What do you do when you encounter a spirited little girl in a Russian orphanage and know in your heart that she is yours and you have to adopt her? For single, childless, 40-year-old Dee Thompson, it began with an astonishing dream of a little girl reaching out to her. Meeting the little girl led to an almost two year odyssey that changed Dee forever. Throughout the adoption, hurdles kept popping up that sent Dee reeling—a job layoff, an uncooperative orphanage director, a boyfriend who broke her heart, friends and family members telling her she was crazy, an uncaring agency that kept telling her to choose a different child—and many others. Despite everything, Dee’s faith in God, support from her mother, and single-minded conviction that she had to bring her daughter home helped her stay on course. Letters from her daughter Alesia brightened the long, scary months of waiting. Finally, all the mountains had been moved, and a mother and daughter came home from Russia, a family at last.

From the Dust Jacket: Although single women have long been permitted to adopt children, adoption by unmarried men remains an uncommon experience in Western culture.

However, Robert Klose, who is single, wanted a son so badly that he faced down the opposition and overcame seemingly insurmountable barriers to realize his goal.

The story of his quest for a son is detailed in this intimate personal account. The frustrating truth he reports is that most adoption agencies seem unsure of how to respond to a single man’s application. During the three years that it took for him to proceed through the adoption maze, Klose met resistance and dead ends at every attempt. Happenstance finally led him to Russia, where he found the child of his dreams in a Moscow orphanage, a Russian boy named Alyosha.

This is the first book to be written by a single man adopting from abroad. The narrative of his quest serves as a firsthand instructional manual for single men wanting to adopt. It details the prospective father’s heightening sense of anticipation as he untangles bureaucratic snarls and addresses cultural differences involved in adopting a foreign child.

When Klose arrives in Russia, he supposes the adoption will be a matter of following cut-and-dried procedures. Instead, his difficulties are only beginning. Although he likes the kind and generous Russians, his encounter with the child welfare system in Moscow turns out to be both chaotic and bizarre. However, his dogged ordeal pays off more bountifully than he ever could have hoped.

In the end he comes face to face with a little boy who changes his life forever.

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About the Author: Robert Klose lives in Maine, where he is an associate professor of biological science at University College of Bangor. He is a regular contributor to The Christian Science Monitor.

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By the Same Author: Small Worlds: Adopted Sons, Pet Piranhas, and Other Mortal Concerns (2006, University of Missouri Press).

Adopting Natasha: My First Year as a Mother describes the realities of adopting an older child from Russia. In vivid personal detail, Carol Lee shares her experiences with international adoption procedures, the Russian legal system, and the considerable at-home preparation involved in adopting. Most importantly, she describes what it is really like to suddenly become mother to a four-year-old, non-English-speaking child. After 40-plus years of being single and childless, the author grapples with the challenges of being a new mom. To her surprise and glee, she also finds herself engaged to a Russian man.

From the Back Cover: Are you thinking of adopting an older child? There are over 100,000 children hoping for families in the United States and more worldwide. Adopting an older child, though, can present a unique set of parenting issues as well as rewards.

Adopting Older Children highlights the most significant challenges when parenting older adoptees who face mental health, behavioral and educational issues. Included is critical information about developmental concerns, issues related to emerging sense of self, sexual orientation, cultural identity and other special needs that an adoptee may have. This will help prospective parents be aware of concerns that can arise for their adopted children and help parents deal with difficulties these children are facing.

Authors Bosco-Ruggiero, Russo Wassell and child welfare expert Groza deliver definitive techniques and strategies for adoptive parents and professionals:

» Navigating domestic and international adoption processes

» Coping with transition and family dynamics

» Educating others about adoption

» Preparing the family unit

» Understanding the background, personality and problems of your adopted child

» Acquiring critical resource information for prospective parents (including single, LBGT and older adoptive parents)

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About the Author: Stephanie Bosco-Ruggiero, M.A., is a Communications and Research Assistant for the National Center for Social Work Trauma Education and Workforce Development at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. She resides in Wappingers Falls, New York.

Gloria Russo Wassell, M.S., L.M.H.C., is a nationally certified counselor and doctorial candidate in Educational and Developmental Psychology at Cornell University with a private practice specializing in child and adolescent development. She resides in Dover Plains, New York.

