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Summary: A great support for adoptive parents!
Review: Adoptive parents used to be told that there were no differences between parenting children by adoption and the normal tasks of parenting children by birth. Today, we know there are some very special aspects about adoptive parenting. It DOES NOT mean that there is less pleasure or satisfaction in our role, but it does mean that we need to be sensitive to our children's thoughts and feelings about having been adopted, and we need to help others understand and accept adoption as a great way to build families. By writing a thoughtful, but humorous, book about the wide range of worries and emotions she experienced in the adoption process, Jana Wolff allows us to find commonalities and laugh at ourselves. All parents experience frustration and failure with great joy, but some of our experiences are best understood by those who have traveled a similar road. This book helps us to know we are not alone.
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Summary: Validation of my deepest fears!
Review: Any infertile people out there that are thinking about adoption yet are afraid of all the "what ifs" MUST read this book. Jana is smart, funny and straightforward in recounting her amazing journey. This book gives a voice to all the fears we have in our head and our hearts. Jana doesn't sugarcoat anything. The raw emotions will make you cry, laugh, and pray that you'll be half as strong in parenting as she and her husband have been.
I'll be purchasing this book for family members and friends who think that adopting a child will be the end to all my sadness over infertility. This is simply an honest look at the many emotions of adoption and you won't regret reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Sad...
Review: As a mother of three children who were adopted (cross culturally), I found this book to be nothing more than a sad commentary on this woman's life. I doubt she would feel entirely positive about any biological children she might have had. I am glad she feels comfortable writing about her negative feelings, but am surprised it was published. The only useful purpose this book serves is to illustrate the sad fact that, unfortunately, not all people adopt for the right reasons, or make informed choices about the type of adoption/s they chose to have. For the sake of all involved, it is healthier to recognize that there are unique sets of issues that will be a part of any type of adoption, explore how one will deal with these issues, and resolve the many unresolved issues there often are for childless or infertile couples, BEFORE actually becoming a family through adoption.
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Summary: Thank you Jana Wolff for speaking the unspeakable.
Review: As a professional who has worked in the field of adoption for more than 25 years, I recommend this book as required reading for everyone parenting through adoption or considering it. Refreshing in her honesty and openness, the author takes a serious subject and presents it with humor, sarcasm, and compassion. The reader accompanies Jana Wolff on her emotional roller coaster ride from "application to baby," (as she puts it), and from becoming a legal mother to falling in love with her child. The reader is also privy to the complexities of adoption, and in the author's case, of an interracial and open adoption. Jana Wolff gives voice to thoughts and feelings that many adoptive mothers recognize but would never reveal. Her uncensored expression of her deepest fears and doubts allows others to know that they are not alone, and that these kind of conflicting and confusing feelings often accompany the uncertainties and unknowns of adoption.
Rating: 
Summary: Mixed reaction
Review: As a soon-to-be adoptive mother, I was really glad to find a book that describes, with sometimes painful honesty, the mixed emotions and feelings that go into the decision to adopt and the adoption process. It truly is difficult and very much a rollercoaster ride. I have to say, though, that I felt angry at times at the author's occasional use of foul language and her strongly negative attitudes toward adoption. If I were the social worker doing her homestudy, I probably would not have approved her for adoption and would have strongly recommended she seek counseling. Yes, we all have feelings of anger and resentment that we cannot produce biological children, but in my darkest days I haven't been as bitter as her book showed her to be. I hope her son doesn't ever read this book. I am glad I read it, though. Even with my negative feelings about her attitudes, the book made me see that I'd better evaluate my own attitudes about adoption, especially in regard to birthfamilies. I think it's a book that needed to be written, although I felt it was pretty negative much of the time.
Rating:
Summary: Damn!
Review: Boy, some people DO feel Entitled, don't they? Does this woman also have a tantrum and throw all the game pieces off the board when she doesn't win at chess? The book itself is terrific in it's "honesty" (read: bitterness and lack of compassion, both for oneself for being unable to have a biological child AND for women who find themselves pregnant when they can't be parents). As a birthmother, I'm delighted to see what fate my birthson and I escaped due to my decision to choose adoptive parents who truly wanted to adopt a child, rather than viewing adoption (esp. open adoption) as the last-ditch option after everything else failed. This book is a must-read for any woman considering relinquishing her child for adoption -- it provides an excellent blueprint for what potentional adoptive parents may be feeling but not communicating during all those meetings with the social workers. Remember: The power is in your hands! Our children deserve parents who respect us, not those who view us with fear and spite.
Rating:
Summary: Damn!
Review: Boy, some people DO feel Entitled, don't they? Does this woman also have a tantrum and throw all the game pieces off the board when she doesn't win at chess? The book itself is terrific in it's "honesty" (read: bitterness and lack of compassion, both for oneself for being unable to have a biological child AND for women who find themselves pregnant when they can't be parents). As a birthmother, I'm delighted to see what fate my birthson and I escaped due to my decision to choose adoptive parents who truly wanted to adopt a child, rather than viewing adoption (esp. open adoption) as the last-ditch option after everything else failed. This book is a must-read for any woman considering relinquishing her child for adoption -- it provides an excellent blueprint for what potentional adoptive parents may be feeling but not communicating during all those meetings with the social workers. Remember: The power is in your hands! Our children deserve parents who respect us, not those who view us with fear and spite.
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Summary: This book needed to be written and demands to be read!
Review: By avoiding sugar coating of serious issues while expressing the joys and anxieties of a circumscribed period of her life, i.e. the months leading up to and following the birth of her child, Ms. Wolff has managed to convey the arc of conflicting emotions experienced by all first-time mothers, be they biological or adoptive.A commitment to expressing in an open manner her honest feelings, be they positive or negative, takes the kind of courage that is laudable when the results are insightful, witty and meaningful. Yes, there are anger and sorrow here about the inability to conceive her own child. However, as the birth mother of three children, I can attest that all welcome pregnancies have occasional elements of similar emotions of self doubt, anger and sadness.The major effect of this fine paperback is to warm the reader with understanding and humor. One is left with the certain feeling that Ms. Wolff's welcomed bi-racial child will be nurtured and cherished and will have a life of unconditional love and promise
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Summary: No Political Correctness here...just pure HONESTY
Review: FINALLY an author who's willing to write about adoption with honest emotions....not "politically correct" mumbo-jumbo! Ms Wolffs refreshing approach to adoption was like a breath of fresh air after all the "Dear Birthmother" type books us adoptive parents are given to read by adoption professionals, who can't relate. Her realistic, honest, humorous, touching story is something WE CAN ALL RELATE TO but feel guilty for thinking. FINALLY a book that looks at adoption WITHOUT the rose colored glasses. A MUST READ for adoptive families and adoption professionals!
Rating: 
Summary: Brutally honest with welcomed comic relief
Review: I am a foster mother, bio mom of two and adoptive mother of one, and I really enjoyed this book. It is a quick read and offers the truth about the range of emotions before,during, and after adoption. It gives a voice to all those unspoken things adoptive and even nonadoptive parents feel and think but could never publicly say. I really appreciated the authors honesty and her sense of humor which you really need to be part of the nontraditional life and extended family we create when we adopt. You won't regret buying and sharing this book with your family and friends. They too will benefit from knowing that you understand that, at times, you're perceived as crazy and that there are answers to some of their questions too.
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