kevin McDonald hosts a panel conversation on adoption reform with Patricia Knight Meyer, Jean Widner, Renee Gelin, Founder and President of Saving Our Sisters, and Paul Kimball.
People United with Allan Campbell
Allan Campbell talks with Patricia Knight Meyer, journalist, adoption reform advocate and board member of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents, about her memoir WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption on KOOP 91.7 FM in Austin.
Social 333 Podcast with Chris D. Bentley
Chris D. Bentley talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about being sold as a baby, the search that led her to her true family, and her memoir WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption.
Bookwild with Kate Hergott
Kate Hergott talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about the illegal transaction that shaped her identity and childhood, growing up with an alcoholic, abusive mother, the complicated emotions of reuniting with biological family, and why she believes adoption reform is urgently needed.
Thriving Adoptees with Simon Benn
How can talk therapy heal preverbal trauma that we have no words for? It can't. So what do we do instead. Listen in as we dive deep into healing with adoptee Patricia.
Plot Twist Radio with Erin Egnatz
What if everything you believed about your identity turned out to be a mystery? Host Erin Egnatz talks with Patricia Knight Meyer about the search that led her to both biological parents, the attorney who facilitated her placement, and the true story behind her memoir.
Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano
Part two of Patricia’s story: the search that began with no birth certificate and no adoption records finally leads her to her birth mother, and to a reunion that was not what she had imagined.
A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets
Patricia Knight Meyer returns to Family Twist ahead of the release of WONDERLAND: Memoir of a Black-Market Adoption. She joins Corey and Kendall to discuss sharing her story with readers and turning her book launch into an event focused on truth, community and adoptee rights.
Women Like Me Stories & Business with Julie Fairhurst
Imagine growing up without knowing whether the birthday you celebrate is even your real birthday. Julie Fairhurst talks with Patricia about being sold as an infant through a black market adoption in Texas, adoption trauma, identity, and belonging.
Adoption Uncovered with Charlyn Spiering
Charlyn Spiering talks with Patricia about the work that went into bringing WONDERLAND to publication, the surprises along the way, and what’s ahead in 2027.
The Resilience Project with Julie Brumley
Julie Brumley talks with Patricia about WONDERLAND, growing up with a birthday nobody could confirm, the nightmares of The Dark Man, her reunions with both birth parents, and grief that showed up years after she thought she had processed it.
Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano
Part one of Patricia’s story: handed over as a newborn on a Texas hospital curb in 1970, with no legal adoption and no paperwork, and the search for the truth that became WONDERLAND.
Positive Talk Radio with Kevin McDonald
Patricia makes the case that every person deserves the truth of their identity. Handed over on a Texas hospital curb in 1970, she began searching at 39 and received her first legal birth certificate at 47.
Who’s On My Mind Podcast
Patricia talks about her black market adoption during the Baby Scoop Era, learning as an adult that no adoption was ever filed, and reuniting with both of her birth parents.
Hines On Air with Matt Hines
Patricia describes being handed over outside a Texas hospital with no judge, no agency and no legal paperwork, and the 20 year search through missing and conflicting records that followed.
Louisiana Anthology Podcast
Part two of Patricia’s conversation with Bruce Magee and Stephen Payne about her illegal adoption and her memoir WONDERLAND.
Louisiana Anthology Podcast
Bruce Magee and Stephen Payne talk with Patricia about her origins in an illegal adoption ring and her memoir WONDERLAND.
Mind Over Masculinity Podcast
Identity is the story we tell ourselves about who we are, but what happens when the earliest chapter of that story is a question mark instead of a memory? Host Sayan talks with author and adoptee-rights advocate Patricia Knight Meyer about growing up as a black-market adoption survivor, tracking down her biological parents decades later, and what that search revealed about authenticity, belonging, and the masculine expectation to have it all figured out. Patricia also opens up about the absence of legal protections for birth fathers in the U.S. and how abandonment, whether through adoption or an absent father, can quietly shape the way men show up in relationships and work. This conversation reframes identity questions not as flaws to fix, but as part of being human.
Healthy Mind by Avik
How adoption trauma shows up as identity fog, anxiety and a search for belonging, including the separation wound, genetic mirroring and the adoptee chameleon instinct.
Professor of Perseverance Podcast
Patricia joins Dr. James Purdue on the Professor of Perseverance podcast to trace her journey from black-market baby to the truth about her own identity. She talks about reuniting with both birth parents, the remarkable relationship she built with her birth father, and the emotional challenges of reunion that no one prepared her to face.
A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets
In this episode, Patricia Knight Meyer returns to talk about reunion with both of her birth parents, the remarkable relationship she built with her birth father, and the emotional challenges that no one prepared her to face.
A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets
This week, Corey and Kendall welcome adoptee, author, advocate, and National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP) board member Patricia Knight Meyer. Patricia shares what it was like growing up with unanswered questions, why she always feared someone might come to take her away, and how years of searching eventually led her to the truth.
Lisa Cooper Ellison
"Author Platform Strategy: Why Less Effort Gets Better Results with Human Design." A conversation with Lisa Cooper Ellison on building a sustainable author platform, working with your natural strengths instead of against them, and why doing less of the wrong things gets better results.
The Mindful Journey Podcast
Patricia joins Sana on The Mindful Journey Podcast to discuss "Writing to Heal: Reclaiming Identity and Truth Through Memoir." A conversation about turning a fractured origin story into a memoir, and how the act of writing became its own path through trauma toward reclaiming identity and truth.
Hosted By Peggie Ardvison
A conversation with Peggie Ardvison on Adoptees at Work Podcast about how being adopted impacts my work life and has influenced career choices and direction.
Hosted By Charlyn Speiring
Patricia shared a conversation with Charlyn Speiring about her adoption story and (at 20 min in) the healing power of writing to heal adoption wounds.
Hosted by Mike Trupiano
Patricia shares her story with Mike Trupiano. Mike is the creator of Secret Son, an adoptee podcast about searching, identity, and secrets.
Hosted By Janeice Garrard
Part two of Patricia's talk with Janeice Gerard about reuniting with her birth father.
Hosted By Janeice Garrard
Patricia joins host Janeice Gerrard to discuss her reunion with both her birth mother and father.
Hosted By Haley Radke
This is not the usual adoption talk. You will find real, raw, and deep feelings addressed in these interviews. No sugar-coating here! Come and laugh, cry, learn and heal with us. I promise you'll have a "me too" moment. Adult adoptees share stories of search, reunion, and secondary rejection. Adoptees On also curates recommended resources to encourage and educate the adoption community about adoptee issues.
Hosted by Marcella Moslow & Amy Wilkerson
Adoptee centered podcast elevating experiences and the lived experience of those impacted by the complexities of adoption. Amy & Marcela are both international & transracial adoptees as well as licensed clinical social workers. Their insights are both personal and share a clinical lens.
Hosted by Dr. Lia Noelle
In this podcast we deconstruct the romanticism holding up the adoption industry and expose the lies, abuse, and pain that gets silenced. We’re here to unwrap the shiny bow around adoption and speak our truths as adoptees.
Hosted By Haley Radke
This is not the usual adoption talk. You will find real, raw, and deep feelings addressed in these interviews. No sugar-coating here! Come and laugh, cry, learn and heal with us. I promise you'll have a "me too" moment. Adult adoptees share stories of search, reunion, and secondary rejection. Adoptees On also curates recommended resources to encourage and educate the adoption community about adoptee issues.
Hosted by Marcella Moslow & Amy Wilkerson
Adoptee centered podcast elevating experiences and the lived experience of those impacted by the complexities of adoption. Amy & Marcela are both international & transracial adoptees as well as licensed clinical social workers. Their insights are both personal and share a clinical lens.
Hosted by Dr. Lia Noelle
In this podcast we deconstruct the romanticism holding up the adoption industry and expose the lies, abuse, and pain that gets silenced. We’re here to unwrap the shiny bow around adoption and speak our truths as adoptees.
If you know of a podcast you would like added to this list, email me at patricia@myadoptedlife.com.
Dr Barbara Sumner
In 1970, Patricia Knight Meyer was trafficked along a Texas hospital curb in an illegal, attorney-brokered adoption with no judge, no paperwork, and no questions asked. Patricia grew up celebrating a made-up birthday, haunted by nightmares of "The Dark Man." Her parents, blackmailed by the attorney they hired to skirt a discriminatory adoption system, faced an impossible choice: go to the police or pay up. They paid $30,000 to keep their paperless child. Navigating her mother's violent alcoholism and caring for her disabled 600-pound father, Patricia spent her childhood trying to save her saviors, unaware of the lifelong threat that haunted them: at any moment, someone could come back for their child.
by Patricia Knight Meyer
In 1970, Patricia Knight Meyer was trafficked along a Texas hospital curb in an illegal, attorney-brokered adoption with no judge, no paperwork, and no questions asked. Patricia grew up celebrating a made-up birthday, haunted by nightmares of "The Dark Man." Her parents, blackmailed by the attorney they hired to skirt a discriminatory adoption system, faced an impossible choice: go to the police or pay up. They paid $30,000 to keep their paperless child. Navigating her mother's violent alcoholism and caring for her disabled 600-pound father, Patricia spent her childhood trying to save her saviors, unaware of the lifelong threat that haunted them: at any moment, someone could come back for their child.
by Gail Lukasik
What They Never Told Us tells the stories of ordinary people who made extraordinary, life-changing discoveries about their parentage and/or race and ethnicity that fractured their identities. The book asks the big questions: Who are we? And what is family?
by Fred Nicora
Everyone learns to accept twists and turns as they live out the daily rituals of their lives. But what happens when an event completely alters one’s understanding of their world, including who they are? Forbidden Roots brings listeners into Fred Nicora’s innermost thoughts as he sees his foundation swept away with a simple slip of the tongue at the age of 41 while attending a large family gathering. This gripping and true story about being suddenly thrust into the world of adoption explores the expected and the unexpected as he seeks to understand his new identity and reframe his past.
by Anjalia McGoldrick
For readers who loved stories of resilience and transformation such as The Glass Castle, Educated, and Maid, The Child I Left Behind is a powerful true story of childhood trauma, survival, forgiveness, and hope.
by Barbara Demick
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • The heartrending story of twin sisters torn apart by China’s one-child policy and the rise of international adoption—from the author of the National Book Award finalist Nothing to Envy
by Diana Kayla Hochberg
What if everything you believed about your life ... WAS A LIE? How far would YOU go to uncover the TRUTH? For Diana Kayla Hochberg, a casual conversation in Las Vegas leads to shocking revelations that turn her world upside down, sending her on an extraordinary journey spanning decades and continents. Determined to uncover the truth about her past, Diana unearths long-buried family secrets. Each new discovery draws her closer to the answers she seeks - but at a cost she could never have anticipated.
by B.K. Jackson
What’s it like when a complete unknown is actually close family? In Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship—a provocative anthology curated by B.K. Jackson, with a foreword by Libby Copeland, 28 acclaimed and emerging writers explore the transformative experience of encountering unknown close relatives.
