The Ugly One in the Middle is Alex Stan Campbell's story of the fifty-year search for two people; His birth mother, and the angelic, sensual woman of his dreams. Kind of romantic, right? But, wait. There's humor, mystery and intrigue. Just before Stan's sixteenth birthday, his Aunt Patsy let it slip that his mom and pop did not conceive him. Quel horror His adoptive mom knew something dark, but she wasn't talking. It didn't matter much...then.Stan's top priorities of the day were drowning his bashfulness in wine and rubbing alcohol. That didn't work. He threw up and fell down a lot.

Since 1982, the Independent Adoption Center has successfully placed over 4,000 newborns with families across the United States. Each family that is created through open adoption has its' own unique story. Preparation time, wait time, the length of the match between adoptive and birthparents, the hospital experience, and ongoing contact between the birth and adoptive families are different for everyone. In an effort to educate the general population and prospective birth and adoptive parents, we have compiled TRUE STORIES OF OPEN ADOPTION from past clients and staff members who agreed to share their stories of how their families came to be. The reader will be touched by these moving stories while learning about the depth of these distinctive relationships.

Like cowboys turning in the saddle to look at where they came from, "Searching for the Castle" documents the backtrail of author Barbara Leigh Ohrstrom's adoption. It begins with her urgency as an eighteen-year-old woman initiating her search for her birth parents. Her recollection includes court petitions, letters, Division of Social Service documents, and other original documents usually buried behind the lock and key of the law.

In this memoir, she narrates the unearthing of her history and that of her family. Some of her discoveries are filled with pain, while others are joyful, including locating sisters, another brother, and eventually nieces and a nephew. A story of how one woman comes to terms with her identity, Searching for the Castle tells of real people doing the best they can to live and love in the often heartbreaking circumstances of life.

As Ohrstrom shares her journey to find her birth parents, she reveals her emotions throughout the process, discovering that her identity is self-created, but also that her being is governed, in part, by her ancestors and family lines. "Searching for the Castle" communicates the message that love creates families and that the family to which Ohrstrom belonged in foster care gave her a mother, father, and family filled with love and decency.

Back Cover Copy: Mike and Sara were an older, college-educated, small-town Midwestern couple, and devoutly Christian. Dealt simultaneous life-changing blows, he faced the end of his world or a commitment to create a new life. She felt a calling from above, but time would pass until the morning two radio disc jockeys discussed adoption. That day changed their lives and those of three children-the first, abandoned in Vietnam, the second, in foster care, the third, relinquished in another state-all with medical issues and turned away by other prospective adoptive parents. New to the intricacies and bureaucracies of adoption, this family's unshakeable faith in God led them through multiple adoption processes; issues they faced as an older couple with the support of grown children and extended families; a harrowing battle against Tuberous Sclerosis Complex; and a calling to advocate for other special needs children and their families. For both older and younger Americans, this memoir provides both "how to" information about the different forms of adoption from one family's perspective, and a testament of faith in God's plan both for adoptive parents and children. Description: Relatively few adoption memoirs are written by and for couples 40 and older-even as a generation of Americans known as "boomers" embrace adoption. Yet, in today's world with longer life expectancies, more older couples than ever are adopting children. Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and author of "Adoption Nation," called boomers' embrace of adoption "a trend that's clearly happening." This candid memoir, punctuated with humor, frustration, endurance, savvy decisions and testaments of Christian faith, is written to inspire older prospective adoptive parents in America that it can be done and what steps to expect while simultaneously engaging middle age and dealing with children's special medical needs. While written by and for those over 40, a younger generation of prospective adoptive parents also will find this memoir informative and inspiring. In this memoir, the author: Provides detailed accounts of the processes his family faced in their decisions to adopt; selection of agencies; rigorous, invasive paperwork and interviews, financing, travel, and dealing with social services and courts; Examines issues which prospective adoptive parents over the age of 40 face from grown children, extended family, friends and strangers, as well as future decisions which affect finances, guardianship, parental age factors, and planning; Explores first encounters with their adoptive children, a foster mother and a birth mother, and what to expect initially; Explains the importance of online support groups; Recounts their vivid experiences adopting Savannah in Vietnam in 2008; Christian, in-state through foster care; and Marlee, multi-state through a private agency; Recalls their experiences being rejected for other adoptive situations and the idiosyncrasies of adoption/social service agencies, and state laws; Recounts their inspiring daughter, Marlee's, near-fatal battle against tuberous sclerosis complex, a hideous, rare disease; how to advocate for a hospitalized child; and understand the workings of a major teaching children's hospital; Describes their developing advocacy for special needs children, and their decision to form a non-profit foundation to assist others who are experiencing what this couple already has endured; Testifies how Marlee taught them the true meaning of Christian faith in the Lord's healing power, bravery, perseverance, determination, and hope.