Victor Groza, Ph.D., L.I.S.W.-S., is a professor of Social Work at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, with an area of expertise in child welfare and institutional care of children, focusing on family, children and service system issues in domestic, older-child adoption and intercountry adoption. He is the author or co-author of numerous books and articles relating to child welfare and global adoption. Since 1991 he has been involved in various child welfare projects in Romania, India, Ukraine, Guatemala and Ethiopia. He resides in Cleveland, Ohio.

From the Publisher: The first guide of its kind, covering all stages of the adoption process. Adopting on Your Own addresses the questions and concerns of prospective single parents. Lee Varon, a practicing therapist specializing in adoption counseling and the single mother of two adopted children, helps readers make an evenhanded assessment of whether adoption is right for them, then leads them through the different stages of arranging and financing the adoption. She weighs the advantages of open versus closed and international versus domestic adoption for the single parent, and demystifies potentially daunting steps such as choosing an agency and preparing for the home study. Adopting on Your Own also offers up-to-date information on the latest developments in interracial adoption policy, the legal rights of gays and lesbians to adopt, and the evolving attitudes of agencies and social workers toward single-parent adoptions. Throughout the book, Varon draws on personal anecdotes and the experiences of her clients to offer honest, insightful advice on every step of the adoption process.

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About the Author: Lee Varon is a social worker with a doctorate in social welfare policy and the co-director of the Adoption Network, a counseling and referral agency that focuses on single parents. She lives with her family in Cambridge, MA.

Although you may think that you have the right to adopt, this is simply just not the case. No one in today’s society has the absolute right to adopt a child. A person can only do so after they have met certain criteria that both the adoption agencies and the government have set in place. It is therefore important that any person thinking of becoming a prospective adoptive parent begin to do as much research as possible on the subject. It will be key to learn everything about the rules, regulations and guidelines that can be imposed upon prospective adoptive parents, by the various adoption agencies. In this book, we will be taking you through the basics of what is required in order for a couple or a single person to become an adoptive parent.

For single males considering adoption to start a family, this short and concise book provides the practical advice that the prospective parent, family and friends need to begin the process. Written by a pediatrician who adopted two young boys from Vietnam, the valuable hints and perspective help to minimize the anxiety associated with the adoption process.

Adoption for Singles 2008-2009 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. This book helps you decide if you’re emotionally ready to be a parent, tells you what it costs to adopt and how others have managed it financially, and how to decide what age child is best for you. It describes the adoption process and how to start, and how to prepare your life and home for a child. It also contains Q&As with adoption professionals, adoptive parents, and a directory of countries and their policies toward American singles. Go to www.adoptionforsinglesbook.com to get free tools to help in your adoption process. About the Author: Victoria Solsberry is a single woman, a psychiatric social worker, and a personal and small business coach. She spends a great deal of her professional time helping high-functioning single adults make their lives exquisite and fulfilling. When presented with a choice of adopting a child or helping hundreds of other singles adopt, she, for the time being, chose to go for numbers! She lives across the river from Washington, D.C., in Arlington, VA, and enjoys the beauty of the nation’s capital, fabulous friends, and a loving family.

Abstract: This descriptive report covers the first phase of a 20-year longitudinal study of black children under three years of age adopted by black couples, white couples, and single persons. The sample of three groups of approximately equal size was selected from the adoptive placements of two private child welfare agencies between June 1970 and June 1972. The longitudinal study will be an assessment of the family’s capacity to form close relationships and handle stress. The material presented in the first phase report was gathered from case records and interviews before, immediately after and two months after placement. Descriptions of the applicants, the children they adopted, and their early adjustment as a family are included. Interesting differences among the experimental groups are revealed in this report. For the most part, the children in the study have had few problems and seem to be developing well. Children and families with problems are described. Statistics on interview-item reliability are given. From the Foreword: The publication of “Adoption: Three Alternatives” represents the first four years of an adoption research project which we hope will be extended through sixteen and possibly twenty years of the lives of the adopted children and their families who have consented to participate in this effort. Questions related to raising a child in a single parent family and in a family where the racial background of the parents differs from that of the child prompted the interest in undertaking this study. It is designed to encompass a long enough time span to measure changes that may occur as the child develops from the earlier years to young adulthood. Read It Online.

From the Dust Jacket: In the past five years, some 200,000 single women in their thirties have chosen to become mothers. Do the numbers indicate isolated incidences of countercultural behavior or an emerging social trend?