In “Grief A Comedy,” Alison recounts how, after decades spent with Mr. Wrongs and/or Mr. Right Nows, she happened upon THE love of her life — an Indian expat named Bhima. She shares how she found Bhima and sadly how she lost him — too soon, waaaay too soon — and she explains how she managed to carry on after her fiance’s tragic and unexpected passing, and how he returned to her in spirit to help her write their love story and urge her to find love again.
by Barbara Demick
A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work.
by Brendan Watkins
A stunning memoir of one man's search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church. Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties, he started searching for his birth parents and eventually discovered the identity of his birth mother: he was told she was a Catholic nun. And she wanted nothing to do with him. For the next thirty years Brendan had no clues as to the identity of his birth father. In 2018, a DNA test provided the answer: he was the son of a priest. His father had studied in a Trappist monastery in Ireland, returned to Australia and become a celebrated outback missionary. After decades of searching and obstruction from the Catholic church, the whole truth was finally exposed. Brendan Watkins' birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. Tell No One reveals the moving story of that incredible discovery, and explores the questions, anxieties and reflections arising from his hidden past.
by Anthony Akerman
When he was ten years old, the author was told he’d been adopted. It was a seismic event that turned his world upside down. Nobody was who he thought they were. His mother wasn’t his mother; his father wasn’t his father; his sister wasn’t his sister; his grandparents weren’t his grandparents; he wasn’t related to any of his relatives; he didn’t know where he came from or who he was. This was at a time when adoption was shrouded in secrecy and shame. Birth mothers and adoptive parents signed non-disclosure agreements. Adoption records were sealed. In Lucky Bastard Anthony Akerman takes the reader on his quest to find out where he came from. Anthony Akerman’s memoir is a significant achievement. It is moving, funny, light to the touch, insightful, wry, self-reflective and witty. It is also poignant. Richly illustrated with photographs, and vividly written, it is a profoundly informative reflection, not just on adoption, his own adoption, and the perilous paths all those who adopt and are adopted are obliged to trudge, but on the tender anguishes and idiocies of being human. Justice Edwin Cameron. Follow this riveting odyssey of an adopted man in this compelling memoir. He defied the odds, crafting plays and words and conquering the world with resilience and passion. Herman Lategan, author of Hoerkind / Son of a Whore.
by Kit Myers
The Violence of Love challenges the narrative that adoption is a solely loving act that benefits birth parents, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents—a narrative that is especially pervasive with transracial and transnational adoptions. Using interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis, Kit W. Myers comparatively examines the adoption of Asian, Black, and Native American children by White families in the United States. He shows how race has been constructed relationally to mark certain homes, families, and nations as spaces of love, freedom, and better futures—in contrast to others that are not—and argues that violence is attached to adoption in complex ways. Propelled by different types of love, such adoptions attempt to transgress biological, racial, cultural, and national borders established by traditional family ideals. Yet they are also linked to structural, symbolic, and traumatic forms of violence. The Violence of Love confronts this discomforting reality and rethinks theories of family to offer more capacious understandings of love, kinship, and care.
by Heidi Marble and Alysa Zalma MD
Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble's lived experience as an adopted person. The story is led by Heidi as she pieces together her identity and comes home to her true self. Each chapter is followed by psychiatrist Alysa Zalma's commentary, which extracts the essence of what is happening psychologically and spiritually. Pulled by the Root is an awakening not only to the experience of being adopted but also to the experience of being human.
by Lynne Leppard
Each person has their own unique story, and as Lynne Leppard's early life included foster care and adoption, she often found herself wondering about her origins and heritage. Her loyalty to her adoptive family was real, but so too was her longing to find out more about her first family and the story of her biological parents. In these pages, woven together with faith and family, Lynne vulnerably shares the untangling of the threads of adoption as she searches for answers to questions of identity, security and belonging.
by Susan Wadia-Ells PhD
Adoption has always been a woman's issue. With eloquence and conviction, more than 30 diverse birth mothers, adoptive mothers and adoptees tell their adoption stories and explore what is a deeply emotional, sometimes controversial, and always compelling experience that affects millions of families and individuals.
by Alice Stephens
Lisa Pearl is an American teaching English in Japan and the situation there―thanks mostly to her spontaneous, hard-partying ways―has become problematic. Now she’s in Seoul, South Korea, with her childhood best-friend Mindy. The young women share a special bond: they are both Korean-born adoptees into white American families. Mindy is in Seoul to track down her birth mom, and wants Lisa to do the same. Trouble is, Lisa isn’t convinced she needs to know about her past, much less meet her biological mother.
by Colin Curruthers
“I doubt that another human being will tread this same unconventional path.” This is an intimate and emotive account of an adult adoptee’s journey as he spent nearly three decades searching for his biological parents. Capturing his thoughts, emotions and physical encounters along the way, this rollercoaster ride demonstrates the determination and resilience of an adopted person to achieve his personal quest. There’s no doubt that this account will provide support, comfort, and inspiration to those thinking of searching for their biological parents, and those who have already started out on this journey, as well as those interested in wider adoption matters. Discover the relentless challenges and amazing encounters faced in pursuit of the truth when no stone is left unturned.
by Fiona Myles
The day that I believed adoption trauma was a thing was the start of my journey to a whole new me. Growing up I had been under the impression that I was just bad, naughty, and at one point in my childhood the adjective ""evil"" was applied. Of course I completely bought into the adjectives used to describe me. Even when the odd teacher spoke to me about my good attributes: caring, kind, and compassionate. Still I veered towards the negative. Adoption trauma is very real. Had it been recognized as a ""thing"" when I was a child, and if someone had picked up on it, things may have been different for me. I can’t change anything, but I can walk towards inner healing. So can you. Do you want to take a step towards confidence, acceptance, and well-being? This audiobook is my inward look at adoption trauma with some helpful tips that I have used over the past six years to help me overcome the feelings of unworthiness, anger, fear, and rejection that plagued me for 50 years.
by Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh
An expose of unethical and coercive adoption industry practices during a short period in American history known as the Baby Scoop Era (Post WWII - 1972). By sharing the actual printed words of social caseworkers, maternity home personnel, lawyers, judges, medical and mental health practitioners, the methods used to ensure that "unwed" mothers would surrender their babies to mostly infertile strangers will be revealed. These crimes against nature resulted in more than 1.5 million vulnerable new mothers being permanently separated from newborns that they might have parented had they been informed of their civil, legal, human and Constitutional rights.
by Joyce Maguire Pavao
Full of wonderful stories that give insight into a wide variety of adoption issues, now revised in light of recent developments, The Family of Adoption is a powerful argument for the right kind of openness in adoption. Joyce Maguire Pavao uses her thirty years of experience as a family and adoption therapist to explain to adoptive parents, birthparents, adult adopted people, and extended family, as well as to those who work with children professionally the developmental stages and challenges one can expect in the life of the adopted person. The Family of Adoption is truly the most insightful and healing book on the adoption shelf.
by Julie Ryan McGue
Belonging Matters supports the adoption community while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption. The collection explores the pursuit of identity and the boundaries of family and kinship. It challenges the reader to embrace all of who we come to be, and to discern with whom and where we belong. Because belonging defines the human experience, and it is what nourishes our spirit, fuels us with purpose, and compels us to soar beyond the limitations of our lived experience.
by Barbara Attwood
This is the true story of Barbara’s adoption by a family who lived in a town on the banks of the River Mersey. They were a loving family but Barbara always felt different. Her mother, Florrie, never wanted her to know the truth. At age 12, after Barbara accidentally discovered that she was adopted, Florrie lied to her about her birth mother, Carole, and the facts surrounding her birth. As a teenager, unable to deal with the shock of what she’d learned, she rebelled against her parents, finding solace in the exciting 1960s’ Liverpool music scene. Against her parents’ wishes, she got a job in Liverpool as a secretary. She went to lunch time sessions at the Cavern where she saw The Beatles, and often stayed out late in Liverpool drinking. Decades later, Barbara discovered tear stained letters from her birth mother, containing heart-breaking words that would send her on a challenging 26-year quest to find Carole and discover the secret of the blue plastic cow.
by Hadassah Bauer
Ready to dive deep into your adoption journey? My journal, Unraveling Your Adoption Journey, was created with adoptees in mind—those of us navigating identity, trust, and belonging. It’s more than just a journal; it’s a space to process your emotions, dig into your story, and explore who you really are, all while feeling seen and understood. With each prompt, you’ll have the chance to reflect, get creative, and truly explore the layers of your own narrative. Whether you’re wrestling with issues of identity, trust, abandonment, or just trying to make sense of the complex emotions around adoption, this journal helps you make space for those feelings and encourages you to dive deeper into what makes you, you. Inside, you’ll find a blend of thoughtful exercises and prompts that not only encourage self-reflection but also help you express yourself in ways that feel right for you. It’s a way to unravel your story piece by piece and make peace with it, reconnecting with your true self along the way. Whether you’re just starting to explore your adoption journey or looking for a new perspective, this journal offers guidance, comfort, and a reminder that you’re not alone in your experience. Unraveling Your Adoption Journey empowers you to reclaim your narrative, embrace your story, and find a sense of belonging that feels authentic to you. Open it up, and let this be the start of your healing, your self-discovery, and your journey toward acceptance and understanding.
by Sherrie Eldridge
As an adoptee, do you have mixed feelings about your adoption? Sherrie Eldridge is an adoptee and adoption expert, and in this book she draws on her personal experiences and feelings relating to adoption as well as interviews with over 70 adoptees. Sherrie reveals how you can discover your own unique life purpose and worth, and sets out 20 life-transforming choices which you have the power to make. The choices will help you discover answers about issues such as: Why do I feel guilty when I think about my birth parents? Why can't I talk about the painful aspects of adoption? Where can I gain an unshakable sense of self-esteem? Sherrie also addresses the problem of depression among adoptees and common dilemmas such as if, when and how to contact a birth mother or father. This fully updated second edition includes new material on finding support online, contacting family through social media, and features three new chapters, including Sherrie's story of reuniting with her birth brother, Jon, in adulthood.
by Linda Hoye
Linda Hoye was in her early twenties when she found herself parentless for the second time. Adopted at five months of age, her heritage, medical history, and access to information about who she was or where she came from was sealed. It was as if she had never existed before being adopted.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.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.She 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 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.
