After years of childhood curiosity, a woman adopted as an infant decides to find her birth mother. It took her years to finally decide to hire a “Search Angel.” She got her call only three days later—but she found out that her birth parents had already passed on. However, her birth mother’s husband was a joyful fount of information and treated her like his own lost daughter. In Out of the Box: A Memoir of an Adoptee, author Patricia Bauer Collins shares her journey to discover her birth parents, as she faces new challenges yet undergoes a great deal of emotional growth. Patricia shares actual letters between her birth mother, Shirley, and Shirley’s mother and grandmother regarding “Shirley’s problem” when she was just twelve years old. Patricia also tells the story of how she was able to connect with her half-siblings and other relatives—something more exciting than she had ever imagined—even traveling to her Spanish ancestors’ 1842 family adobe outside Santa Barbara. For Patricia, connecting with her origins and with her past made her realize that her ancestors were far more important to her than she had thought. Not only did she discover more about her history and the talents and skills she shared with them; she also discovered more about herself, being rewarded along the way with an astounding epiphany of connection.

After years of childhood curiosity, a woman adopted as an infant decides to find her birth mother. It took her years to finally decide to hire a "Search Angel." She got her call only three days later--but she found out that her birth parents had already passed on. However, her birth mother's husband was a joyful fount of information and treated her like his own lost daughter. In Out of the Box: A Memoir of an Adoptee, author Patricia Bauer Collins shares her journey to discover her birth parents, as she faces new challenges yet undergoes a great deal of emotional growth. Patricia shares actual letters between her birth mother, Shirley, and Shirley's mother and grandmother regarding "Shirley's problem" when she was just twelve years old. Patricia also tells the story of how she was able to connect with her half-siblings and other relatives--something more exciting than she had ever imagined--even traveling to her Spanish ancestors' 1842 family adobe outside Santa Barbara. For Patricia, connecting with her origins and with her past made her realize that her ancestors were far more important to her than she had thought. Not only did she discover more about her history and the talents and skills she shared with them; she also discovered more about herself, being rewarded along the way with an astounding epiphany of connection.

"A hybrid memoir-in-essays with photographs that confronts the realities of growing up as an adoptee born before Roe v. Wade, searching for birth records, examining the Domecon baby experiments, and interrogating the idea of traumatic memory itself"--

The secret "limited edition" book no one knows about just yet. A confidential tale literally kept in the closet for more than twenty years. This narrative, set from the 1970s through the late 90s in the Pacific Northwest, exposes how the personal issues of adoptive parents can take precedence over the truth of origin and fundamental human rights of transracial and intercountry adoptees--even into adulthood. In this particular case, hoarding, a traumatic brain injury, recovery, a divorce battle, a life-altering family secret, and cancer consume the adoptive parents time and leave absolutely no room to deal with the true legal status of their two adopted daughters. Instead, the twins persevere by using teamwork to overcome the adoptive family struggles. Kept private for more than two decades, this narrative provides understanding on the twins' innate nature to protect and uplift the innocent and those they love. (Sometimes the box of limitations can be found within the adoptive home.) This confidential book peeks into the personal young lives of twins who now as adults inform government officials, attorneys, university professors and the public on the crisis of adoption trafficking. But back in the 1980s and in the perspective found in this book, the twins were just trying to honor and obey their American parents-like everyone else in junior high and high school.Janine is now the founder of a confidential and worldwide resource to prevent adoption trafficking; however, she merely considers herself to be just another proud product of the X Generation. Her twin, Jenette, has worked in the healthcare field for more than 20 years and co-authoring books on energy therapy and meditation. Vance's second book The Search For Mother Missing: A Peek Inside International Adoption reveals why she acknowledges parents and siblings of adoption-loss. An absolute must-read to caution and protect uninformed parents, families, indigenous communities, and nation-states on the crisis of adoption trafficking. This updated version includes a postscript: What do you do when you find out you're an alien?

Adopted at age five, author Elaine Pinkerton hid the fact that her original parents didnt want her. At age ten, she found comfort in keeping a diary and escaped into the world of books. Now, years later, Pinkerton revisits four decades of diaries and offers a look at her life and what it meant to her to be adopted. Based on those forty diaries, she shares her story in The Goodbye Baby. With diary excerpts included, as well as narrative, Pinkerton tells about her journey through the thorny issues of adoption, a search for healing, and an inspiring finale. Praise for The Goodbye Baby The Goodbye Baby is a touching story that will inspire readers, whether or not adoption played a part in their lives. Elaine Pinkerton demonstrates how we can come to understand our inherent worth, regardless of early circumstances. Jann Arrington Wolcott, Author, Brujo So many of us appear fine on the outside. Yet internally we are struggling with a negative belief we developed in childhood, a self-invalidating perception that colored the experiences that followed. The Goodbye Baby reveals a wonderful accomplishment: the full-grown woman who has come to see that she is gem! Martha Davis, Licensed Psychotherapist, Santa Fe, New Mexico In The Goodbye Baby, Elaine Pinkerton reveals the bruises of adoption that impacted her from the tender age of five. Through excerpts from personal journals she kept for forty years, we experience her frustrations and successes as she strives to be good enough for her beloved adoptive parents and in all areas of her later life. Rosemary Zibart, Journalist and Author, Far and Away

Many of us have one--a place where we store mementos that remind us of an earlier period in our lives--either happy or sad. Those ties to our past are commonly found in a similar place, hidden in a shoebox buried at the back of a closet shelf. It's called The Shoebox Effect--where you "forget", intentionally or unintentionally, about the contents of the box and what they represent. Marcie Keithley's shoebox contained a secret, one she kept for decades, one released when her shoebox was unexpectedly revealed in a moment of grief. A flood of memories and emotions were unleashed when the lid was knocked off. No longer able to deny what she had sequestered away in her closet and in her spirit, the revelation created challenges for Marcie, but it also did something positively unexpected. Releasing the truth began a cascade that resulted in a freedom Marcie did not know was possible. The dramatic story of this long-kept secret, which has been reported globally on major networks and in newspapers across America, will intrigue and enthrall you. But Marcie Keithley doesn't just make her story all about her. Now known as The Shoebox Sherpa, she helps people unpack their own shoeboxes, and teaches us how to face our truths, heal our pasts, and find the freedom we deeply desire. Be prepared to consider Marcie's question to all of us, "What's in your shoebox?"

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, NY newspaper. Burned once, she's eager for love, but as the only Girl in the newsroom, she's more concerned about 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? In Hole in My Heart, the author uses her skills as a journalist to report on the social history and long-term consequences of family separation. If you like true stories with strong women narrators, you’ll love Lorraine Dusky’s timely and heart-rending memoir about motherhood, identity and love. Written by a leader in the movement to reform adoption practices and the first to come out of the era's closet of shame. With footnotes, bibliography and index.