Intrigued, the authors, both university professors in their thirties, embarked on a full-scale nationwide survey. The response was overwhelming, and the yield at once rich, surprising and moving. One hundred women here reveal their reasons and their feelings and give personal substance to the major issues—the decision to have a child while single; becoming a mother; adoption; artificial insemination; pregnancy; coping; the child’s welfare; the father’s rights; finances; physical support; psychological aspects; the responses of family, friends, and others; the effects of single parenting on the mother, child and, where applicable, the father. An appendix provides a comprehensive explanation in lay terms of the legal issues surrounding motherhood without marriage.

And Baby Makes Two, a clear presentation of an unremittingly controversial subject, neither endorses nor condemns but provides a balanced view of single-by-choice mothering.

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About the Author: Sharyne Merritt is Professor of Marketing at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a consultant in the areas of marketing and survey research. She has a Ph.D. in Political Science and was a Visiting Scholar at UCLA’s Graduate School of Management. She has lectured and published widely in the fields of marketing and social issues.

Linda Steiner is a Professor at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

From the Back Cover: The first time I visited my new home...I knew that this was the home for me...When she showed me the room that was to be mine, I kept saying, “It’s just as if I was a real boy!” It was as if I was a real boy who had a home and a family of his own. This was all new to me...

That moment, as Gordon says, “opened the key to Jeannie’s heart”—she was sure she had made the right decision when she planned to adopt him. But their new family would not be without its problems. Gordon was ten years old, and had been living in a psychiatric hospital for three years, with undiagnosed mental health issues. Jeannie was adopting as a single parent, with all the challenges this can bring. But together, they built a loving family. In this moving account, mother and son look back at the way in which adoption changed two lives for the better.

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About the Author: Gordon Mackenzie was born in Scotland and adopted in 1983 at the age of ten. He now lives in a small town in the Canadian prairies, where he works as a beekeeper in a commercial apiary. He has two children, three cats and plays a number of stringed instruments, including the mandolin. He plays guitar in the worship group in his local church and upholds his Scottish heritage by giving the Address to the Haggis at the annual Burns Supper.

Jeannie Mackenzie was born in Scotland and has no intention of leaving it. She has been a teacher and worked at a senior level in one of Scotland’s leading education authorities. She has also researched and published in the field of education and is the author of Family Learning: Engaging with parents. She now teaches mindfulness approaches to help with stress and chronic pain. Much more importantly, she is Gordon’s mum. Originally a single parent, she is now married with a blended family of three children and five grandchildren.

From the Dust Jacket: In this absolutely superb collection of mothers’ personal narratives, some classic writers, as well as exciting new voices, ponder the conflicts and joys of raising sons. Patricia Stevens’s Between Mothers and Sons is the first anthology in which women writers attempt to answer the question that all mothers have contemplated in the course of mothering the opposite sex: “Who is this male child who came out of my body?”

After all, the mother/son relationship is the foundation of all male/female connections. Yet in our culture, it’s a relationship that has been far less closely observed than the relationship between mother and daughter.

From the earliest days of nursing to the good-byes as college and adulthood appear on the threshold, from adoptive families to biracial, from Native American to African-American mothers, these pages cover a broad range of experience. These writers collectively explore the delights and frustrations, the deep and often-conflicted emotions they feel in their roles as mothers to their male children.

“Diamonds are forever, but love can easily get lost. ... I picture the broken pieces of my heart inside me like the shrapnel of a war.” In Jo-Ann Mapson’s heartbreaking “Navigating the Channel Islands,” we read of the intense pain that appears in the wake of her adolescent son’s rebellion. On a more comical note, Deborah Galyan’s “Watching Star Trek with Dylan” is a must for any mother who has wondered about a young son’s love of things mechanical. And Valerie Monroe’s bittersweet “Feet” will touch every mother on the planet: “As I unwrapped the slippers and carefully placed them on this rug, I thought, they’re his feet, after all. And step by step, they will take him away from me.”

Between Mothers and Sons resoundingly, if unflinchingly, celebrates this new journey that we are all making with our boys.

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About the Author: Patricia Stevens is a graduate of Bowling Green State University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her essays appear in both Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul and The Healing Circle: Authors Writing of Recovery. She has received the James Michener Fellowship, the Nelson Algren Short Story Award and has been in residence both at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts and at the Ragdale Foundation. Ms. Stevens is the mother of two sons.