by Sarah Saffian
The voice on the other end of the line was soft, yet forthright: "Sarah, my name is Hannah Morgan. I think I'm your birth mother." The phone call, wholly unexpected, instantly turned Sarah Saffian's world upside-down, threatening her sense of family, identity, self. Adopted as an infant twenty-three years before, living happily in New York, Sarah had been ""found"" by her biological parents despite her reluctance to embrace them. In this searing, lyrical memoir, Sarah chronicles her painful journey from confusion and anger to acceptance and, finally, reunion--but not until three soul-searching years had passed. In spare, luminous prose, Sarah Saffian crafts a powerful story of self-discovery and belonging--a deeply personal memoir told with grace, eloquence, and compassion. At once heartbreaking and profoundly uplifting, Ithaka is sure to touch anyone who has grappled with who they are.
by Paige Adams Strickland and Wendy Hart Beckman
In 1961 Paige was put up for adoption, a more taboo and secretive topic than it is today. Paige's adoptive family chose not to focus on the adoption, but instead function as a regular family with natural children. However, being adopted made her feel vulnerable and unreal. She longed to know more about her true self. In Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity, Paige tells stories from the perspective of a child and adolescent, growing up with a closely guarded secret. Through vignettes, Paige relates feelings about her adoption to forming and maintaining relationships, caring for pets, moving to new houses and neighborhoods, losing loved ones and entering young adulthood. Her need for acceptance is juxtaposed with her adoptive father's increasingly erratic behavior. This is a tale of family joys and hardships, friendships, falling in love and the need to belong. It is set in the era of free love, social unrest and unexpected change during the 1960s, 70s and 80s
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
by Patricia J Florin
Closed adoption, heralded as the answer to the problem of unplanned pregnancy, shows its other side in A Life Let Go, A Memoir and Five Birth Mother Stories of Closed Adoption. These women tell how they experienced unplanned pregnancy in the restrictiveness of the last decades of the twentieth century. All gave up a child in closed adoption--the only option--understanding they would never see them again, a dark contract made under great duress.
Elene S. Hall
Through Adopted Eyes explores the world of adoption from the viewpoint of adoptees. Russian adoptee Elena S. Hall shares her own story and thoughts on the subject of adoption in addition to interviews from other adoptees of different ages, heritages, and perspectives. Whether you are an adoptive parent, curious about adoption, or an adoptee yourself, this unique collection of memoirs provides real insight into lives directly impacted by adoption.
by Cameron Lee Small
Adoptee and counselor Cameron Lee Small names the realities of the adoptee's journey, narrating his own and other adoptees' stories in all their complexity. He unpacks the history of how adoption has worked and names how the church influenced adoption practices with unintended negative impacts on adoptees' faith. Small's own tumultuous search for and reunion with his mother in Korea inspired him to help other adoptees navigate what it means to carry multiple stories. His adoptee-centered advocacy helps adoptees regain their agency and identity on a journey of integration and healing, with meaningful relationships in all their family systems.
By Diane Wheaton
A touching memoir of self-discovery, Finding Loretta is Diane’s tale of searching for history, roots, and family. Adopted as an infant, Diane Wheaton has always heard conflicting versions of the truth of her origins—but it’s not until she is forty-seven years old that she begins to search for her biological family. Amid search and reunion, however, Diane’s adoptive parents become ill—and while overseeing their care, she is told about a secret they have kept from her for more than fifteen years. This shocking disclosure requires Diane to face an important decision, which results in a level of healing she never could have anticipated.
By Jean Kelly Widner
An ambitious book by Jean Kelly Widner, an adult adoptee, who explores the current and historical culture of American adoptions. Widner examines the unaddressed pain and systemic flaws in the system, and calls for a more transparent and compassionate approach to adoption.
By Julie Ryan McGue
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Julie's search for her birth relatives spans years and involves a search agency, a PI, a confidential intermediary, a judge, an adoption agency, a social worker, and a genealogist. By journey's end, what began as a simple desire for a family medical history has evolved into a complicated quest―one that unearths secrets, lies, and family members that are literally right next door.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Beth and Joseph Syverson
Beth Syverson and Joseph Syverson, an adoptive mother and adoptee, collaborate to address adoption's hidden mental health crisis. Drawing from groundbreaking research, they combine personal stories with practical resources to support families and professionals.
By Tracy O'Neill
Tracy transforms her pandemic-era search for her Korean birth mother into a genre-defying detective story, earning widespread critical acclaim pre-publication.
By Marianne Novy
Marianne analyzes 45 adoption memoirs, identifying patterns in how adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents process trauma, race, and reunion experiences.
By Janet Sherlund
BJanet challenges adoption's "happy ending" narrative through her exploration of the primal wound theory and her personal journey of discovery through DNA testing.
By Brandi Cox
Brandi shares her Appalachian story of adoption intersecting with poverty, addiction, and trauma, offering practical healing strategies while highlighting rural America's unique challenges.
By Patti Eddington
Patti's DNA test launches an investigation into sealed records and family secrets, revealing how adoption secrecy shaped her understanding of identity.
By Shannon Gibney
Shannon, a transracial adoptee, blends adoption memoir with speculative fiction in this Printz Honor Book, exploring parallel lives while incorporating official documents and family records.
By M. Rosales
M. Rosales recounts her journey as a Korean adoptee, taken from her homeland at age five. Her search for birth family after 29 years illuminates the complex emotions and cultural identity challenges faced by international adoptees.
By Linda R. Sexton
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By Lori Evans Ermi
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By EM Blake
EM delivers a graphic memoir about five siblings separated by foster care and closed adoption. Through illustrated storytelling, she traces her journey as an Ojibwe/Anishinaabe and European adoptee searching for belonging, culture, and her first family. Her unique visual narrative explores how five siblings, placed in foster care and adopted into three different families, found their way back to each other.
By Anne Heffron
In To Be Real, Anne Heffron provides a many-voiced picture of adoption. With the help of fellow adoptees Hannah Andrews, Dawn Conwell Mulkay, Leah E. Cooper, Brad Ewell, Shelley Gaske, Sharon Stein McNamara, Andrew Glynn, Tonni Johnston, Kathleen Shea Kirstein, Elisa Nickerson, Kristen Steinhilber, Kimberly Van Den Hoek, and other special guests, To Be Real lifts up the voices of the community as they share personal stories of self-discovery.
By Gretchen Sisson
Based on a decade-long study, Sisson examines the complex interplay between adoption, privilege, and the ideals of American motherhood, shedding light on the broader cultural and systemic factors that shape the adoption landscape.
By Susan Kiyo Ito
A poignant and beautifully crafted narrative that explores the author's experiences as a trans-racial adoptee. Growing up with adoptive Nisei parents, Ito knew only that her birth mother was Japanese American and her father was white. Finding and meeting her birth mother in her early 20s was only the beginning of her search for answers, history, and identity. Ito does a masterful job of demonstrating the difficulty of managing expectations around reunion and the longing to be accepted by her newfound first mother.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Betty Jean Lifton
Betty Jean Lifton, whose Lost and Found has become a bible to adoptees and to those who would understand the adoption experience, explores further the inner world of the adopted person. She breaks new ground as she traces the adopted child's lifelong struggle to form an authentic sense of self. And she shows how both the symbolic and the literal search for roots becomes a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.
Jessica Handler
A road map for the journey of writing honestly about grief and loss. Useful to the memoirist just starting out, as well as those already in the throes of coming to terms with complicated emotions and the challenges of shaping a compelling, coherent true story.
Liz DeBetta
Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal shares the framework and method of using writing as a practice for adult adoptees, therapists, teachers, and researchers interested in learning how to migrate and heal embodied trauma. It analyzes lived experience and the author’s own writing to develop a methodology for moving toward wholeness by writing and speaking the truth of internal adoptee experiences.
Sandra Marinella
A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories illustrate Marinella’s methods for understanding, telling, and editing personal stories in ways that foster resilience and renewal.
Stephanie Foo
A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.
Loraiine Dusky
In the days before Roe v. Wade, an ambitious young journalist, abandoned by her beau, leaves Michigan for a dream job on the city desk of a Rochester, New York newspaper. Burned once, she's eager for love, but as the only Girl in the newsroom, she's more concerned with finding allies and making friends. When a new leading man appears, she recognizes a kindred spirit. Soon her bylined stories claim front-page space. However, when she becomes pregnant, she must switch her attention from deadlines to decisions. With adoption on the horizon, she pushes her man to make a commitment. Sadly, he wants her, but not their daughter. Will Dusky ever find the little girl she longed to raise, and if she does, what will be the fallout from their years apart?
Richard C. Schwartz PhD
Discover an empowering new way of understanding your multifaceted mind - and healing the many parts that make you who you are.
By Nancy Newton Verrier
The Primal Wound is a seminal work which revolutionizes the way we think about adoption. It describes and clarifies the effects of separating babies from their birth mothers as a primal loss which affects the relationships of the adopted person throughout life.
By Glenn R. Schiraldi PhD
We’re all a product of our childhood, and if you’re like most people, you have experienced some form of childhood trauma. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at the root of nearly all mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
By Amir Levine
n this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel S. F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love.
By Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD
A pioneering researcher and one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing.
By Laura Dennis
A much-needed anthology addressing a variety of potential psychological and physiological concerns, Adoption Therapy, Perspectives from Clients and Clinicians on Processing and Healing Post-Adoption Issues is a must-read for adoptees, adoptive parents, first families, and vitally, mental health professionals.
By Susan Anderson
The fear of abandonment is one of our most primal fears, and deservedly so. Its pain is often overwhelming, and can leave its mark on the rest of your life. In the midst of the hurt, it’s hard to see an end to your feelings of rejection, shame, and betrayal.
by Sharon Roszia and Allison Davis Maxon
Based on a hugely successful US model, the Seven Core Issues in Adoption is the first conceptual framework of its kind to offer a unifying lens that was inclusive of all individuals touched by the adoption experience.
By David Richo
The popular author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships reveals how past trauma can negatively impact our present-day relationships—and offers guidance on what to do about it
By Charles L Whitfield
Here, frontline physician and therapist Charles Whitfield describes the process of wounding that the Child Within (True Self) experiences and shows how to differentiate the True Self from the false self.
by Nancy N Verrier
Coming Home to Self is a book about becoming aware. It is written for all members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents as well as those who are in relationship with them, including professionals.
By Amy Seek
God and Jetfire is a mother's account of her decision to surrender her son in an open adoption and of their relationship over the twelve years that follow. Facing an unplanned pregnancy at twenty-two, Amy Seek and her ex-boyfriend begin an exhaustive search for a family to raise their child.
By David B. Bohl
In this poignant and powerful memoir, David B. Bohl reveals the inner turmoil and broad spectrum of warring emotions—shame, anger, triumph, shyness, pride—he experienced growing up as a “relinquished” boy.
By Candace Cahill
The first time to adoption and the second not long after reuniting with him. In this heart-wrenching and heart-warming memoir, Candace Cahill offers an intimate view of child relinquishment and child loss, the definition of motherhood, and how two things can be true at one time.
