"In America, Mother = White. That's what Nefertiti, a single African American woman, discovered when she decided she wanted to adopt a Black baby boy out of the foster care system. Eager to finally join the motherhood ranks, Nefertiti was shocked when people started asking her why she wanted to adopt a 'crack baby' or said that she would never be able to raise a Black son on her own. She realized that American society saw motherhood through a white...

"May you always feel at home. After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decided to adopt via the foster care system. Knowing that the goal is reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social workers who question, evaluate, and ultimately prepare them to welcome a child into their family--even if it most likely means giving them up. After years of starts and stops, a...

Finding Grace is the powerful, often humorous, and deeply moving story of one woman's journey of broken dreams. It is the story of how a painful legacy of the past is confronted and met with peace. This book is for anyone who has struggled to understand why our desires- even the simplest ones-are sometimes denied or who has questioned where God is when we need him most. This story is about one woman's unlikely road to motherhood. Finally, it's a book...

"From the bestselling author of ALL YOU CAN EVER KNOW comes a searing memoir of class, inequality, and grief-a daughter's search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she's lost. In this country, unless you attain extraordinary wealth, you will likely be unable to help your loved ones in all the ways you'd hoped. You will learn to live with the specific, hollow guilt of those who leave hardship...

Follows the story of Jaclyn, a four-year-old Chinese orphan who was adopted by an American family and who subsequently convinced her new parents to return to China to rescue a baby boy whom Jaclyn had protected at the orphanage.

Saturday Night Live veteran Julia Sweeney's endearing series of true tales from parenthood's front lines is a funny, smart tour de force that reads like a conversation with your best friend. In these candidly witty and poignant essays, comedienne and writer Julia Sweeney muses on the complex blessings of motherhood: deciding to adopt her daughter, a Chinese girl named Mulan ("After the movie?"); nannies (including the Chinese Pat); being adopted...

Driven by the negligent death of her adopted daughter at the hands of a West African exploitation ring, American mother Erica Stone finds herself an unlikely advocate for orphaned children in Sierra Leone. Her dedication is tested by the deeply ingrained corruption she encounters as she fights to have her daughter's life recognized while simultaneously trying to protect the lives of countless other children. Stone's memoir is raw, heartbreaking, and...

Essays and stories which reflect the complexity of contemporary adoption with open and closed adoption, cross-cultural adoption, the birth record debate, the experience of biracial adoptees, adoption by lesbian couples, and the search for identity.

Accidentally meeting after a 14-year separation, teenage twins Tia and Tamera vow never to be parted again. Convincing their adoptive single parents that both families would be better off living together under the same roof, the girls begin their new lives, together again for the first time since birth.