Patricia J. Williams is a columnist (“Diary of a Mad Law Professor,” The Nation), and a Professor of Law at Columbia University. She is the author of three books, Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race, The Rooster’s Egg, and The Alchemy of Race and Rights. She also contributes regularly to Ms. and The Village Voice.

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Compiler’s Note: See, particularly, “On Throwing Like a Girl” by Patricia J. Williams (pp. 211-217), who writes about her experience as a black single mother raising an adopted black boy in New York City.

From the Dust Jacket: The U.S. surgeon general and the American Medical Association recently stated that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption for a woman during pregnancy—a fact unknown in 1971 when Michael Dorris became one of the first unmarried men in the United States to legally adopt a very young child, as affectionate Sioux Indian he named Adam. At the time, little was revealed about Adam’s past, except that his biological mother had died of alcohol poisoning.

The past two decades have been a time of alarming discovery about FAS, both for the growing Dorris family (through the single-parent adoption of two more infants, and a 1981 marriage to write Louise Erdrich, which has produced three more children) and for the international medical community.

Findings about the genetic and cultural causes of FAS—and the enormous scope of the problem (thousands of physically and behaviorally impaired children born each year)—parallel one father’s unceasing battle to solve his eldest son’s developing health and learning problems. The Broken Cord is the inspiring story of a family confronted with a problem with no solution and the first book for the general reader that describes the tragedy and lifelong blight of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

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About the Author: Michael Dorris is a professor at Dartmouth College, and a member of the Modoc tribe. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife/collaborator, Louise Erdrich, a novelist and poet, and their children. He is the author of A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.

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By the Same Author: Paper Trail (1994, HarperCollins).

From the Publisher: What happens after a single Baha’i woman adopts three children from the Republic of Buryatia in Siberia? Follow the challenges of the author and her family in this sequel to Siberian Pearls: A Buryat Journey. Starting life in a Siberian orphanage presents difficulties for all the children and for their first-time mom, who hopes that her experience as a psychologist will help her cope with each child’s special needs. With humor, candor, and a drive to find information to help her family, the author describes the demands of rural family life in both America and Siberia, single parenting, remarriage, multiculturalism, special education, and mental health problems in children, including ADHD, Tourette’s syndrome, learning disabilities, and reactive attachment disorder. How does prejudice affect adoptive families? What can Buryat culture teach us? Can all problems be cured with love? Some of the answers might surprise you.

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By the Same Author: Siberian Pearls: A Buryat Journey (2005).

From the Back Cover of the 1994 Edition: Challenging Conceptions is a powerful and inspiring book about the experience of lesbian couples and single women creating their own families independently of a social father.

In an authoritative and accessible manner, Saffron sets out the medical, social, political and legal realities of independent motherhood, including a step by step —guide to self-insemination. She provides the reader with essential advice and information on seeking and screening donors, getting pregnant, and on what to do when self-insemination isn’t working.

Through a series of interviews, the author charts the personal experiences of a wide range of mothers, co-parents, children and donors and we learn from their unique perspectives the happiness and fulfilment which their ‘alternative’ families have brought to their lives.

Challenging Conceptions is an invaluable resource for lesbian couples and single women wanting to become mothers. It is a positive affirmation of every woman’s right to choose a family and future of her own.

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About the Author: Lisa Saffron was involved with the creation in the 1980s of the Women’s Health Information Centre where she worked for many years. She has written extensively on donor insemination and women’s health, and is the author of Getting Pregnant Our Own Way. She lives in London with her partner and daughter.

From the Dust Jacket: In an era in which our conception of what constitutes a “normal” family has undergone remarkable changes, questions have arisen regarding the role of the state in “normalizing” families through public policy. In what ways should the law seek to facilitate, or oppose, parenting and child-rearing practices that depart from the “nuclear family” with two heterosexual parents? What should the state’s stance be on single parent families, unwed motherhood, or the adoption of children by gay and lesbian parents? How should authority over child rearing and education be divided between parents and the state? And how should the state deal with the inequalities that arise from birthright citizenship?

Through critical essays divided into four parts—Adoption, Race, and Public Policy; Education and Parental Authority; Same Sex Families; and Birthright Citizenship—Child, Family, and State considers the philosophical, political, and legal dilemmas that surround these difficult and divisive questions. An invaluable resource in these contentious debates, Child, Family, and State illuminates the moral questions that lie before policymakers and citizens when contemplating the future of children and families.