BY Emma Stevens
When Emma learns her birth mother wrote and signed a letter about her to the adoption agency, she knew she had to have that letter if she were to ever discover her birth mother's true identity.
By Gabrielle Glaser
The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other.
By Gabor Maté (MD) and Daniel Maté
By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing.
In “Grief A Comedy,” Alison recounts how, after decades spent with Mr. Wrongs and/or Mr. Right Nows, she happened upon THE love of her life — an Indian expat named Bhima. She shares how she found Bhima and sadly how she lost him — too soon, waaaay too soon — and she explains how she managed to carry on after her fiance’s tragic and unexpected passing, and how he returned to her in spirit to help her write their love story and urge her to find love again.
by Barbara Demick
A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work.
by Brendan Watkins
A stunning memoir of one man's search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church. Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties, he started searching for his birth parents and eventually discovered the identity of his birth mother: he was told she was a Catholic nun. And she wanted nothing to do with him. For the next thirty years Brendan had no clues as to the identity of his birth father. In 2018, a DNA test provided the answer: he was the son of a priest. His father had studied in a Trappist monastery in Ireland, returned to Australia and become a celebrated outback missionary. After decades of searching and obstruction from the Catholic church, the whole truth was finally exposed. Brendan Watkins' birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. Tell No One reveals the moving story of that incredible discovery, and explores the questions, anxieties and reflections arising from his hidden past.
by Anthony Akerman
When he was ten years old, the author was told he’d been adopted. It was a seismic event that turned his world upside down. Nobody was who he thought they were. His mother wasn’t his mother; his father wasn’t his father; his sister wasn’t his sister; his grandparents weren’t his grandparents; he wasn’t related to any of his relatives; he didn’t know where he came from or who he was. This was at a time when adoption was shrouded in secrecy and shame. Birth mothers and adoptive parents signed non-disclosure agreements. Adoption records were sealed. In Lucky Bastard Anthony Akerman takes the reader on his quest to find out where he came from. Anthony Akerman’s memoir is a significant achievement. It is moving, funny, light to the touch, insightful, wry, self-reflective and witty. It is also poignant. Richly illustrated with photographs, and vividly written, it is a profoundly informative reflection, not just on adoption, his own adoption, and the perilous paths all those who adopt and are adopted are obliged to trudge, but on the tender anguishes and idiocies of being human. Justice Edwin Cameron. Follow this riveting odyssey of an adopted man in this compelling memoir. He defied the odds, crafting plays and words and conquering the world with resilience and passion. Herman Lategan, author of Hoerkind / Son of a Whore.
by Kit Myers
The Violence of Love challenges the narrative that adoption is a solely loving act that benefits birth parents, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents—a narrative that is especially pervasive with transracial and transnational adoptions. Using interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis, Kit W. Myers comparatively examines the adoption of Asian, Black, and Native American children by White families in the United States. He shows how race has been constructed relationally to mark certain homes, families, and nations as spaces of love, freedom, and better futures—in contrast to others that are not—and argues that violence is attached to adoption in complex ways. Propelled by different types of love, such adoptions attempt to transgress biological, racial, cultural, and national borders established by traditional family ideals. Yet they are also linked to structural, symbolic, and traumatic forms of violence. The Violence of Love confronts this discomforting reality and rethinks theories of family to offer more capacious understandings of love, kinship, and care.
by Heidi Marble and Alysa Zalma MD
Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble's lived experience as an adopted person. The story is led by Heidi as she pieces together her identity and comes home to her true self. Each chapter is followed by psychiatrist Alysa Zalma's commentary, which extracts the essence of what is happening psychologically and spiritually. Pulled by the Root is an awakening not only to the experience of being adopted but also to the experience of being human.
by Lynne Leppard
Each person has their own unique story, and as Lynne Leppard's early life included foster care and adoption, she often found herself wondering about her origins and heritage. Her loyalty to her adoptive family was real, but so too was her longing to find out more about her first family and the story of her biological parents. In these pages, woven together with faith and family, Lynne vulnerably shares the untangling of the threads of adoption as she searches for answers to questions of identity, security and belonging.
by Alice Stephens
Lisa Pearl is an American teaching English in Japan and the situation there―thanks mostly to her spontaneous, hard-partying ways―has become problematic. Now she’s in Seoul, South Korea, with her childhood best-friend Mindy. The young women share a special bond: they are both Korean-born adoptees into white American families. Mindy is in Seoul to track down her birth mom, and wants Lisa to do the same. Trouble is, Lisa isn’t convinced she needs to know about her past, much less meet her biological mother.
by Colin Curruthers
“I doubt that another human being will tread this same unconventional path.” This is an intimate and emotive account of an adult adoptee’s journey as he spent nearly three decades searching for his biological parents. Capturing his thoughts, emotions and physical encounters along the way, this rollercoaster ride demonstrates the determination and resilience of an adopted person to achieve his personal quest. There’s no doubt that this account will provide support, comfort, and inspiration to those thinking of searching for their biological parents, and those who have already started out on this journey, as well as those interested in wider adoption matters. Discover the relentless challenges and amazing encounters faced in pursuit of the truth when no stone is left unturned.
by Fiona Myles
The day that I believed adoption trauma was a thing was the start of my journey to a whole new me. Growing up I had been under the impression that I was just bad, naughty, and at one point in my childhood the adjective ""evil"" was applied. Of course I completely bought into the adjectives used to describe me. Even when the odd teacher spoke to me about my good attributes: caring, kind, and compassionate. Still I veered towards the negative. Adoption trauma is very real. Had it been recognized as a ""thing"" when I was a child, and if someone had picked up on it, things may have been different for me. I can’t change anything, but I can walk towards inner healing. So can you. Do you want to take a step towards confidence, acceptance, and well-being? This audiobook is my inward look at adoption trauma with some helpful tips that I have used over the past six years to help me overcome the feelings of unworthiness, anger, fear, and rejection that plagued me for 50 years.
by Joyce Maguire Pavao
Full of wonderful stories that give insight into a wide variety of adoption issues, now revised in light of recent developments, The Family of Adoption is a powerful argument for the right kind of openness in adoption. Joyce Maguire Pavao uses her thirty years of experience as a family and adoption therapist to explain to adoptive parents, birthparents, adult adopted people, and extended family, as well as to those who work with children professionally the developmental stages and challenges one can expect in the life of the adopted person. The Family of Adoption is truly the most insightful and healing book on the adoption shelf.
by Julie Ryan McGue
Belonging Matters supports the adoption community while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption. The collection explores the pursuit of identity and the boundaries of family and kinship. It challenges the reader to embrace all of who we come to be, and to discern with whom and where we belong. Because belonging defines the human experience, and it is what nourishes our spirit, fuels us with purpose, and compels us to soar beyond the limitations of our lived experience.
by Barbara Attwood
This is the true story of Barbara’s adoption by a family who lived in a town on the banks of the River Mersey. They were a loving family but Barbara always felt different. Her mother, Florrie, never wanted her to know the truth. At age 12, after Barbara accidentally discovered that she was adopted, Florrie lied to her about her birth mother, Carole, and the facts surrounding her birth. As a teenager, unable to deal with the shock of what she’d learned, she rebelled against her parents, finding solace in the exciting 1960s’ Liverpool music scene. Against her parents’ wishes, she got a job in Liverpool as a secretary. She went to lunch time sessions at the Cavern where she saw The Beatles, and often stayed out late in Liverpool drinking. Decades later, Barbara discovered tear stained letters from her birth mother, containing heart-breaking words that would send her on a challenging 26-year quest to find Carole and discover the secret of the blue plastic cow.
by Hadassah Bauer
Ready to dive deep into your adoption journey? My journal, Unraveling Your Adoption Journey, was created with adoptees in mind—those of us navigating identity, trust, and belonging. It’s more than just a journal; it’s a space to process your emotions, dig into your story, and explore who you really are, all while feeling seen and understood. With each prompt, you’ll have the chance to reflect, get creative, and truly explore the layers of your own narrative. Whether you’re wrestling with issues of identity, trust, abandonment, or just trying to make sense of the complex emotions around adoption, this journal helps you make space for those feelings and encourages you to dive deeper into what makes you, you. Inside, you’ll find a blend of thoughtful exercises and prompts that not only encourage self-reflection but also help you express yourself in ways that feel right for you. It’s a way to unravel your story piece by piece and make peace with it, reconnecting with your true self along the way. Whether you’re just starting to explore your adoption journey or looking for a new perspective, this journal offers guidance, comfort, and a reminder that you’re not alone in your experience. Unraveling Your Adoption Journey empowers you to reclaim your narrative, embrace your story, and find a sense of belonging that feels authentic to you. Open it up, and let this be the start of your healing, your self-discovery, and your journey toward acceptance and understanding.
by Sherrie Eldridge
As an adoptee, do you have mixed feelings about your adoption? Sherrie Eldridge is an adoptee and adoption expert, and in this book she draws on her personal experiences and feelings relating to adoption as well as interviews with over 70 adoptees. Sherrie reveals how you can discover your own unique life purpose and worth, and sets out 20 life-transforming choices which you have the power to make. The choices will help you discover answers about issues such as: Why do I feel guilty when I think about my birth parents? Why can't I talk about the painful aspects of adoption? Where can I gain an unshakable sense of self-esteem? Sherrie also addresses the problem of depression among adoptees and common dilemmas such as if, when and how to contact a birth mother or father. This fully updated second edition includes new material on finding support online, contacting family through social media, and features three new chapters, including Sherrie's story of reuniting with her birth brother, Jon, in adulthood.
by Linda Hoye
Linda Hoye was in her early twenties when she found herself parentless for the second time. Adopted at five months of age, her heritage, medical history, and access to information about who she was or where she came from was sealed. It was as if she had never existed before being adopted.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.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.She 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 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.
by Paige Adams Strickland and Wendy Hart Beckman
In 1961 Paige was put up for adoption, a more taboo and secretive topic than it is today. Paige's adoptive family chose not to focus on the adoption, but instead function as a regular family with natural children. However, being adopted made her feel vulnerable and unreal. She longed to know more about her true self. In Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity, Paige tells stories from the perspective of a child and adolescent, growing up with a closely guarded secret. Through vignettes, Paige relates feelings about her adoption to forming and maintaining relationships, caring for pets, moving to new houses and neighborhoods, losing loved ones and entering young adulthood. Her need for acceptance is juxtaposed with her adoptive father's increasingly erratic behavior. This is a tale of family joys and hardships, friendships, falling in love and the need to belong. It is set in the era of free love, social unrest and unexpected change during the 1960s, 70s and 80s
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
Elene S. Hall
Through Adopted Eyes explores the world of adoption from the viewpoint of adoptees. Russian adoptee Elena S. Hall shares her own story and thoughts on the subject of adoption in addition to interviews from other adoptees of different ages, heritages, and perspectives. Whether you are an adoptive parent, curious about adoption, or an adoptee yourself, this unique collection of memoirs provides real insight into lives directly impacted by adoption.
by Cameron Lee Small
Adoptee and counselor Cameron Lee Small names the realities of the adoptee's journey, narrating his own and other adoptees' stories in all their complexity. He unpacks the history of how adoption has worked and names how the church influenced adoption practices with unintended negative impacts on adoptees' faith. Small's own tumultuous search for and reunion with his mother in Korea inspired him to help other adoptees navigate what it means to carry multiple stories. His adoptee-centered advocacy helps adoptees regain their agency and identity on a journey of integration and healing, with meaningful relationships in all their family systems.