From the age of 11, Ivan's life bounced between residential treatment centers, psychiatric facilities, and group homes in Alaska and Montana. During those years he was separated from everyone he knew. Just before his 15th birthday, Ivan was diagnosed with Ewing's Sarcoma, a form of bone cancer. Alone in the world and now facing the fight of his life he was moved to yet another state, Washington, for cancer treatment. With the help of his caseworker he was reunited with his older brother whom he had not seen in many years. After cancer treatment Ivan was in need of a foster placement while his brother looked for housing and a way to support the two of them. Emotionally shut down and nearly nonverbal Ivan entered his new foster home. Out of the pain emerged a young man who was not the broken, disturbed teen he was portrayed by the records to be. A teen with a zest for life and love to share was waiting for a chance to belong.

Anne first wrote and illustrated her story 15 years ago. She had adopted two children. She felt that by telling this step-by-step, thought-provoking realistic account, she could reinforce to her much-loved children that God knew what would be best for the baby being adopted. Compassionately and thoughtfully, Anne shared the concerns and worries of the birth mother. She explained the important role of an orphanage for babies awaiting adoption. When the baby boy was chosen for adoption, she described the excitement and preparations of his mommy and daddy. She also added the love and anticipation of family members and friends by showing the nursery full of heartwarming reminders. Anne followed the baby as he was placed with a foster family who were able to nurture him more individually than caregivers at the orphanage could. When the time came for the baby to travel, she explained the foster parents' bittersweet feelings. The baby's long journey led to the excitement of him being placed into his mommy's arms-and then everyone's realization of what God had known all along. Anne's soft pastels show many aspects of each stage of the infant's story. The cares, worries, concerns, and unknowns appear in both the intuitive text and illustrations. This book is inspirational for prospective adoptive families, adopted children, foster families, and others who have loved and anticipated the arrivals of adoptees joining the families of friends and relatives alike. Anne's intricate, heartfelt details will delight young and old readers.

This is a sequel to Family Secrets: Letters to My Granddaughters A NOTE FROM GRACE Several years back I enrolled in a writing class called, "Your Dreams and Writing." While taking the class I dreamed I was asked to write a manuscript. When it was finished I took it with me to a park. While sitting on a park bench watching a little girl play with her mom I suddenly saw a title wave coming from afar off. Quickly I placed my manuscript on top of the park pavilion thinking it would be safe there. In the next scene of the dream I was in class and it was time for me to hand in my assignment. I told the teacher I did not have my manuscript because of the tidal wave that had hit the park. Although I had tried to keep it safe atop the pavilion it had been destroyed. About that time the little girl entered the room with my manuscript. I knelt down beside her as she handed it to me. She looked me straight in the eye and said, "You know I lost my mom in that title wave." I replied, "Yes honey, I know you did." And that was the end of the dream. It is possible you hold that manuscript in your hands... rescued by a motherless child and finally published for other children who survived a title wave that took their mother. Grace Ann Neuharth

Based on true events, this 2014 National Indie Excellent Book Award Winner, is an inspirational story, packed with powerful emotions and extreme risks, takes the reader on a gripping ride that stirs the heart and encourages the soul. His charisma, good looks and charm captivates Linda and she falls for the successful VP who wines and dines her, until she winds up pregnant. When he tells her to get an abortion, she searches her soul and looks for other options before making any decision. With her plan set into motion, Linda thinks everything is under control until a horrific catastrophe sends her into a devastating tailspin. How will she find the courage to survive the darkest dawn of her life?