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About the Author: Stephen Macedo is Laurence S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, and Director of the University Center for Human Values, at Princeton University.

Iris Marion Young is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

Professor David Demers had a good job and a good life. So why would the divorced man who had never changed a diaper adopt a Chinese baby girl on his own? China Girl answers this question and then tells the adoption story, including the trip to China and life afterward. China Girl is funny, heartwarming and suspenseful. Will this balding middle-aged man learn to care for and bond with Lee Ann, who is struggling to overcome some physical and health problems? Can he love her as much as a mother loves her child?

This 100-page guidebook includes many personal stories from single women who are parents through open, transracial or foster care adoption. It includes experts writing about parenting over 40, how to navigate the emotions of the adoption process, what to be aware of medically before accepting a placement. There are synopses of the international programs that accept single applicants, insight to better understand racial biases, and stories from adult adoptees.

The comprehensive guide for single women interested in proactively becoming and being a mother—includes the essential tools needed to decide whether to take this step, information on how best to follow through, and insight about answering the child’s questions and needs over time. Choosing Single Motherhood, written by a longtime journalist and Choice Mother (a woman who chooses to conceive or adopt without a life partner), will become the indispensable tool for women looking for both support and insight. Based on extensive up-to-date research, advice from child experts and family therapists, as well as interviews with more than one hundred single women, this book explores:
• common questions and concerns of women facing this decision, including: Can I afford to do this? Should I wait longer to see if life turns a new corner? How do Choice Mothers handle the stress of solo parenting?
• what the research says about growing up in a single-parent household
• how to answer a child’s “daddy” questions
• the facts about adoption, anonymous donor insemination, and finding a known donor
• how the children of pioneering Choice Mothers feel about their lives.
Written in a lively style that never sugarcoats or sweeps problems under the rug, Choosing Single Motherhood covers the topic clearly, concisely, and with a great deal of heart.

From the Dust Jacket: Sperm donors on the Internet. An epidemic of multiple births. Women paying college tuition by selling their eggs. In this brave new world of reproductive and genetic technologies—with few rules to govern them—how do we find our way?

Lori Andrews passed her bar exam the day the first test-tube baby was born. Since then she has become the world’s most visible expert on the legal and ethical implications of reproductive technology. She is sought after to assess the entanglements of surrogate motherhood, the ethics of creating babies from dead men’s sperm, and the propriety of human cloning.

In this provocative memoir, Andrews tells how she has explored the ethical and legal ramifications of a vast array of developments in this exploding and unregulated field. Along the way, she addresses profound and disturbing questions: Is a human embryo property, a person, or something else entirely? Should parents be able to buy genes for superior intelligence or athletic ability for their children? Should doctors and scientists be allowed to profit from patenting their patients’ genes?

Infertility is now a $2 billion-a-year industry. Couples spend up to $200,000 to achieve a single pregnancy, and their doctors are now the highest paid in the medical profession. As Andrews explains, cutthroat competition has forced doctors to resort to extreme measures to ensure positive results for their patients, including using unnecessary fertility drugs and dangerous experimentation. There are hundreds of clinics in the United States and around the world with the capacity to clone human beings, and few legal restraints to stop them. Not only can people clone themselves with legal impunity, but if a stranger wanted to make a clone of you—say, from hair follicles collected at the barbershop—you couldn’t stop him. Under current law, people have little control over their body tissue and genes once these materials leave their body.

Over the last twenty years, Andrews has faced all these issues. In The Clone Age, she unmasks the bizarre motives and methods of a new breed of doctors and scientists and addresses the wrenching issues we face as venture capital floods medical research, technology races ahead of legal and ethical ground rules, and ordinary people struggle to maintain both human dignity and their own emotional balance.

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About the Author: Lori Andrews is a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law and the director of the Institute for Science, Law, and Technology. She is the author of six books and more than eighty articles on genetics, alternative modes of reproduction, and biotechnology. She has been an adviser on genetic and reproductive technology to the president and Congress, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, and numerous foreign governments. She lives in Chicago.

From the Back Cover: Whether you are thinking about adopting a child or using reproductive treatments to become pregnant, The Complete Adoption and Fertility Legal Guide explains your options, gives you the steps to take to protect your decision and hands you the power to make it happen.