By Diane Wheaton
A touching memoir of self-discovery, Finding Loretta is Diane’s tale of searching for history, roots, and family. Adopted as an infant, Diane Wheaton has always heard conflicting versions of the truth of her origins—but it’s not until she is forty-seven years old that she begins to search for her biological family. Amid search and reunion, however, Diane’s adoptive parents become ill—and while overseeing their care, she is told about a secret they have kept from her for more than fifteen years. This shocking disclosure requires Diane to face an important decision, which results in a level of healing she never could have anticipated.
By Jean Kelly Widner
An ambitious book by Jean Kelly Widner, an adult adoptee, who explores the current and historical culture of American adoptions. Widner examines the unaddressed pain and systemic flaws in the system, and calls for a more transparent and compassionate approach to adoption.
By Julie Ryan McGue
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Julie's search for her birth relatives spans years and involves a search agency, a PI, a confidential intermediary, a judge, an adoption agency, a social worker, and a genealogist. By journey's end, what began as a simple desire for a family medical history has evolved into a complicated quest―one that unearths secrets, lies, and family members that are literally right next door.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Tracy O'Neill
Tracy transforms her pandemic-era search for her Korean birth mother into a genre-defying detective story, earning widespread critical acclaim pre-publication.
By Marianne Novy
Marianne analyzes 45 adoption memoirs, identifying patterns in how adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents process trauma, race, and reunion experiences.
By Janet Sherlund
BJanet challenges adoption's "happy ending" narrative through her exploration of the primal wound theory and her personal journey of discovery through DNA testing.
By Brandi Cox
Brandi shares her Appalachian story of adoption intersecting with poverty, addiction, and trauma, offering practical healing strategies while highlighting rural America's unique challenges.
By Patti Eddington
Patti's DNA test launches an investigation into sealed records and family secrets, revealing how adoption secrecy shaped her understanding of identity.
By Shannon Gibney
Shannon, a transracial adoptee, blends adoption memoir with speculative fiction in this Printz Honor Book, exploring parallel lives while incorporating official documents and family records.
By M. Rosales
M. Rosales recounts her journey as a Korean adoptee, taken from her homeland at age five. Her search for birth family after 29 years illuminates the complex emotions and cultural identity challenges faced by international adoptees.
By Linda R. Sexton
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By Lori Evans Ermi
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By EM Blake
EM delivers a graphic memoir about five siblings separated by foster care and closed adoption. Through illustrated storytelling, she traces her journey as an Ojibwe/Anishinaabe and European adoptee searching for belonging, culture, and her first family. Her unique visual narrative explores how five siblings, placed in foster care and adopted into three different families, found their way back to each other.
By Anne Heffron
In To Be Real, Anne Heffron provides a many-voiced picture of adoption. With the help of fellow adoptees Hannah Andrews, Dawn Conwell Mulkay, Leah E. Cooper, Brad Ewell, Shelley Gaske, Sharon Stein McNamara, Andrew Glynn, Tonni Johnston, Kathleen Shea Kirstein, Elisa Nickerson, Kristen Steinhilber, Kimberly Van Den Hoek, and other special guests, To Be Real lifts up the voices of the community as they share personal stories of self-discovery.
By Susan Kiyo Ito
A poignant and beautifully crafted narrative that explores the author's experiences as a trans-racial adoptee. Growing up with adoptive Nisei parents, Ito knew only that her birth mother was Japanese American and her father was white. Finding and meeting her birth mother in her early 20s was only the beginning of her search for answers, history, and identity. Ito does a masterful job of demonstrating the difficulty of managing expectations around reunion and the longing to be accepted by her newfound first mother.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Betty Jean Lifton
Betty Jean Lifton, whose Lost and Found has become a bible to adoptees and to those who would understand the adoption experience, explores further the inner world of the adopted person. She breaks new ground as she traces the adopted child's lifelong struggle to form an authentic sense of self. And she shows how both the symbolic and the literal search for roots becomes a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.
Stephanie Foo
A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.
By David B. Bohl
In this poignant and powerful memoir, David B. Bohl reveals the inner turmoil and broad spectrum of warring emotions—shame, anger, triumph, shyness, pride—he experienced growing up as a “relinquished” boy.
BY Emma Stevens
When Emma learns her birth mother wrote and signed a letter about her to the adoption agency, she knew she had to have that letter if she were to ever discover her birth mother's true identity.
by Susan Wadia-Ells PhD
Adoption has always been a woman's issue. With eloquence and conviction, more than 30 diverse birth mothers, adoptive mothers and adoptees tell their adoption stories and explore what is a deeply emotional, sometimes controversial, and always compelling experience that affects millions of families and individuals.
by Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh
An expose of unethical and coercive adoption industry practices during a short period in American history known as the Baby Scoop Era (Post WWII - 1972). By sharing the actual printed words of social caseworkers, maternity home personnel, lawyers, judges, medical and mental health practitioners, the methods used to ensure that "unwed" mothers would surrender their babies to mostly infertile strangers will be revealed. These crimes against nature resulted in more than 1.5 million vulnerable new mothers being permanently separated from newborns that they might have parented had they been informed of their civil, legal, human and Constitutional rights.
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
by Patricia J Florin
Closed adoption, heralded as the answer to the problem of unplanned pregnancy, shows its other side in A Life Let Go, A Memoir and Five Birth Mother Stories of Closed Adoption. These women tell how they experienced unplanned pregnancy in the restrictiveness of the last decades of the twentieth century. All gave up a child in closed adoption--the only option--understanding they would never see them again, a dark contract made under great duress.
By Beth and Joseph Syverson
Beth Syverson and Joseph Syverson, an adoptive mother and adoptee, collaborate to address adoption's hidden mental health crisis. Drawing from groundbreaking research, they combine personal stories with practical resources to support families and professionals.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Loraiine Dusky
In the days before Roe v. Wade, an ambitious young journalist, abandoned by her beau, leaves Michigan for a dream job on the city desk of a Rochester, New York newspaper. Burned once, she's eager for love, but as the only Girl in the newsroom, she's more concerned with finding allies and making friends. When a new leading man appears, she recognizes a kindred spirit. Soon her bylined stories claim front-page space. However, when she becomes pregnant, she must switch her attention from deadlines to decisions. With adoption on the horizon, she pushes her man to make a commitment. Sadly, he wants her, but not their daughter. Will Dusky ever find the little girl she longed to raise, and if she does, what will be the fallout from their years apart?
By Amy Seek
God and Jetfire is a mother's account of her decision to surrender her son in an open adoption and of their relationship over the twelve years that follow. Facing an unplanned pregnancy at twenty-two, Amy Seek and her ex-boyfriend begin an exhaustive search for a family to raise their child.
By Candace Cahill
The first time to adoption and the second not long after reuniting with him. In this heart-wrenching and heart-warming memoir, Candace Cahill offers an intimate view of child relinquishment and child loss, the definition of motherhood, and how two things can be true at one time.
by Heidi Marble and Alysa Zalma MD
Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble's lived experience as an adopted person. The story is led by Heidi as she pieces together her identity and comes home to her true self. Each chapter is followed by psychiatrist Alysa Zalma's commentary, which extracts the essence of what is happening psychologically and spiritually. Pulled by the Root is an awakening not only to the experience of being adopted but also to the experience of being human.
by Barbara Attwood
This is the true story of Barbara’s adoption by a family who lived in a town on the banks of the River Mersey. They were a loving family but Barbara always felt different. Her mother, Florrie, never wanted her to know the truth. At age 12, after Barbara accidentally discovered that she was adopted, Florrie lied to her about her birth mother, Carole, and the facts surrounding her birth. As a teenager, unable to deal with the shock of what she’d learned, she rebelled against her parents, finding solace in the exciting 1960s’ Liverpool music scene. Against her parents’ wishes, she got a job in Liverpool as a secretary. She went to lunch time sessions at the Cavern where she saw The Beatles, and often stayed out late in Liverpool drinking. Decades later, Barbara discovered tear stained letters from her birth mother, containing heart-breaking words that would send her on a challenging 26-year quest to find Carole and discover the secret of the blue plastic cow.
by Hadassah Bauer
Ready to dive deep into your adoption journey? My journal, Unraveling Your Adoption Journey, was created with adoptees in mind—those of us navigating identity, trust, and belonging. It’s more than just a journal; it’s a space to process your emotions, dig into your story, and explore who you really are, all while feeling seen and understood. With each prompt, you’ll have the chance to reflect, get creative, and truly explore the layers of your own narrative. Whether you’re wrestling with issues of identity, trust, abandonment, or just trying to make sense of the complex emotions around adoption, this journal helps you make space for those feelings and encourages you to dive deeper into what makes you, you. Inside, you’ll find a blend of thoughtful exercises and prompts that not only encourage self-reflection but also help you express yourself in ways that feel right for you. It’s a way to unravel your story piece by piece and make peace with it, reconnecting with your true self along the way. Whether you’re just starting to explore your adoption journey or looking for a new perspective, this journal offers guidance, comfort, and a reminder that you’re not alone in your experience. Unraveling Your Adoption Journey empowers you to reclaim your narrative, embrace your story, and find a sense of belonging that feels authentic to you. Open it up, and let this be the start of your healing, your self-discovery, and your journey toward acceptance and understanding.
by Sherrie Eldridge
As an adoptee, do you have mixed feelings about your adoption? Sherrie Eldridge is an adoptee and adoption expert, and in this book she draws on her personal experiences and feelings relating to adoption as well as interviews with over 70 adoptees. Sherrie reveals how you can discover your own unique life purpose and worth, and sets out 20 life-transforming choices which you have the power to make. The choices will help you discover answers about issues such as: Why do I feel guilty when I think about my birth parents? Why can't I talk about the painful aspects of adoption? Where can I gain an unshakable sense of self-esteem? Sherrie also addresses the problem of depression among adoptees and common dilemmas such as if, when and how to contact a birth mother or father. This fully updated second edition includes new material on finding support online, contacting family through social media, and features three new chapters, including Sherrie's story of reuniting with her birth brother, Jon, in adulthood.
