A warm and personal story of a four-year-old and his beloved stuffed dinosaur is complemented with vintage watercolor illustrations. Christopher's own adoption comes vividly to life as he sets out to create an adoption scrapbook for his pal, Boris. The misadventures of this unlikely pair only strengthen Chris's love for Boris and help him understand the true meaning of adoption.

Choice, Death, and the Aftermath

Fearfully and desperately wanting to hide my mistakes and deny the unwanted, but not totally unexpected ramifications of my earlier choices, I chose what seemed to be the easiest answer. I chose death, and then I moved into the aftermath of my choice. I, for a lifetime and beyond, will live in the aftermath of my choice. Although there is recovery, through forgiveness, there are lasting ramifications. No one told me that the ramifications of my choice would last forever. No one told me what my choice would do to my heart. No one told me that my choice was, in fact, a death sentence for my baby.

Are you, or someone you know, facing an unwanted pregnancy? Are you wondering if "choice" is the answer, the easiest solution?

After the "choice" comes the aftermath. A living choice not only gives life to a baby, but results in an aftermath of life. Abortion results in an aftermath forever shrouded in death, death of a baby, perhaps death of your own baby. For those struggling with the aftermath of abortion, you and your loved ones can find forgiveness.

This book is for:

Teenage moms wrestling with choice and an unplanned pregnancy

Loved ones who are seeking resolution after abortion

Anyone who needs hope and healing after abortion

This book is a great tool for teen pregnancy educators, pregnancy center advisors, and those seeking to learn more about the emotional struggles, post abortion. It is written out of love and understanding by a woman who thought her choice was the best answer. Whether or not you are a Christian, you will be inspired by the author's incredible faith, without which it would have been impossible to write this book.

Through my story, I pray that you will know that a living choice is the only real choice.

Join me in my story of running from my mistakes, hiding my choice, and slogging through the aftermath. Come with me as I discover a new truth about an old choice. Join me as I struggle with guilt and heartfelt shame, knowing the new truth. Observe the aftermath.

What choice would you have made? What choice would you recommend?

About the author

Sheila and her husband Wayne have been blessed with two beautiful daughters. She is currently on the Board of Directors of Elizabeth Ministry International and Wisconsin Right to Life. In 2010, Sheila received a certificate in equipping from The Masters Institute.

Sheila began her career following college working as an engineer for IBM. After three years, she resigned to attend law school at Marquette University Law School, graduating in 1985. In 2003, after nearly twenty years of being employed full-time as an attorney, Sheila retired and accepted God's call to begin writing Christian books and speaking for a variety of Christian organizations and schools. Sheila's current books include three Bible studies:

The Challenge of Change: Careers, Callings and Work-Life Crossroads

My Secret Loss: Finding Life after Abortion

Grapple with Guilt, Shed the Shame

This is the truly inspirational story of a woman who searched for her parents for forty years. She found a 100 year old artist and free spirit living in Dublin. Could this be her mother? A fascinating and astonishing story to give you goose bumps. If you don't believe in miracles, you will after you read this story.

A very special day is coming up-only Suzie isn't sure which one... When Suzie's mom tells her a special day is coming, Suzie is very excited and begins guessing. Could it be Valentine's Day? Or St. Patrick's Day? Suzie's mom can't resist letting Suzie make guess after guess as Suzie's imagination journeys through many possibilities trying to figure out which special day her mother is so excited about. It's not Christmas, but there will be a big celebration. No, it's not one of "the special days for presidents and kings," but it does celebrate history-their family history. And there will be balloons and cake and maybe even presents, but it's not a birthday. With just a few more clues, Suzie figures it out: it's her Gotcha Day That's the day her family celebrates the date they became a family, the day they recount first holding her and bringing her home and show her all over again how special she is and how much they love her. Gotcha Day is a celebration in itself with warm illustrations, a story full of guesses and laughs, and even a removable Gotcha Day certificate. Families can personalize their child's name and the date they became a family. "Let it hereby be known that your Gotcha Day is a very important date in our family history and how happy we are to have Gotcha " Adoptive parent and author Rebecca Tabasso's debut is a loving-and fun-way to talk to children about adoption. As comforting as a warm embrace, her sweet story renders a heartfelt portrait of the special place an adoptive child's Gotcha Day holds in their family's history. Full of laughter and love, Gotcha Day: A Carried in My Heart Adoption Story for Children is the perfect avenue for families to share with their child their own adoption story, traditions, and joy their child brings to the family.

Adoptive Parent Intentional Parent: A Formula for Building and Maintaining Your Child's Safety Net is an invaluable tool that adoptive parents will use over and over again. Whether you are in the "waiting stage" or you are two, four, six, or even ten plus years into your adoption...this book will to enable you to reframe your situation with a clear vision, new knowledge, tools that work, and the support of others who have walked the path before you. Every child who has been adopted has suffered a breech in attachment; no adopted child is exempt. In addition to attachment issues, some children also suffer with difficult behavior issues amongst diagnoses such as RAD, FAS, and those that suffer with grief, anxiety, sensory issues and the effects of trauma. The author's breakthrough concept of intentionally creating a safety net to help your child heal fills the books entirety. The four-part formula for Building and Maintaining that safety net is laid out in a detailed and user-friendly fashion. It combines the value of knowing yourself, the power of knowledge, specific tools and techniques that work in everyday life and the keys to maintaining the net over time to create a plan you can put in to motion today.