Every year ASSISTED REPRODUCTION becomes more common as new reproductive technologies are added to the list of possible choices. Proven procedures and emerging technologies are discussed with answers to questions like:

• What should you do to prevent a sperm or egg donor from later claiming custody of your child?

• Why does a surrogate’s husband need to be a party to the contract?

• How can a surrogacy contract help you spot potential problems?

• What steps should you take for the disposition of frozen genetic material?

The procedures for all types of ADOPTIONS are covered, as well as the agreements, required notices and documentation needed to support your decision. Learn more about:

• Protecting against a birth father from claiming paternity

• When birth parents can revoke their consent to the adoption

• Your rights as a gay or lesbian couple to adopt

• Why you have to readopt a child adopted internationally

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About the Author: Brette McWhorter Sember received her J.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo and practiced in New York state before leaving her practice to become a writer. She is the author of fifteen books, including The Visitation Handbook: Your Complete Guide to Parenting Apart. She is a member of ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors) and AHCJ (Association of Health Care Journalists). She is the recipient of the 2000 Media Award from Family and Home Network (formerly Mothers At Home).

Sember has extensive training in cases involving children and was on the Law Guardian panel in three counties. Her practice included adoptions, which she found to be the happiest cases to take place in Family Court. She is also a trained family mediator and is experienced in a wide variety of family issues. Children have always been her main focus throughout her career.

Sember writes and speaks often about children and family. Her work has appeared in magazines such as ePregnancy, Pregnancy, Child, and American Baby. She is the mother of two children and has personal experience with fertility issues.

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By the Same Author: The Infertility Answer Book: The Complete Guide to Your Family-Building Choices with Fertility and other Assisted Reproduction Technologies (2005); Gay and Lesbian Parenting Choices: From Adopting or Using a Surrogate to Choosing the Perfect Father (2006, Career Press); The Adoption Answer Book (2007); Unmarried with Children: The Complete Guide for Unmarried Families (2008, Adams Media); and The Everything Parent’s Guide to Raising Your Adopted Child: A Complete Handbook to Welcoming Your Adopted Child Into Your Heart and Home (with Corrie Lynn Player & Mary C Owen; 2008, Adams Media).

From the Back Cover: At Last, a Comprehensive and Practical Guide for the Single Parent! Filled with expert information and pragmatic advice, The Complete Single Mother explains what nearly eleven million single mothers need to know to overcome the challenges of daily life with dignity, wisdom, and courage. This book will answer all the questions you may have about single motherhood but were either too busy or too afraid to ask—questions concerning custody issues, managing your finances, dealing with an irresponsible ex, handling work pressures, collecting child support, and more.

Raising Good Kids in a Changing World. Today’s world is rapidly changing and so is the American family. Parents must often face issues that their own parents never dreamed of, armed only with obsolete advice. Focusing on how to raise good kids in changing times, this book offers solutions for today’s families—showing how you can help your children through your divorce, build their self-esteem, find male role models, and respond to tough questions like, “Where’s Daddy?”

Taking Care of Your Child’s Most Important Asset—You! Raising a family solo can be challenging and sometimes overwhelming. But with some creative thinking, a bit of planning, and The Complete Single Mother as a companion, you can not only raise happy, healthy, and productive children, you can also retain your sanity—and your sense of humor!

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About the Author: Andrea Engber is founder and director of the National Organization of Single Mothers, and editor-in-chief of SingleMOTHER, the voice of the organization that has been hailed by the media as the best source of available information for single mothers. She has written for and advised major magazines on single-parenting issues, including Redbook, New Woman, Working Mother, Woman’s Own, Parenting, American Baby, American Woman, and Parent’s Magazine, and is often cited as one of the country’s leading sources of single-mothering statistics and information.

A contributing editor for Working Mother magazine, Engber writes a single-parenting column for their two million-plus readership. In addition, she pens a nationally syndicated weekly column, “Single ... With Children,” distributed by Universal Press Syndicate. In 1995 she was honored with the No-nonsense American Woman Award for her combined efforts toward helping single mothers and their families. Engber lives in North Carolina with her ten-year-old son, Spencer, her friend Mike, along with four cats, five dogs, occasional horses, and several socially unacceptable animals.