by Linda Hoye
Linda Hoye was in her early twenties when she found herself parentless for the second time. Adopted at five months of age, her heritage, medical history, and access to information about who she was or where she came from was sealed. It was as if she had never existed before being adopted.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.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.She 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 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.
by Sarah Saffian
The voice on the other end of the line was soft, yet forthright: "Sarah, my name is Hannah Morgan. I think I'm your birth mother." The phone call, wholly unexpected, instantly turned Sarah Saffian's world upside-down, threatening her sense of family, identity, self. Adopted as an infant twenty-three years before, living happily in New York, Sarah had been ""found"" by her biological parents despite her reluctance to embrace them. In this searing, lyrical memoir, Sarah chronicles her painful journey from confusion and anger to acceptance and, finally, reunion--but not until three soul-searching years had passed. In spare, luminous prose, Sarah Saffian crafts a powerful story of self-discovery and belonging--a deeply personal memoir told with grace, eloquence, and compassion. At once heartbreaking and profoundly uplifting, Ithaka is sure to touch anyone who has grappled with who they are.
by Paige Adams Strickland and Wendy Hart Beckman
In 1961 Paige was put up for adoption, a more taboo and secretive topic than it is today. Paige's adoptive family chose not to focus on the adoption, but instead function as a regular family with natural children. However, being adopted made her feel vulnerable and unreal. She longed to know more about her true self. In Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity, Paige tells stories from the perspective of a child and adolescent, growing up with a closely guarded secret. Through vignettes, Paige relates feelings about her adoption to forming and maintaining relationships, caring for pets, moving to new houses and neighborhoods, losing loved ones and entering young adulthood. Her need for acceptance is juxtaposed with her adoptive father's increasingly erratic behavior. This is a tale of family joys and hardships, friendships, falling in love and the need to belong. It is set in the era of free love, social unrest and unexpected change during the 1960s, 70s and 80s
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
By Beth and Joseph Syverson
Beth Syverson and Joseph Syverson, an adoptive mother and adoptee, collaborate to address adoption's hidden mental health crisis. Drawing from groundbreaking research, they combine personal stories with practical resources to support families and professionals.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Betty Jean Lifton
Betty Jean Lifton, whose Lost and Found has become a bible to adoptees and to those who would understand the adoption experience, explores further the inner world of the adopted person. She breaks new ground as she traces the adopted child's lifelong struggle to form an authentic sense of self. And she shows how both the symbolic and the literal search for roots becomes a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.
Jessica Handler
A road map for the journey of writing honestly about grief and loss. Useful to the memoirist just starting out, as well as those already in the throes of coming to terms with complicated emotions and the challenges of shaping a compelling, coherent true story.
Liz DeBetta
Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal shares the framework and method of using writing as a practice for adult adoptees, therapists, teachers, and researchers interested in learning how to migrate and heal embodied trauma. It analyzes lived experience and the author’s own writing to develop a methodology for moving toward wholeness by writing and speaking the truth of internal adoptee experiences.
Sandra Marinella
A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories illustrate Marinella’s methods for understanding, telling, and editing personal stories in ways that foster resilience and renewal.
Richard C. Schwartz PhD
Discover an empowering new way of understanding your multifaceted mind - and healing the many parts that make you who you are.
By Nancy Newton Verrier
The Primal Wound is a seminal work which revolutionizes the way we think about adoption. It describes and clarifies the effects of separating babies from their birth mothers as a primal loss which affects the relationships of the adopted person throughout life.
By Glenn R. Schiraldi PhD
We’re all a product of our childhood, and if you’re like most people, you have experienced some form of childhood trauma. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at the root of nearly all mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
By Amir Levine
n this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel S. F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love.
By Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD
A pioneering researcher and one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing.
By Laura Dennis
A much-needed anthology addressing a variety of potential psychological and physiological concerns, Adoption Therapy, Perspectives from Clients and Clinicians on Processing and Healing Post-Adoption Issues is a must-read for adoptees, adoptive parents, first families, and vitally, mental health professionals.
By Susan Anderson
The fear of abandonment is one of our most primal fears, and deservedly so. Its pain is often overwhelming, and can leave its mark on the rest of your life. In the midst of the hurt, it’s hard to see an end to your feelings of rejection, shame, and betrayal.
by Sharon Roszia and Allison Davis Maxon
Based on a hugely successful US model, the Seven Core Issues in Adoption is the first conceptual framework of its kind to offer a unifying lens that was inclusive of all individuals touched by the adoption experience.
By David Richo
The popular author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships reveals how past trauma can negatively impact our present-day relationships—and offers guidance on what to do about it
By Charles L Whitfield
Here, frontline physician and therapist Charles Whitfield describes the process of wounding that the Child Within (True Self) experiences and shows how to differentiate the True Self from the false self.
by Nancy N Verrier
Coming Home to Self is a book about becoming aware. It is written for all members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents as well as those who are in relationship with them, including professionals.
by Hadassah Bauer
Ready to dive deep into your adoption journey? My journal, Unraveling Your Adoption Journey, was created with adoptees in mind—those of us navigating identity, trust, and belonging. It’s more than just a journal; it’s a space to process your emotions, dig into your story, and explore who you really are, all while feeling seen and understood. With each prompt, you’ll have the chance to reflect, get creative, and truly explore the layers of your own narrative. Whether you’re wrestling with issues of identity, trust, abandonment, or just trying to make sense of the complex emotions around adoption, this journal helps you make space for those feelings and encourages you to dive deeper into what makes you, you. Inside, you’ll find a blend of thoughtful exercises and prompts that not only encourage self-reflection but also help you express yourself in ways that feel right for you. It’s a way to unravel your story piece by piece and make peace with it, reconnecting with your true self along the way. Whether you’re just starting to explore your adoption journey or looking for a new perspective, this journal offers guidance, comfort, and a reminder that you’re not alone in your experience. Unraveling Your Adoption Journey empowers you to reclaim your narrative, embrace your story, and find a sense of belonging that feels authentic to you. Open it up, and let this be the start of your healing, your self-discovery, and your journey toward acceptance and understanding.
Jessica Handler
A road map for the journey of writing honestly about grief and loss. Useful to the memoirist just starting out, as well as those already in the throes of coming to terms with complicated emotions and the challenges of shaping a compelling, coherent true story.
Liz DeBetta
Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal shares the framework and method of using writing as a practice for adult adoptees, therapists, teachers, and researchers interested in learning how to migrate and heal embodied trauma. It analyzes lived experience and the author’s own writing to develop a methodology for moving toward wholeness by writing and speaking the truth of internal adoptee experiences.
Sandra Marinella
A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories illustrate Marinella’s methods for understanding, telling, and editing personal stories in ways that foster resilience and renewal.
By Jean Kelly Widner
An ambitious book by Jean Kelly Widner, an adult adoptee, who explores the current and historical culture of American adoptions. Widner examines the unaddressed pain and systemic flaws in the system, and calls for a more transparent and compassionate approach to adoption.
By Beth and Joseph Syverson
Beth Syverson and Joseph Syverson, an adoptive mother and adoptee, collaborate to address adoption's hidden mental health crisis. Drawing from groundbreaking research, they combine personal stories with practical resources to support families and professionals.
By Lori Evans Ermi
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By Gretchen Sisson
Based on a decade-long study, Sisson examines the complex interplay between adoption, privilege, and the ideals of American motherhood, shedding light on the broader cultural and systemic factors that shape the adoption landscape.
Sandra Marinella
A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories illustrate Marinella’s methods for understanding, telling, and editing personal stories in ways that foster resilience and renewal.
Richard C. Schwartz PhD
Discover an empowering new way of understanding your multifaceted mind - and healing the many parts that make you who you are.
By Nancy Newton Verrier
The Primal Wound is a seminal work which revolutionizes the way we think about adoption. It describes and clarifies the effects of separating babies from their birth mothers as a primal loss which affects the relationships of the adopted person throughout life.
By Glenn R. Schiraldi PhD
We’re all a product of our childhood, and if you’re like most people, you have experienced some form of childhood trauma. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at the root of nearly all mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
By Amir Levine
n this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel S. F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love.
By Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD
A pioneering researcher and one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing.
By Laura Dennis
A much-needed anthology addressing a variety of potential psychological and physiological concerns, Adoption Therapy, Perspectives from Clients and Clinicians on Processing and Healing Post-Adoption Issues is a must-read for adoptees, adoptive parents, first families, and vitally, mental health professionals.
By Susan Anderson
The fear of abandonment is one of our most primal fears, and deservedly so. Its pain is often overwhelming, and can leave its mark on the rest of your life. In the midst of the hurt, it’s hard to see an end to your feelings of rejection, shame, and betrayal.
by Sharon Roszia and Allison Davis Maxon
Based on a hugely successful US model, the Seven Core Issues in Adoption is the first conceptual framework of its kind to offer a unifying lens that was inclusive of all individuals touched by the adoption experience.
By David Richo
The popular author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships reveals how past trauma can negatively impact our present-day relationships—and offers guidance on what to do about it
By Charles L Whitfield
Here, frontline physician and therapist Charles Whitfield describes the process of wounding that the Child Within (True Self) experiences and shows how to differentiate the True Self from the false self.
by Nancy N Verrier
Coming Home to Self is a book about becoming aware. It is written for all members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents as well as those who are in relationship with them, including professionals.
By Gabrielle Glaser
The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other.
By Gabor Maté (MD) and Daniel Maté
By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing.
If you know of a book you would like added to this list, email me at patricia@myadoptedlife.com.
“Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
In “Grief A Comedy,” Alison recounts how, after decades spent with Mr. Wrongs and/or Mr. Right Nows, she happened upon THE love of her life — an Indian expat named Bhima. She shares how she found Bhima and sadly how she lost him — too soon, waaaay too soon — and she explains how she managed to carry on after her fiance’s tragic and unexpected passing, and how he returned to her in spirit to help her write their love story and urge her to find love again.
by Barbara Demick
A remarkable window into the volatile, constantly changing China of the last half century and the long-reaching legacy of the country’s most infamous law, Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is also the moving story of two sisters torn apart by the forces of history and brought together again by their families’ determination and one reporter’s dogged work.
by Brendan Watkins
A stunning memoir of one man's search for his birth parents, which uncovered an astonishing global scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church. Brendan Watkins was eight years old when his parents told him he was adopted. When he was in his late twenties, he started searching for his birth parents and eventually discovered the identity of his birth mother: he was told she was a Catholic nun. And she wanted nothing to do with him. For the next thirty years Brendan had no clues as to the identity of his birth father. In 2018, a DNA test provided the answer: he was the son of a priest. His father had studied in a Trappist monastery in Ireland, returned to Australia and become a celebrated outback missionary. After decades of searching and obstruction from the Catholic church, the whole truth was finally exposed. Brendan Watkins' birth parents were a Catholic priest and a nun. Tell No One reveals the moving story of that incredible discovery, and explores the questions, anxieties and reflections arising from his hidden past.
by Anthony Akerman
When he was ten years old, the author was told he’d been adopted. It was a seismic event that turned his world upside down. Nobody was who he thought they were. His mother wasn’t his mother; his father wasn’t his father; his sister wasn’t his sister; his grandparents weren’t his grandparents; he wasn’t related to any of his relatives; he didn’t know where he came from or who he was. This was at a time when adoption was shrouded in secrecy and shame. Birth mothers and adoptive parents signed non-disclosure agreements. Adoption records were sealed. In Lucky Bastard Anthony Akerman takes the reader on his quest to find out where he came from. Anthony Akerman’s memoir is a significant achievement. It is moving, funny, light to the touch, insightful, wry, self-reflective and witty. It is also poignant. Richly illustrated with photographs, and vividly written, it is a profoundly informative reflection, not just on adoption, his own adoption, and the perilous paths all those who adopt and are adopted are obliged to trudge, but on the tender anguishes and idiocies of being human. Justice Edwin Cameron. Follow this riveting odyssey of an adopted man in this compelling memoir. He defied the odds, crafting plays and words and conquering the world with resilience and passion. Herman Lategan, author of Hoerkind / Son of a Whore.
by Kit Myers
The Violence of Love challenges the narrative that adoption is a solely loving act that benefits birth parents, adopted individuals, and adoptive parents—a narrative that is especially pervasive with transracial and transnational adoptions. Using interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis, Kit W. Myers comparatively examines the adoption of Asian, Black, and Native American children by White families in the United States. He shows how race has been constructed relationally to mark certain homes, families, and nations as spaces of love, freedom, and better futures—in contrast to others that are not—and argues that violence is attached to adoption in complex ways. Propelled by different types of love, such adoptions attempt to transgress biological, racial, cultural, and national borders established by traditional family ideals. Yet they are also linked to structural, symbolic, and traumatic forms of violence. The Violence of Love confronts this discomforting reality and rethinks theories of family to offer more capacious understandings of love, kinship, and care.
by Heidi Marble and Alysa Zalma MD
Adoption involves complex trauma that, if unhealed and unheard, will pulse through subsequent generations. Pulled by the Root is a raw, vivid, and cinematic account of Heidi Marble's lived experience as an adopted person. The story is led by Heidi as she pieces together her identity and comes home to her true self. Each chapter is followed by psychiatrist Alysa Zalma's commentary, which extracts the essence of what is happening psychologically and spiritually. Pulled by the Root is an awakening not only to the experience of being adopted but also to the experience of being human.
by Lynne Leppard
Each person has their own unique story, and as Lynne Leppard's early life included foster care and adoption, she often found herself wondering about her origins and heritage. Her loyalty to her adoptive family was real, but so too was her longing to find out more about her first family and the story of her biological parents. In these pages, woven together with faith and family, Lynne vulnerably shares the untangling of the threads of adoption as she searches for answers to questions of identity, security and belonging.
by Alice Stephens
Lisa Pearl is an American teaching English in Japan and the situation there―thanks mostly to her spontaneous, hard-partying ways―has become problematic. Now she’s in Seoul, South Korea, with her childhood best-friend Mindy. The young women share a special bond: they are both Korean-born adoptees into white American families. Mindy is in Seoul to track down her birth mom, and wants Lisa to do the same. Trouble is, Lisa isn’t convinced she needs to know about her past, much less meet her biological mother.
by Colin Curruthers
“I doubt that another human being will tread this same unconventional path.” This is an intimate and emotive account of an adult adoptee’s journey as he spent nearly three decades searching for his biological parents. Capturing his thoughts, emotions and physical encounters along the way, this rollercoaster ride demonstrates the determination and resilience of an adopted person to achieve his personal quest. There’s no doubt that this account will provide support, comfort, and inspiration to those thinking of searching for their biological parents, and those who have already started out on this journey, as well as those interested in wider adoption matters. Discover the relentless challenges and amazing encounters faced in pursuit of the truth when no stone is left unturned.
by Fiona Myles
The day that I believed adoption trauma was a thing was the start of my journey to a whole new me. Growing up I had been under the impression that I was just bad, naughty, and at one point in my childhood the adjective ""evil"" was applied. Of course I completely bought into the adjectives used to describe me. Even when the odd teacher spoke to me about my good attributes: caring, kind, and compassionate. Still I veered towards the negative. Adoption trauma is very real. Had it been recognized as a ""thing"" when I was a child, and if someone had picked up on it, things may have been different for me. I can’t change anything, but I can walk towards inner healing. So can you. Do you want to take a step towards confidence, acceptance, and well-being? This audiobook is my inward look at adoption trauma with some helpful tips that I have used over the past six years to help me overcome the feelings of unworthiness, anger, fear, and rejection that plagued me for 50 years.
by Joyce Maguire Pavao
Full of wonderful stories that give insight into a wide variety of adoption issues, now revised in light of recent developments, The Family of Adoption is a powerful argument for the right kind of openness in adoption. Joyce Maguire Pavao uses her thirty years of experience as a family and adoption therapist to explain to adoptive parents, birthparents, adult adopted people, and extended family, as well as to those who work with children professionally the developmental stages and challenges one can expect in the life of the adopted person. The Family of Adoption is truly the most insightful and healing book on the adoption shelf.
by Julie Ryan McGue
Belonging Matters supports the adoption community while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption. The collection explores the pursuit of identity and the boundaries of family and kinship. It challenges the reader to embrace all of who we come to be, and to discern with whom and where we belong. Because belonging defines the human experience, and it is what nourishes our spirit, fuels us with purpose, and compels us to soar beyond the limitations of our lived experience.
by Barbara Attwood
This is the true story of Barbara’s adoption by a family who lived in a town on the banks of the River Mersey. They were a loving family but Barbara always felt different. Her mother, Florrie, never wanted her to know the truth. At age 12, after Barbara accidentally discovered that she was adopted, Florrie lied to her about her birth mother, Carole, and the facts surrounding her birth. As a teenager, unable to deal with the shock of what she’d learned, she rebelled against her parents, finding solace in the exciting 1960s’ Liverpool music scene. Against her parents’ wishes, she got a job in Liverpool as a secretary. She went to lunch time sessions at the Cavern where she saw The Beatles, and often stayed out late in Liverpool drinking. Decades later, Barbara discovered tear stained letters from her birth mother, containing heart-breaking words that would send her on a challenging 26-year quest to find Carole and discover the secret of the blue plastic cow.
by Hadassah Bauer
Ready to dive deep into your adoption journey? My journal, Unraveling Your Adoption Journey, was created with adoptees in mind—those of us navigating identity, trust, and belonging. It’s more than just a journal; it’s a space to process your emotions, dig into your story, and explore who you really are, all while feeling seen and understood. With each prompt, you’ll have the chance to reflect, get creative, and truly explore the layers of your own narrative. Whether you’re wrestling with issues of identity, trust, abandonment, or just trying to make sense of the complex emotions around adoption, this journal helps you make space for those feelings and encourages you to dive deeper into what makes you, you. Inside, you’ll find a blend of thoughtful exercises and prompts that not only encourage self-reflection but also help you express yourself in ways that feel right for you. It’s a way to unravel your story piece by piece and make peace with it, reconnecting with your true self along the way. Whether you’re just starting to explore your adoption journey or looking for a new perspective, this journal offers guidance, comfort, and a reminder that you’re not alone in your experience. Unraveling Your Adoption Journey empowers you to reclaim your narrative, embrace your story, and find a sense of belonging that feels authentic to you. Open it up, and let this be the start of your healing, your self-discovery, and your journey toward acceptance and understanding.
by Sherrie Eldridge
As an adoptee, do you have mixed feelings about your adoption? Sherrie Eldridge is an adoptee and adoption expert, and in this book she draws on her personal experiences and feelings relating to adoption as well as interviews with over 70 adoptees. Sherrie reveals how you can discover your own unique life purpose and worth, and sets out 20 life-transforming choices which you have the power to make. The choices will help you discover answers about issues such as: Why do I feel guilty when I think about my birth parents? Why can't I talk about the painful aspects of adoption? Where can I gain an unshakable sense of self-esteem? Sherrie also addresses the problem of depression among adoptees and common dilemmas such as if, when and how to contact a birth mother or father. This fully updated second edition includes new material on finding support online, contacting family through social media, and features three new chapters, including Sherrie's story of reuniting with her birth brother, Jon, in adulthood.
by Linda Hoye
Linda Hoye was in her early twenties when she found herself parentless for the second time. Adopted at five months of age, her heritage, medical history, and access to information about who she was or where she came from was sealed. It was as if she had never existed before being adopted.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.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.She 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 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.
by Paige Adams Strickland and Wendy Hart Beckman
In 1961 Paige was put up for adoption, a more taboo and secretive topic than it is today. Paige's adoptive family chose not to focus on the adoption, but instead function as a regular family with natural children. However, being adopted made her feel vulnerable and unreal. She longed to know more about her true self. In Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity, Paige tells stories from the perspective of a child and adolescent, growing up with a closely guarded secret. Through vignettes, Paige relates feelings about her adoption to forming and maintaining relationships, caring for pets, moving to new houses and neighborhoods, losing loved ones and entering young adulthood. Her need for acceptance is juxtaposed with her adoptive father's increasingly erratic behavior. This is a tale of family joys and hardships, friendships, falling in love and the need to belong. It is set in the era of free love, social unrest and unexpected change during the 1960s, 70s and 80s
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
Elene S. Hall
Through Adopted Eyes explores the world of adoption from the viewpoint of adoptees. Russian adoptee Elena S. Hall shares her own story and thoughts on the subject of adoption in addition to interviews from other adoptees of different ages, heritages, and perspectives. Whether you are an adoptive parent, curious about adoption, or an adoptee yourself, this unique collection of memoirs provides real insight into lives directly impacted by adoption.
by Cameron Lee Small
Adoptee and counselor Cameron Lee Small names the realities of the adoptee's journey, narrating his own and other adoptees' stories in all their complexity. He unpacks the history of how adoption has worked and names how the church influenced adoption practices with unintended negative impacts on adoptees' faith. Small's own tumultuous search for and reunion with his mother in Korea inspired him to help other adoptees navigate what it means to carry multiple stories. His adoptee-centered advocacy helps adoptees regain their agency and identity on a journey of integration and healing, with meaningful relationships in all their family systems.
By Diane Wheaton
A touching memoir of self-discovery, Finding Loretta is Diane’s tale of searching for history, roots, and family. Adopted as an infant, Diane Wheaton has always heard conflicting versions of the truth of her origins—but it’s not until she is forty-seven years old that she begins to search for her biological family. Amid search and reunion, however, Diane’s adoptive parents become ill—and while overseeing their care, she is told about a secret they have kept from her for more than fifteen years. This shocking disclosure requires Diane to face an important decision, which results in a level of healing she never could have anticipated.