ADOPTION FOR SINGLES Second Edition is the first of a series of Singleandsatisfied.com books. It was written to walk single men and women through the process of adoption, whether domestic - private adoption of newborns, or children in foster care - or international. Single adults are now permitted to adopt in all 50 states, and with 129,000 waiting children in the foster care system, and an estimated 5 million orphans in Ethiopia alone, single parents couldn't be more needed. Read about: * Are you emotionally ready? What does it take to be a parent? * How much does it cost? (Hint: it can be as low as $0 ) * What age child is best for you? What is available? Can you get a baby? (Read about two men who got a 14 month old son and newborn twins.) How about older children? Teenagers? * Where do you start? How long does the process take? Will anyone help you? How about after the adoption? * What do you need to do to prepare your life and home for a child? * Q&As with single adoptive parents, an adoption social worker; the founder of an adoption clinic, and the Executive Director of The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. * A 100+ page Appendix of all of the countries tracked by the U.S. Department of State and their policies on adopting to American singles. * Web links to dozens of resources, including an agency directory prescreened for a willingness to work with singles, and forms to help with the process.

Love, laughter and lunacy in 140 characters. A work-at-home dad turns to Twitter to share updates about kids, causes and life. It's a curated selection of bizarre quotes, funny stories and temper tantrums. Woven between potty-training woes and breakfast time songs is a family growing through adoption and learning how to change the world, one status update at a time. You'll find humor, parental commiseration and life-changing wonder mixed into a quick and compelling read. A portion of the proceeds from this book benefit charity: water.

Forty-five parents who have lost children to adoption in seven different countries share their thoughts on adoptions that occurred between 1958 and 1989. Together they provide compelling and thought-provoking reading and will contribute in a very positive way to validating the feelings of those who have experienced adoption separation and educating the community around those experiences and the resulting outcomes.

In the 1960s, when she was an unmarried college sophomore, Lynn Franklin gave up her newborn son for adoption. Using her own story as a point of departure, Franklin examines the changing face of adoption and explores the uncertainties and emotions that surround it with rare honesty and perception. In May the Circle Be Unbroken, Franklin covers virtually every possible form of adoption but, perhaps most importantly, she speaks to adoptees wondering if they should search for their mothers and to women who have given up a child and are wondering if they are emotionally able to reconnect. While her own powerful story anchors the book, it is her voice as a birthmother that will this distinguish this book from others on the subject. Since finding her son, Franklin has come to know his wife and children and they, too, have become an important part of her life. In so doing she has closed one of life's most precious circles. May the Circle Be Unbroken will prove invaluable for readers concerned with the practical, emotional, and legal aspects of adoption, whether they are thinking of adoption for their child or hoping to be chosen as suitable parents for someone else's child. May the Circle Be Unbroken is both a moving memoir of a woman who reunited with a child she gave up for adoption and a no-nonsense book that gives readers an intelligent and well-informed approach to adoption. Today Franklin serves on the board of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute (www.adoptioninstitute.org). She lives in New York City, where she works as a literary agent.

Adoptee Martha Shideler was thwarted at every step as she pursued access to critical information in her search for identity. This fast-paced biography is the story of duplicity on the part of government agencies and adoption personnel. It is a triumphant account of perseverance; and the joy and resolution gained from completing her 27-year search for family and identity.

A must have resource guide for any family adopting a child from Liberia. It's one thing to make it through the process of adopting internationally; it's an entirely different thing to be properly prepared for a child's homecoming. In this book, written by Liberia Adoption Coordinator Angel Rutledge, adoptive families learn about the history of Liberia, cultural influences that affect Liberian adoptions, common post adoption challenges, medical issues, and how to ensure the best transition possible for their family and child.

a paper trail from her birthplace in Bolton, England, her voyage to America and a collection of newspaper headlines from June 1933 until February 21, 1934, about Nancy Yates Wilson, known as "the baby slapper" aka Annie Yates.

Out of respect for the only parents Gary had known, he waited until both of them had passed away to call the orphanage in pursuit of medical history on his biological parents. He was shocked to discover that a brother was searching for him. A life-altering phone call revealed that not only did he have a brother, but that he had ten siblings Why was he, the only ONE OF ELEVEN children, put up for adoption? World War II had many casualties. The woman who gave birth to him was one of them. At age 58, he would discover that the highway he and his 16-year-old buddies were gazing down the night before his family moved from North Dakota to Oregon, wondering where the road ended, would be at his birth mother's grave.

Cry of the Outcast is the incredible true story about a tiny premature African baby boy who was abandonned and left to die but because of love, survives and thrives with his forever family. With insurmountable difficulty, his new family struggles with the realities of life in Africa as they try to secure his future as a son and brother. The reader will gain deep insight into the challenges of Africa and a practical vision of how each one of us can make a difference.

