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.

For twenty-four years, Ray Martinez served as a police officer in Fort Collins, Colorado, working everything from minor crimes to hard-to-solve homicides. But all that time, a personal mystery nagged at him. Ray was adopted, and he desperately wanted to find his biological mother. Ray delved into his search in April 2005, soon after retiring. He was hopeful but not overconfident since his past searches had always ended in failure. This time, he put the investigative skills he acquired as a police officer to full use. By searching through public records, visiting Web sites to study ancestry, and traveling through small towns in Colorado, Ray gathered clues with dogged persistence. In the process, he met new people, developed lasting relationships, and gained a fresh perspective on life. But by far, the most significant outcome was finding his mother, four sisters, and brother-the family he had been without for fifty-four years. "Baby Boy-R" is a heartwarming story of a son who refuses to give up trying to discover where he came from and the courageous mother who welcomes back the boy she thought died at birth.

"The book chronicles not only the adoption of their three children abroad, but follows each of their children (including their biological son) into young adulthood. It vividly depicts their difficulties in raising teenagers in a cross-cultural, transracial home, and also exposes the frightening conditions facing today's kids in our public schools, including gang issues, drop outs, and culture clashes. It provides valuable insights to parents and non-parents as well. This book was a real eye-opener and awakened me to the harsh realities our teens must face in what I would have thought were quality schools. Although told from a parent's point of view, they very effectively explored the emotions, indeed the angst, of their teenage children."
--Jo-Anne Weaver, adoptive parent of a Chinese daughter placed by Los Ninos International, and Senior Acquisitions Editor of Education and Developmental Psychology for Harcourt Brace.

This revealing and sobering volume brings the big picture of the HIV/AIDS epidemic into focus. Virtually every aspect of the AIDS crisis is covered in this 2nd edition of AIDS Crisis in America, from the basic science of AIDS to demographics and public policy issues. Using facts and findings on the crisis in the United States, the authors give an informative and insightful look at the impact of the epidemic on a variety of populations, including homosexuals, drug users, women, children, hemophiliacs, and various ethnic groups. Other featured topics are AIDS activism, the impact of triple combination therapy, the evolution of public opinion, and HIV/AIDS and the law. The volume concludes with a list of organizations, government agencies, hotlines, and internet resources, as well as other print and nonprint resources. Students and researchers will find everything they need to know about the AIDS crisis in this timely work. List of organizations, government agencies, hotlines, and internet resources Includes other print and nonprint resources

This practical book explains the process of adopting a child from Russia, from first contact with a Russian agency through bonding with the adopted child back at home. Karwowski provides a resource that parents can carry along as they navigate the paperwork, the home assessment, court hearings, medical exams, and financial components of what can otherwise seem like an overwhelming process. Herself the adoptive parent of two sons from Russia, the author also details common issues families face as they acclimate their new child to their home, family, and American culture. Aiming to break the process into manageable steps, Karwowski incorporates her own experience as a backdrop. Degreed in both psychology and sociology, she discusses sensitive issues regarding the child, which can include issues of abandonment, trust, and attachment. She presents methods adoptive parents can use to see the signs and cope with these issues and more. She also addresses misconceptions commonly held about adoptions from Russia, the country to which she traveled four times across two years, to adopt her sons. In addition to adoptive parents seeking children from any foreign country, this work will also appeal to students of counseling, family studies, social work, and family or child psychology.

We were all full of expectation as we waited patiently at Melbourne's international airport. I hadn't slept properly for weeks. All of us had been waiting for this moment for months. Our fourth child was soon to arrive ...This is the story of 18-year-old Kartya Wunderle, one of 64 babies flown out of Taiwan in the early 80s. Babies stolen from their mothers or sold by their families and adopted out to unsuspecting overseas parents. At 15, Kartya began to use heroin in an attempt to take away the pain of not knowing who she was and where she came from. Her distraught parents watched their beautiful daughter slowly slip away from them, spiralling towards a tragic and almost inevitable conclusion. Out of desperation and fired by an unconditional love for her daughter, Nola Wunderle resolved to find Kartya's birth mother and change the ending to Kartya's story. An amazing search for one woman in a country of 22 million began. The result was nothing short of miraculous, and made Kartya a national hero in her homeland. Lost Daughter is a moving testament to the power of love and the strength of the human spirit, one that will humble and inspire all who read it.

In a true story of family ties, journalist Mei-Ling Hopgood, one of the first wave of Asian adoptees to arrive in America, comes face to face with her past when her Chinese birth family suddenly requests a reunion after more than two decades.
In 1974, a baby girl from Taiwan arrived in America, the newly adopted child of a loving couple in Michigan. Mei-Ling Hopgood had an all-American upbringing, never really identifying with her Asian roots or harboring a desire to uncover her ancestry. She believed that she was lucky to have escaped a life that was surely one of poverty and misery, to grow up comfortable with her doting parents and brothers.
Then, when she's in her twenties, her birth family comes calling. Not the rural peasants she expected, they are a boisterous, loving, bossy, complicated middle-class family who hound her daily-by phone, fax, and letter, in a language she doesn't understand-until she returns to Taiwan to meet them. As her sisters and parents pull her into their lives, claiming her as one of their own, the devastating secrets that still haunt this family begin to emerge. Spanning cultures and continents, "Lucky Girl" brings home a tale of joy and regret, hilarity, deep sadness, and great discovery as the author untangles the unlikely strands that formed her destiny.

Jessica Keebler, director of the Los Angeles County Bureau of Adoptions in 1955, faces an almost insurmountable crisis. There's a logjam of unadoptable babies and a severe lack of adequate foster homes for these children. The crux of this issues rests with a statute in California's adoption law stating ..". an interracial child is a non-white and may be given only to a Negro family."Since Negro family applications to adopt are as rare as rain in the Mojave desert, the backlog of interracial babies threatens the structure of Keebler's department and her mental health. When Paul and Anne Barlin, a white family, say they will adopt a child "of any color, any national origin," Keebler believes she may have found a way to resolve this backlog of babies.To make this unusual adoption a reality, she must have the courage to flaunt the law or stand up to the state legislature and ask them to repeal the law. Her actions will determine if one at-risk child will be placed in a loving home. This one case has the potential to change the landscape of adoption forever.