By Jean Kelly Widner
An ambitious book by Jean Kelly Widner, an adult adoptee, who explores the current and historical culture of American adoptions. Widner examines the unaddressed pain and systemic flaws in the system, and calls for a more transparent and compassionate approach to adoption.
By Julie Ryan McGue
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Julie's search for her birth relatives spans years and involves a search agency, a PI, a confidential intermediary, a judge, an adoption agency, a social worker, and a genealogist. By journey's end, what began as a simple desire for a family medical history has evolved into a complicated quest―one that unearths secrets, lies, and family members that are literally right next door.
By Sherry Bridgette Healey
Author Sherry Bridgette Healey, a victim of forced adoption, exposes how government policies legally erased birth identities. Her raw memoir draws powerful parallels to historical human rights violations.
By Tracy O'Neill
Tracy transforms her pandemic-era search for her Korean birth mother into a genre-defying detective story, earning widespread critical acclaim pre-publication.
By Marianne Novy
Marianne analyzes 45 adoption memoirs, identifying patterns in how adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents process trauma, race, and reunion experiences.
By Janet Sherlund
BJanet challenges adoption's "happy ending" narrative through her exploration of the primal wound theory and her personal journey of discovery through DNA testing.
By Brandi Cox
Brandi shares her Appalachian story of adoption intersecting with poverty, addiction, and trauma, offering practical healing strategies while highlighting rural America's unique challenges.
By Patti Eddington
Patti's DNA test launches an investigation into sealed records and family secrets, revealing how adoption secrecy shaped her understanding of identity.
By Shannon Gibney
Shannon, a transracial adoptee, blends adoption memoir with speculative fiction in this Printz Honor Book, exploring parallel lives while incorporating official documents and family records.
By M. Rosales
M. Rosales recounts her journey as a Korean adoptee, taken from her homeland at age five. Her search for birth family after 29 years illuminates the complex emotions and cultural identity challenges faced by international adoptees.
By Linda R. Sexton
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By Lori Evans Ermi
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By EM Blake
EM delivers a graphic memoir about five siblings separated by foster care and closed adoption. Through illustrated storytelling, she traces her journey as an Ojibwe/Anishinaabe and European adoptee searching for belonging, culture, and her first family. Her unique visual narrative explores how five siblings, placed in foster care and adopted into three different families, found their way back to each other.
By Anne Heffron
In To Be Real, Anne Heffron provides a many-voiced picture of adoption. With the help of fellow adoptees Hannah Andrews, Dawn Conwell Mulkay, Leah E. Cooper, Brad Ewell, Shelley Gaske, Sharon Stein McNamara, Andrew Glynn, Tonni Johnston, Kathleen Shea Kirstein, Elisa Nickerson, Kristen Steinhilber, Kimberly Van Den Hoek, and other special guests, To Be Real lifts up the voices of the community as they share personal stories of self-discovery.
By Susan Kiyo Ito
A poignant and beautifully crafted narrative that explores the author's experiences as a trans-racial adoptee. Growing up with adoptive Nisei parents, Ito knew only that her birth mother was Japanese American and her father was white. Finding and meeting her birth mother in her early 20s was only the beginning of her search for answers, history, and identity. Ito does a masterful job of demonstrating the difficulty of managing expectations around reunion and the longing to be accepted by her newfound first mother.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Betty Jean Lifton
Betty Jean Lifton, whose Lost and Found has become a bible to adoptees and to those who would understand the adoption experience, explores further the inner world of the adopted person. She breaks new ground as she traces the adopted child's lifelong struggle to form an authentic sense of self. And she shows how both the symbolic and the literal search for roots becomes a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.
Stephanie Foo
A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life.
By David B. Bohl
In this poignant and powerful memoir, David B. Bohl reveals the inner turmoil and broad spectrum of warring emotions—shame, anger, triumph, shyness, pride—he experienced growing up as a “relinquished” boy.
BY Emma Stevens
When Emma learns her birth mother wrote and signed a letter about her to the adoption agency, she knew she had to have that letter if she were to ever discover her birth mother's true identity.
by Susan Wadia-Ells PhD
Adoption has always been a woman's issue. With eloquence and conviction, more than 30 diverse birth mothers, adoptive mothers and adoptees tell their adoption stories and explore what is a deeply emotional, sometimes controversial, and always compelling experience that affects millions of families and individuals.
by Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh
An expose of unethical and coercive adoption industry practices during a short period in American history known as the Baby Scoop Era (Post WWII - 1972). By sharing the actual printed words of social caseworkers, maternity home personnel, lawyers, judges, medical and mental health practitioners, the methods used to ensure that "unwed" mothers would surrender their babies to mostly infertile strangers will be revealed. These crimes against nature resulted in more than 1.5 million vulnerable new mothers being permanently separated from newborns that they might have parented had they been informed of their civil, legal, human and Constitutional rights.
by Abigail K. Hasberry PhD
Adopting Privilege is Dr. Hasberry’s attempt at not only reckoning with her past, but offering unfiltered guidance to other transracial adoptees, and the larger adoption community, navigating what it means to exist in a familial limbo while also discovering what it means to simply exist. Abigail Hasberry is no stranger to adoption. As both a Black adoptee to a white family, and a birth mother, her intimate understanding of this experience has shaped her career as both a therapist and transracial adoption scholar. However, the intricacies of transracial adoption narratives leave much to be discovered, and with stories often shared from the perspective of the adoptive family, the most affected group—the adoptees—are often left to fend for themselves in their own self discoveries.
by Patricia J Florin
Closed adoption, heralded as the answer to the problem of unplanned pregnancy, shows its other side in A Life Let Go, A Memoir and Five Birth Mother Stories of Closed Adoption. These women tell how they experienced unplanned pregnancy in the restrictiveness of the last decades of the twentieth century. All gave up a child in closed adoption--the only option--understanding they would never see them again, a dark contract made under great duress.
By Beth and Joseph Syverson
Beth Syverson and Joseph Syverson, an adoptive mother and adoptee, collaborate to address adoption's hidden mental health crisis. Drawing from groundbreaking research, they combine personal stories with practical resources to support families and professionals.
Authored by Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent)
This book reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoption. The authors interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies, all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption.
Loraiine Dusky
In the days before Roe v. Wade, an ambitious young journalist, abandoned by her beau, leaves Michigan for a dream job on the city desk of a Rochester, New York newspaper. Burned once, she's eager for love, but as the only Girl in the newsroom, she's more concerned with finding allies and making friends. When a new leading man appears, she recognizes a kindred spirit. Soon her bylined stories claim front-page space. However, when she becomes pregnant, she must switch her attention from deadlines to decisions. With adoption on the horizon, she pushes her man to make a commitment. Sadly, he wants her, but not their daughter. Will Dusky ever find the little girl she longed to raise, and if she does, what will be the fallout from their years apart?
By Amy Seek
God and Jetfire is a mother's account of her decision to surrender her son in an open adoption and of their relationship over the twelve years that follow. Facing an unplanned pregnancy at twenty-two, Amy Seek and her ex-boyfriend begin an exhaustive search for a family to raise their child.
By Candace Cahill
The first time to adoption and the second not long after reuniting with him. In this heart-wrenching and heart-warming memoir, Candace Cahill offers an intimate view of child relinquishment and child loss, the definition of motherhood, and how two things can be true at one time.
By Jean Kelly Widner
An ambitious book by Jean Kelly Widner, an adult adoptee, who explores the current and historical culture of American adoptions. Widner examines the unaddressed pain and systemic flaws in the system, and calls for a more transparent and compassionate approach to adoption.
By Beth and Joseph Syverson
Beth Syverson and Joseph Syverson, an adoptive mother and adoptee, collaborate to address adoption's hidden mental health crisis. Drawing from groundbreaking research, they combine personal stories with practical resources to support families and professionals.
By Lori Evans Ermi
Lori weaves together fifteen adoption stories, sparked by a chance encounter that led to an epiphany about the need to share these narratives. Drawing from her own experience as an adoptee who kept her adoption secret for years, she explores the universal theme of belonging that runs through the adoption community.
By Gretchen Sisson
Based on a decade-long study, Sisson examines the complex interplay between adoption, privilege, and the ideals of American motherhood, shedding light on the broader cultural and systemic factors that shape the adoption landscape.
Sandra Marinella
A practical and inspiring guide to transformational personal storytelling, The Story You Need to Tell is the product of Sandra Marinella’s pioneering work with veterans and cancer patients, her years of teaching writing, and her research into its profound healing properties. Riveting true stories illustrate Marinella’s methods for understanding, telling, and editing personal stories in ways that foster resilience and renewal.
Richard C. Schwartz PhD
Discover an empowering new way of understanding your multifaceted mind - and healing the many parts that make you who you are.
By Nancy Newton Verrier
The Primal Wound is a seminal work which revolutionizes the way we think about adoption. It describes and clarifies the effects of separating babies from their birth mothers as a primal loss which affects the relationships of the adopted person throughout life.
By Glenn R. Schiraldi PhD
We’re all a product of our childhood, and if you’re like most people, you have experienced some form of childhood trauma. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at the root of nearly all mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
By Amir Levine
n this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and psychologist Rachel S. F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love.
By Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD
A pioneering researcher and one of the world’s foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing.
By Laura Dennis
A much-needed anthology addressing a variety of potential psychological and physiological concerns, Adoption Therapy, Perspectives from Clients and Clinicians on Processing and Healing Post-Adoption Issues is a must-read for adoptees, adoptive parents, first families, and vitally, mental health professionals.
By Susan Anderson
The fear of abandonment is one of our most primal fears, and deservedly so. Its pain is often overwhelming, and can leave its mark on the rest of your life. In the midst of the hurt, it’s hard to see an end to your feelings of rejection, shame, and betrayal.
by Sharon Roszia and Allison Davis Maxon
Based on a hugely successful US model, the Seven Core Issues in Adoption is the first conceptual framework of its kind to offer a unifying lens that was inclusive of all individuals touched by the adoption experience.
By David Richo
The popular author of How to Be an Adult in Relationships reveals how past trauma can negatively impact our present-day relationships—and offers guidance on what to do about it
By Charles L Whitfield
Here, frontline physician and therapist Charles Whitfield describes the process of wounding that the Child Within (True Self) experiences and shows how to differentiate the True Self from the false self.
by Nancy N Verrier
Coming Home to Self is a book about becoming aware. It is written for all members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents as well as those who are in relationship with them, including professionals.
By Gabrielle Glaser
The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other.
By Gabor Maté (MD) and Daniel Maté
By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing.
If you know of an organization you would like added to this list, email me at patricia@myadoptedlife.com.
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