Crime . . . Poverty . . Racism. George rose above it all. His journey through Foster Care was at times difficult, at times touching and at times very funny. His story will inspire anyone working with young people. Especially those in Foster and Adoptive Care, from Foster Parents to Youth, Social Workers and Foster Care Agencies. While his story begin with crime, poverty and racism, it ends with love, belonging and hope. Love . . . Belonging . . . Hope

'A remarkable book...wise and arresting' Sarah Winman 'Exquisite... a deeply insightful memoir which charts our fundamental longings for place and identity, and ultimately our yearnings for love.' Helena Kennedy Single, in her mid-forties and having experienced a sudden early menopause, a realisation comes to Peggy quietly, and clearly: she decides to adopt a child. But the preparation is arduous and the scrutiny intense. There are questions about past lives, about capability and expectations. Asking big questions about identity and belonging, as well as about what makes a mother - and a home - this is a beautiful meditation on how the legacies of childhood might be overcome by a mother's determination to love. 'Extremely moving...an unusually thoughtful take on becoming a mother, enabled by removing babyhood and biology.' Guardian

Becoming Dad's Story started out as an anonymous blog written to keep my family updated about the progress my wife and I were making toward adopting a baby. The idea was, if I wrote about the process and kept everyone informed, they would quit calling me every other day and asking how it was going (adopting is nerve wracking enough without that added pressure). I realized through looking back on my blog that I had made a heartfelt chronicle of an amazing time in my life. With the addition of after the fact insight I have added to my original posts. I feel that my story can be of great help and comfort to others who are starting down the road toward adopting a child. This book is equal parts humor and heartbreak, but ultimately triumphant like the adoption process itself.

A self guided journal for a birthfather to write his family story without interuption, in a safe and non-accucsing enviroment. This journal is a vehicle for birthfathers to communicate with thier biological children placed in adoptive homes. The more a child understands where they have come from, the stronger sense of self they will have. A sense of connection to birthparents will reinforce adoption is the ultimate gift of love and selflessness. The perfect open adoption gift book The Book of Answers, a guided journal for birthfathers to share thier life story is a loving opportunity for adopted children to hear in thier birthfather's life story in the birthfather's voice.The journal addresses so many questions adoptive children may have regarding thier birth parents. By answering general questions the birthfather will have the opportunity to address four major areas of interest: "The Family Basics" ( Family names, health history, traditions), " Are we alike?" (likes and dislikes of food, sports, entertainment), Unique and Personal Expereinces and Opnions (Growing up, people of influence, spiritual beleifs), The Story Behind My Adoption ( Circumstances, people involved, pregancy stories). After the birth father completes what he can of the journal he returns it to the adoptive family as a vehicle in commumnicating with the adoted child, thier biological connection and family stories. This ensures the birth father's story is told in her own voice and will bring comfort to the child through a better understanding of his biological family.

Ladybug Love is a collection of stories from adoptive families covering more than a decade of adoption through China. Whether you're in the process of adopting a child from China, have brought your child home, work in the field of adoption, or have an adoption connection, you'll find the support, laughter, tears, hope, and joy from others who have already walked a mile in your shoes.

This is the true story of two mothers, one in the United States, the other in Korea, and of the little boy who left the world he knew to make a home with a new family. This powerful account of international adoption and ultimate reunion is told by the adoptive mother, who held her son's birth mother in her mind and heart, never imagining that they would meet.