Leah Klungness earned her Ph.D. while single-parenting her two children. Formerly an elementary school teacher, she is presently a school psychologist. In her private practice, where she counsels many single women and their families, she comes face to face with the real issues surrounding single parents. Klungness also serves as an advisor to the National Organization of Single Mothers and writes a psychology column for SingleMOTHER. She resides in Locust Valley, New York with her children, Andrew and Sarah.

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Compiler’s Note: Interestingly, the first and second editions include a reference to Geborener Deutscher, a quarterly newsletter published by the Complier between 1988 and 2000, under adoption-related “Recommended Reading.”

Surrogacy is an amazing gift that one person can give a couple that are not able to have children of their own. The surrogacy process is time consuming and often fraught with pitfalls along the way. But for many couples and the women prepared to be surrogates, the resulting child makes all of the issues associated with surrogacy seem irrelevant. After all we are talking about producing a new life here. A very wanted life, and it is for this reason that surrogacy is slowly gaining acceptance around the United States and other parts of the world. The purpose of this book is to provide a factual yet balanced report on both sides of the surrogacy process. On the one hand you will find out who can become a surrogate mother and the processes needed to make that happen. But there is also a lot of information here for those people who are looking at engaging a surrogate mother to carry their longed for child. The book explains the legality of the process (it is different according to what state you live in); who can be a surrogate; what costs and payments are involved and how to deal with some of the issues associated with surrogacy such as the emotional bond between mother and child, what to do when things go wrong and how to make the whole surrogacy process as positive as it can be. What many people fail to realize is that the surrogacy process involves a lot more people than the couple wanting the child, and the surrogate mother. Many surrogate mothers have husbands and children of their own that need to be considered when undertaking something this important. Likewise the couples who are hoping for a child often have to overcome extended family resistance to their desire to use a surrogate, although there are increasing cases of the surrogacy taking place within an extended family framework. At the heart of all this of course is the child. One would hope a blessed, unique individual that while coming into the world in slightly unusual circumstances is still loved and appreciated by a number of different people. Surrogacy flies in the face of hundreds of years of evolution that has seen a woman have a natural bond with the child she carries from before the moment of birth. To go through the pregnancy and then give the child to another person to bring up requires an incredible amount of strength and love on the part of the surrogate. This book celebrates this strength and love and all of the wonderful people who are part of the surrogacy process.

From the Dust Jacket: Dark Rice is Maria Eitz’s story of the making of her family, one written with such loving intimacy that those who read it will feel they, too, have lived it. Herself a victim of war, Ms. Eitz has made a home in California for other victims of war. Jonathan and Nicholas, offspring of racially mixed parents, were growing up in one of the many Vietnamese orphanages. In becoming their mother, Maria Eitz overcame the bureaucracy, red tape and prejudices of 1) adopting as a single parent; 2) adopting across international lines; 3) adopting children of mixed racial background.

The story unfolds from the first time Maria sees her Jonathan in a snapshot. When he finally arrives in this country in 1972, he is suffering from malnutrition and speaks no English. He lives in fear of bombing raids, being moved again and losing his new mother. Gradually he changes to a loved and loving person, a wholly delightful and vigorous boy. DARK RICE is a joyful and poignant celebration of unloved children transplanted into love. It is a buoyant and unforgettable story for everyone—children, teenagers and adults.

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About the Author: On Easter Sunday, March 30, 1975, Maria Eitz organized Orphans Airlift, an umbrella organization to get children out of South Vietnam before the North Vietnamese takeover. It was she who waited for the children-filled planes in San Francisco, including the plane which President and Mrs. Ford met. As executive director of Orphans Airlift, she, along with many volunteers, housed the children until they could reach their new homes.

She has long been familiar with the procedures of bringing orphans into this country: For the last four years she handled weekly arrivals from Rosemary Taylor’s orphanages.

Since completing Dark Rice, she has adopted two more Vietnamese orphans, Moki and Aiyana. Aiyana was one of the infants airlifted to the U.S. on the same plane which President Ford met.

Maria Eitz is a graduate of Marquette University, Milwaukee, and now teaches theology and conducts retreats in the San Francisco area.

Fred L. Weinman brings an impressive background to this book. He has done commercial illustrations for many years—he has a fondness for architecture—and has illustrated four children’s books. His line drawings in Dark Rice match well the loving touch of the author.

From the Dust Jacket: Despite a successful City career, there is a void in Beth’s life, a void that only a child can fill. Newly on her own, she is confronted with the inevitability of a childless future and so embarks on a journey to adopt the child she has always longed for.