When Baby Brown Bear arrives, all alone and very frightened, at City Zoo, Mama Polar Bear scoops him into her arms and promises to be his mother. Despite the grumblings of the other zoo animals, Baby Brown Bear learns family is family, no matter the differences, and all bears need love.

What happens when all that is familiar disappears...when everything you see, taste, smell, feel, hear....is suddenly gone and lost to the other side of the world? Enter the world of An-Ya and Her Diary... 'An-Ya and Her Diary' chronicles the journey of an 11 year old adoptee from China. Written in diary format, young An-Ya reveals her emotional journey as she is catapulted from a Chinese orphanage into a middle class home in America. The diary, into which she journals, was the only item left with An-Ya when she was found as an infant. For 11 years An-Ya has left the diary blank as she patiently waited in China for her biological family to return. Ultimately, after her adoption to America, she feels compelled to write her story down. Inside her diary she strives to connect the two severed worlds in which she has lived. An-Ya's story is one of incredible loss, filled with painful transitions and longed for hope. It is a story that will linger with you after its final page is turned.

At least once in life, you will ask your parents about how you came into this world, what happened the day you were born, how the day looked like, how your parents went to the hospital, how you looked like at that moment... There are so many things you may wonder about the time you came into the world. I wanted to ask these precious questions, but no one knew. The only thing I knew was that I was abandoned at a police station in Seoul, Korea and put into adoption. For my eighteenth birthday my mother presented me with a diary she kept since the life-long decision was made to adopt a child. This helped answer many questions in my life but there was still something missing in my life. That was until 26 years later, I finally had a chance to find my story, my history, what happened the day I came into this world... and what I missed in my life.

As an infant, Henrietta Hexagon was left alone in a shape sorter with no one to care for her. She was found and adopted by a family of triangles. She loves her family more than anything but she can't seem to get past the feeling that she doesn't quite fit in. One warm spring morning, Henrietta goes outside searching for hexagons. She does manage to find one but in doing so, she finds herself in a very sticky situation. She heads back home feeling down and defeated but when she arrives, everything changes This sweet story about adoption and family relationships also subtly teaches a valuable math lesson. Children will adore Henrietta and will also learn the important lesson that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, it's what's on the inside that counts.

The problem with discovering your roots: the more digging you do, the dirtier you can get. Adopted into middle-class urban respectability, but with origins deep in the heart of a dramatic rural landscape, BRONCLE is a personal journey of discovery intrinsically linked to the bloody past of Ireland; a true story of smuggling, heartbreak, betrayal, adultery, and lifetime of deception and secrecy.

Scott Starkey and his wife Jennifer were determined after marrying that their household should never grow beyond the two of them - and however many dogs and cats occupied the premises at the time - when, in 2004, a chance encounter with a television program called "China's Lost Girls" set in motion a series of events that eventually led them to China and a thirteen month old little girl - their precious daughter Hope - in August, 2010. "You've Come a Long Way, Baby: A China Adoption Story" is a poignant, heartfelt, and frequently humorous chronicle of one couple's emotional adoption journey, including the decision to adopt, persistence through years of waiting, an anxiety filled two-week "adventure" in China where they met their little girl for the first time, and the challenges faced along the way. More importantly, it's a unique look at family, and what it really means to make one.

In May 2007, Jackie found Katie, a daughter she had surrendered for adoption in 1957. Over the course of 13 days, Katie and Jackie communicated solely via email before meeting in person. Their messages tell the story of the intervening 50 years and how each prepared for their first face-to-face meeting.

This is the story of the Holbrooks, who lived in 16 Manor Way in South London.

On the outside they were a very affluent and normal Medical family, but their life together was to be far from normal. The two children were adopted separately, their Mum was an alcoholic, and one dark winter's night she climbed the stairs to commit suicide. Nick Holbrook tells the whole story of what it was like to grow up with this family. With great personal detail, his book documents what happened over their 20 years of life together and how those events have affected him so greatly to this day. Read their story if you have an interest in Adoption, Alcoholism, Suicide and Family Relationships. It's both a powerful and tragic family story where things might have been so different.

During a raging thunderstorm, a little lost dog finds her way to Willowbrook Farm and is taken in by the Campbells. Though given food and a safe place to sleep there on the farm, the little dog needs something more, a playmate she can love. But no one on the busy farm has time for her. No one, that is, until Lin and her father come to pick peaches. As the bond between Lin, a young girl adopted from a distant land, and the little lost dog becomes obvious to everyone, the hopes and dreams of both come true. Lin finds the furry friend she's longed for and the little dog, Foxy, finds a lifetime of love and a forever home with the best little girl ever.

The story of one ordinary family navigating through a life with fostered and adopted children, struggling to cope with loss, mental illness, and a sexual predator in their midst. The author hopes to raise awareness about the need to support victims of abuse and educate children in order to keep them safe. A story of faith challenged and God's grace.