A powerful blazingly honest memoir told with humor and panache about a mother and son finding each other again after years of estrangement. A coming-of-age story of outrageous excess, glamour, entitlement and grand delusion, lived above the fray and over the top. A gay man's journey through the joys and perils of his generation, coming out in the early eighties in the shadow of a terrifying of disease that would devastate so many, surviving tremendous loss and culminating in his decision to adopt a child as a single parent.
When Sergei, a psychotherapist who has been living in Paris for the past decade, discovers that his mother is terminally ill, he decides to leave his practice and his life to be by her side, in the hope of healing the bitterness and discord before it is too late. Alternating between a narrative of Dollsie's last months as she battles cancer, interwoven with poignant and hilarious and at times shocking scenes from their outlandishly privileged lives, DAMAGE CONTROL is a story about exile and loss, searching and escape. From the mountain villages of Gstaad, Switzerland, to New York and Miami and Cuba, the narrator revisits the chateaux and chalets of his childhood, exploring the emotional and geographical landscapes of a mother and son whose lives are revealed to be poignant parallels of each other. After avoiding his mother for a lifetime, seeking shelter from her destructiveness and her drinking and her rage, Sergei comes face-to-face with this narcissistic woman confronting mortality for the first time, and through his own experiences as an activist and a therapist and a man who has faced his own mortality at young age, he helps her to come to terms with all her guilt and regrets and fear of dying.
This memoir offers a fascinating and disturbing portrayal of a glamorous woman whose life has been one of great elegance and luxury, along with disillusionment, grandiosity, seduction and self-destruction: her childhood in pre-Castro Cuba, a mythical island paradise; her marriage at the age of eighteen to a dashing young Swiss man and their subsequent exile; her frantic and desperate resolve to create a mythical life of her own and pass on the traditions of aristocracy to her children, all the while leading a double life and suffering feelings of intense longing and frustration and guilt which eventually cause her to destroy and walk away from everything that she has been raised to want and expect out of life.
DAMAGE CONTROL is ultimately a rendering of the cycle of life, saying goodbye to a parent so you can say hello to a child, and finding grace and redemption through a mother's love.

Wyatt Harris was born with one arm in mainline China. Because of the one-child policy and figuring he would be of little value to the family, he was abandoned as an infant to an orphanage, where he was adopted by an American family at the age of three. The Second Chance is Wyatt's story of his childhood in the US, and later his search to find his biological parents in China.
After finding his biological parents and siblings in a tiny village, he realizes how lucky he was to have been abandoned 20 years before. With his newfound respect for life, he decides to give orphans another chance as well, and starts Second Chances, a non-profit foundation assisting orphans in Taiwan and China. In October of 2012, the first orphan student from Taiwan was brought to the United States to study at a school in Oregon for one year, all funded through Second Chances.
"The Second Chance" is the story of the author's epic journey to discover his past and secure his future.

A pregnant, upper class nineteen-year-old Philadelphia Main Line debutante is confined, against her will, to a state mental hospital. She spends her pregnancy surrounded by the mentally challenged and the criminally insane. On April 19, 1964, she gives birth to a child, whom she is forced to give up for adoption.
A loving middle-class couple adopts a month-old little girl from Catholic Charities. She is adored and cherished from the very beginning. It is as though she is dropped into the first chapter of a fairy tale-but we all know how fairy tales go.
This is the story of a mother and daughter. Of what it is to give up a child and what it is to be given up. Of what it is to belong, what it is to be a family and what it is to yearn deeply, and to never lose hope-because anything is possible.
In this exquisite memoir, Julie Mannix von Zerneck and Kathy Hatfield recount the stories of their lives. Deliciously strange, surprising and sweetly funny, this tenderly written book takes us on a wild and frightening journey. Written in two distinct and deeply expressive voices, their stories seamlessly meld together in a breathtaking ending.