Poignant, honest and intimate, Dear Mummy, Welcome is the true story of one woman’s fight against the odds, and a little girl’s journey to find a mother.

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About the Author: Born in Cardiff, Bethany Hallett moved to Wolverhampton when she was nine. At twenty, she joined the diplomatic service and was posted to West Berlin, Kathmandu and Bangkok, before commencing a careeer in the City of London. She left in 2005 so that she could adopt, as a single parent, a four-year-old girl of English and Bangladeshi origin.

If you’re tired of old-fashioned adoption advice like “take out a home equity loan” and “ask around at church,” this guide is for you! Written by adoptive mother Chryssa Rich, it’s full of fresh advice that makes sense in our post-recession economy. Single and coupled hopeful adoptive parents will enjoy reading advice for choosing an agency or attorney to claiming the adoption tax credit and everything in between. Special Myth vs. Fact and Real Life Example sections offer insight you won’t find anywhere else.

From the Dust Jacket: This is the heartwarming story of Kathryn Cole’s efforts to adopt a child as a single parent and career woman. She takes readers on her voyage of heartache and joy: the years of waiting, possibilities, disappointments—and fulfillment beyond her wildest dreams.

Frustrated by the Canadian adoption system, Kathryn is forced to look farther—China, India, Korea, Bangladesh, Barbados. Ironically, she travels to Manila for an adoption hearing after she has already become a mother to one infant.

Kathryn’s adventures are both hilarious and touching. She negotiates adoption agencies, hospitals, courts, religious processions, bribes, a male impotence clinic, police stations, and ballroom dancing. And along the way, she deals with a cast of larger-than-life characters.

Through it all, she never loses her sense of humour, and this, along with her sensitivity, determination, and above all, profound love, creates a unique and truly unforgettable story.

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About the Author: Kathryn Cole worked for nineteen years at Scholastic, before becoming publisher of children’s books at Oxford University Press. She has recently become publisher of children’s books at Stoddart Publishing. Her books have won many awards, and she personally has won awards for book design and art direction. In her free time, she. volunteers for the crisis treatment program at The Metropolitan Special Committee on Child Abuse. She and her two teenage daughters live in Toronto.

Here is your guide to the fastest-growing trend in childbirth—a tradition as old as motherhood itself. Doulas, or professional labor assistants, have led thousands of expectant women through the birthing process in a way that’s safe and meaningful, and that creates the birth and post-birth experience all mothers long for. What exactly do doulas do? How to find one that suits you. What are the “trade secrets” only doulas know but every woman should be aware of (even if you don’t have a doula)? In The Doula Guide to Birth, senior-level doula Ananda Lowe and award-winning health reporter Rachel Zimmerman have written a most comprehensive book that draws on the wisdom of these skilled experts, whose experience with doctors, midwives, nurses, and hospitals makes them invaluable advocates before, during, and after birth.

From the Dust Jacket: This is the journey of a young woman who was profoundly affected by the war in her home country of Vietnam. She was thrown into the tragedy of the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975, escaped alone to the United States and established her life here as a medical doctor. She struggled with the profound cultural shock, learned to grow and deal with the prejudices against her perceived unconventional lifestyle, and protected her integrity.

The second part of the book is about the saga to adopt an infant from Vietnam alone; how she fought all the obstacles and the stigma of single motherhood in her culture to triumphantly bring the child to the US. In doing so, she managed to raise her child alone as a full-time professional and found happiness and peace of mind.

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About the Author: Ngan Ha is a physician who practices in California. She immigrated to the US in 1975 from Vietnam after the war. She lives with her daughter in Orange County, California.

Previous publication: “Contribution to the Study of the Self-destructive Patients,” doctoral thesis, Saigon University, Vietnam, 1974.

Imagine taking a refreshing two-minute time-out that will bring godly encouragement to the maddening pace of any day. That’s just what Donna Huisjen has created with her fast-paced daily readings that combine a brief story, a scriptural reflection, a prayer, and an inspirational thought to take you through the day. As a single adoptive mom who raised three special-needs daughters, her struggles and joys will strike a familiar chord with any mother. Her thoughts on topics such as character development, compassion, appreciating each child’s uniqueness, and savoring simple pleasures are sure to brighten every single day with positive perspective-builders. The author is the adoptive mother of three daughters.