Read with us!

Here we have adoption and DNA-search related books that either we’ve read and found interesting or others have recommended to us. If you use the Amazon links provided, we do get paid a teeny tiny bit of commission, which we use to keep our site and podcast running. Take a look!

This month we’re reading

Found: Adopted Friends Search for their Birth Families

Lifelong friends – both adoptees – decided they would take a chance and search for their birth parents using online DNA kits and social media. It turns out, that was the easy part. What happened over the next five years was much more difficult – trying to forge relationships with a multitude of related strangers while navigating decades of invisible and unexpected emotional land mines. This is what they found.

October

The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade

by Ann Fessler  

In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the hidden social history of adoption before Roe v. Wade and its lasting legacy. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, the author brings to life the voices of more than a hundred women, allowing them to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail.

November

Geezer Dad: How I Survived Infertility Clinics, Fatherhood Jitters, Adoption Wait Limbo, and Things That Go “Waaa” in the Night

by Tom LaMarr

They thought it was about time to have a kid. No big deal. Until it was. Then their lives went from fooling around to hormone shots, test tubes, embarrassing doctor visits, and more. But there’s no sad, mopey story here. Tom LaMarr handles the journey to fatherhood like he handles the rest of life – with enough humor to make even the most stoic wanna-be-dad laugh with recognition. Follow this funny father on his quest to become the one thing that eluded him: becoming the someone she calls “Daddy.”

Adoption

The Connected Child— Karyn Purvis, David Cross & Wendy Lyons Sunshine 
The Primal Wound — Nancy Newton Verrier
Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew — Sherrie Eldridge
The Girls Who Went Away — Ann Fessler
Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents — Deborah D. Gray
The Connected Parent: Trauma-Informed Parenting Guide for Building Attachment and Trust in Adoptive and Foster Families — Karyn Purvis & Lisa Qualls
Raising Adopted Children: Practical Reassuring Advice for Every Adoptive Parent — Lois Ruskai Melina
The Family of Adoption — Joyce Maguire Pavao
Adoption Nation: How the Adoption Revolution is Transforming Our Families—and America — Adam Pertman
Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches — Russell Moore
A Child’s Journey Through Placement — Vera Fahlberg

Of course we’ve got to add the disclaimer that we don’t necessarily agree with or promote any of the information or ideas in the books we have on this website.