PRAISE FOR SECRET STORMS:
"The book shifts between sections narrated by mother von Zerneck and daughter Hatfield, and both authors have gripping stories to tell. Readers will delight in their shared narrative, which is as heartwarming as it is engaging. von Zerneck's life alone would be a fascinating read, but combined with Hatfield's search for her mother it becomes compulsive reading."
-Publishers Weekly
"The book is beautifully written and...compelling, to the extent that readers might feel they are sitting with the authors, listening to them tell their tale...more like a novel than a memoir."
-ForeWord Reviews
"Shining through both narratives is goodness and the power of the human spirit. A dually narrated, uplifting tale on overcoming profound adversity."
-Kirkus Reviews
"This story will break your heart, bring on tears of joy, and make you believe in the healing power of love, forgiveness, and family."
-Meredith Rollins, Executive Editor, Redbook Magazine
"A heartbreaking but ultimately life-affirming mother-daughter story that defies fiction. Every plot twist, every emotion touches a chord, even for those of us who have not had to endure such a brutal separation. Read it and weep-and then finally rejoice. An ode to the enduring power of family ties."
-Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, author of A Woman of Independent Means
"In my writers' workshops, the greatest gospel I can preach is the obvious one-to tell the truth, whatever form it takes. This amazing mother-daughter writing team exemplifies the concept to the max. The plot is Dickensian, rife with villains and struggle, the revealing of it, breathtaking in its simplicity and heartbreaking in its courage. What a story."
-Ernest Thompson, Academy Award-winning writer of On Golden Pond
"What an extraordinary and compelling story, all the more so because it's true-and told so beautifully by its two heroines."
-Alice Maltin, producer & Leonard Maltin, film critic and correspondent for Entertainment Tonight
"This is an uplifting story of hope and personal courage that is sure to resonate with most readers."
-Monsters and Critics

A personal account of infertility, IVF & adoption. 'After three years and a total of nine embryo transfers, Glenn and I are hanging up our saddles ... For many, three years might seem an insufficient effort, but I am tired. My body is tired, my mind is tired and most of all my heart is tired. I still believe that IVF is a modern, medical miracle ... But I no longer believe it will be our miracle.' What happens when the quest for a family seems to bring only tears and despair? As Kylie and her husband Glenn discovered you simply pick yourself up, take a deep breath and carry on. 'As harsh as it seems, the adoption process in Western Australia can only be described as excruciating: intrusive, intense, bureaucratic and judgemental.' Kylie's struggle to conquer the intricacies and inconsistencies of the adoption process push both her and Glenn to the limits of their endurance, and just when all seems lost they are handed a lifeline that sees their hope of becoming parents flicker back to life. 'Is it bad news?' 'No, it is very good news ... we have a baby for you, a little boy.' Honest, perceptive and deeply personal 'From Here to Maternity' is a warm and ultimately joyful story about one couple's determination to overcome infertility and bureaucracy and become a family against all the odds.

Quick to use, comprehensive and portable, this is a handy pocket book drawing together all current legislation and procedures relating to adoption in England. Small enough to carry around in a handbag or briefcase, it provides instant access to information whenever needed. It covers the law, regulations, rules and guidance relating to adoption in easily digested bite-size chunks. It also includes the recent 2013 government changes to adoption legislation.

Forever Mama is a heartwarming children's book which recounts the story of a little girl's adoption from China in a conversational format between mother and daughter. This book touches on the roles that the little girl's birth mother and foster mother had in her life and the qualities she inherited from both women. Finally, the little girl receives from her adoptive mother what she has been waiting for all along---the promise of forever.

76 Days on Mars follows the journey of an American couple and their adoption quest in Ukraine. After 2 failed adoptions in the US and 2 more in Ukraine Paula and Michael Redman share the ups and downs of Ukrainian adoption and how to work within their system. If you are planning to adopt this book is a must read. It will save you time, money, frustration and smooth out your personal journey