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Rating: Summary: ABSOLUTELY, A MUST READ... Review: ...for anyone in search, or hoping to have a reunion, this book is an incredible guide! It's filled with a lot of common sense and logic, humor, sadness, great stories used as examples for the "DO" and "DO NOT" approaches to reunion. I especially loved the "REUNION AEROBICS" advice, and the chapter explaining the "Stages of Reunion." This book gave me the strength and preparation I needed to avoid some major mistakes as I approached reunion. It also gave me a great deal of "food for thought," and helped me fine-tune the reasons why I wanted a reunion, which helped to decrease my anxiety and focus on what I really needed to accomplish by meeting my birth family. I think that this book is a "MUST READ" before someone makes contact, because in the end, the advice contained in the pages of THE ADOPTION REUNION SURVIVAL GUIDE will save all parties involved a lot of heartache.
Rating: Summary: Adoption Reunion Survival Guide Review: For anyone considering searching; for anyone who is involved in a search, or for anyone simply wishing to understand the issues at hand ~ this book is good reading. Bailey & Giddens have explored "adoption reunion" with insight, compassionate, and obvious experience! It gives honest insight into some of the feelings which people in the adoption triangle are experiencing.I highly recommend it!!
Rating: Summary: Adoption Reunion Survival Guide Review: For anyone considering searching; for anyone who is involved in a search, or for anyone simply wishing to understand the issues at hand ~ this book is good reading. Bailey & Giddens have explored "adoption reunion" with insight, compassionate, and obvious experience! It gives honest insight into some of the feelings which people in the adoption triangle are experiencing. I highly recommend it!!
Rating: Summary: Not what I was looking for Review: I've been trying to find a book for my teenage sister who wants to find her birthmom. I bought this one, but after flipping through it and reading a few pages here and there, decided against it. There were some things that I thought would have been very helpful for her (mainly about realizing her fantasies, etc), but there was just TOO much garbage mixed in with it, and she doesn't need that kind of propoganda. The author treats adoption like a bad thing, that the adoptee needs to recover from. It takes the position that open adoption should be the status quo and closed adoption should be completely done away with. (That would have never worked in my sister's situation.) Also hints that all adoptees need to find their birth parents, which I don't think is true either - my brother has no desire to find his, and it doesn't mean he has weak relational skills! The most absurd thing I read, though, was that newborns are "severely traumatized" by separation from their birthmothers. It said they will cry all the time, and refuse to be comforted, "like they have been scalded with boiling water"!!! That is the most unscientific and untrue thing I have ever heard. I don't see how anyone could read this book, and then actually give their child up for adoption! The book also celebrated the changing times that single motherhood is accepted now, so adoption is less necessary. Overall, it was obvious that these authors had an agenda, and it's too bad they let that ruin their good points. This might be okay for a mature adult who can sift through the biases, but not for an impressionable teen.
Rating: Summary: Not what I was looking for Review: I've been trying to find a book for my teenage sister who wants to find her birthmom. I bought this one, but after flipping through it and reading a few pages here and there, decided against it. There were some things that I thought would have been very helpful for her (mainly about realizing her fantasies, etc), but there was just TOO much garbage mixed in with it, and she doesn't need that kind of propoganda. The author treats adoption like a bad thing, that the adoptee needs to recover from. It takes the position that open adoption should be the status quo and closed adoption should be completely done away with. (That would have never worked in my sister's situation.) Also hints that all adoptees need to find their birth parents, which I don't think is true either - my brother has no desire to find his, and it doesn't mean he has weak relational skills! The most absurd thing I read, though, was that newborns are "severely traumatized" by separation from their birthmothers. It said they will cry all the time, and refuse to be comforted, "like they have been scalded with boiling water"!!! That is the most unscientific and untrue thing I have ever heard. I don't see how anyone could read this book, and then actually give their child up for adoption! The book also celebrated the changing times that single motherhood is accepted now, so adoption is less necessary. Overall, it was obvious that these authors had an agenda, and it's too bad they let that ruin their good points. This might be okay for a mature adult who can sift through the biases, but not for an impressionable teen.
Rating: Summary: Good advice among the touchy-feely stuff Review: This book has some good guidelines if you're somewhere along the search for your birth parents, but is cluttered with New Age gobbledegook which, in my opinion, got in the way of the authors' more practical advice. I was adopted as an infant (5 months), and at age 47 began a search for my birth parents. I was surprised at how easy it was, and how quickly I located my birth mother's name and her whereabouts, as well as finding out about her two additional children. I had been advised by a woman who had guided others in making initial contact. I followed her advice but never got a response. After reading this book, I discovered I probably should have handled a couple things differently. The authors of Survival Guide have good advice on making initial contact, and include examples of letters and commication tips, as well as testimonials from others as to what worked and what didn't. This was helpful. However, you have to wade through a great deal of the authors' presumptive characterizations of adopted people to glean the advice and guidance that the title of this book suggests. That is, the authors spent a good bit of time doing such inconsequential things as attempting to generalize what drives adoptees to seek out their birth parents. They tend to characterize adoptees as people with a lack of something or a missing piece in their life's puzzle - people with a yearning of which they may not be aware or of which they are in denial (!!). Personally, I never felt any lack of anything as a result of being adopted, emotional or otherwise. I'd just like to know who gave me my genes, what my parents look like now so I know what to expect, and whether I can look forward to any physiological challenges, such as predisposition to conditions or diseases. It would have suited my needs better if the authors had kept more focus on the title of this book, and dropped the quasi-analytical "who are we adoptees and why are we doing this" business. Having said all that, however, I found the book helpful.
Rating: Summary: Adoption Reunion and Survival Review: This is book is a must have for anyone who is a member of the adoption triad. It gives some real insight on the worlds that the adopted person as well as the birthmother live in, and poses some thought provoking questions for the reader to help understand some of the complex feelings and emotions that are present for those desiring contact with a seperated loved one. The reader is left feeling better equipped for the prospect of reunion, and more knowledgeable about legislation and laws that address this complex situation.
Rating: Summary: Adoption Reunion and Survival Review: This is book is a must have for anyone who is a member of the adoption triad. It gives some real insight on the worlds that the adopted person as well as the birthmother live in, and poses some thought provoking questions for the reader to help understand some of the complex feelings and emotions that are present for those desiring contact with a seperated loved one. The reader is left feeling better equipped for the prospect of reunion, and more knowledgeable about legislation and laws that address this complex situation.
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