Rating: 
Summary: Tender story of a love that could never be forgotten
Review: Being another "Other Mother" myself who was also at the same unwed mother's home in Richmond, Virgina around the same time as Carol, I can attest to the truth of how powerful a mother's love is. The experience of being "shipped away" by family leaves a lasting, unbearable pain in your soul. To have your child taken from your arms and have no choice in the world creates such deep emotional scars - forever.Carol's insight into the horrors of being an unwed mother come forth in her book, "The Other Mother." At the same time, the love she carried for her son, Jack, and the determination to hold him in her arms again is the hope and dream of all "Other Mothers."
Rating: 
Summary: Insightful
Review: Carol Schaefer's clear-headed, honest examination of her experience of loss, search and reunion -- and the pain, confusion and utter joy inherent in it -- is a valuable gift to her readers. As an adoptee, I found myself nodding my head while reading about thoughts and emotions that rang familiar, turning misty at the moving moments and laughing at the humorous, equally human, ones -- and above all, gaining insight into my birth mother's experience and my own.
Rating:
Summary: A treasure for every birthmother!
Review: Carol's book was the first one in the field of adoption and reunion that I read after "coming out of the closet" as a birthmother. I cried myself to sleep each night, feeling her pain and ultimate joy and allowing myself to finally feel the emotions I had so long suppressed. I strongly recommend Carol's book to everyone in the triad as well as everyone who has an interest in understanding how adoption affects birthmothers and adoptees. The book does an excellent job of humanizing those girls and women who society tagged as "unwed mothers" but who were, in fact, denied the honor of being mothers. Thanks to Carol and the other brave women who have put their emotions in print.
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Summary: A great read, extremely informative
Review: Having finally gone out and purchased this book, I finished it in an evening. It was so compelling I kept reading and reading. It helped me (an adult adoptee) to understand the feelings and experiences that many birth mothers had.
Rating:
Summary: Not much has changed
Review: I am a birthmother in search for my son. I found this book compelling and read it cover-to-cover in a few hours because I could not put it down. I experienced a similar experience in 1980 in placing my baby for adoption when I was just 16 years old. I was surprised that my experience in 1980 was so similar to the author's while she was in the midst of reunion by 1984. There were also uncanny similarities to my situation and the author's. I enjoyed this book thoroughly and wish to thank the author for writing it.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening to all members of the 'Adoption Triad'!
Review: I am an adoptee who was reunited with her birthmother two years ago. Reading "The Other Mother" has helped me to understand what my birthmother endured and what she could never put into words. I think buying this book for her will help let her know she isn't alone that there are birthmothers out there who feel the same way.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding encapsulation of the birth parent experience.
Review: I recommend this book to everyone who is seeking to understand the birthparent journey. I am an adoption professional involved with searching for 19 years. I find Carol's book to be a gem. Carol has done an outstanding job of encapsulating the birthparent experience. She raises the consciousness of anyone who reads her story. Adopted persons tell me consistently how impacted they have been by what they have learned. Empathy toward their birthmother is deepened and courage to pursue a search is enhanced. Birthparents tell me how validated they feel after years of loneliness and anguish related to the loss of their children. Carol speaks their journey through her story. Powerful outcome. Adoptive parents have also been impacted as they learn the effect of the adoption experience of birthparents. This allows them to better support their children's expressed needs which may include a search for birthfamily. Their empathy grows and their fear of the search and the birthmother diminishes. Professionals also benefit from learning from Carol. No matter what role they play in the field of adoption, building sensitivity about the birthparent experience is crucial. This book can accomplish this. I highly recommend this book to anyone involved with, or interested in, adoption. Patricia Martinez Dorner, MA, LPC, LMFT co-author, Children of Open Adoption, author, How to Open an Adoption: a guide for parents & birthparents of minors, Adoption Search: An Ethical Guide for Professionals , Talking to Your Child About Adoption.
Rating: 
Summary: Emotionally captivating...at first.
Review: I thought this book had an amazing beginning. The authors pain was felt through my fingertips straight to my heart. I truely felt sorry for her and as an adoptee I was told all along that "your birthmother gave you up because she loved you". I felt that the author got to be a bit obsessive with finding her birth son, granted she had every right. In the beginning of the book, she clearly wrote that her experience giving up her baby was forever etched in her mind, but further in the book she kept referencing that she "forgot" this person, or didn't remember where things were.....all she had to do was turn back 4 or 5 chapters! or was I missing something?
Rating:
Summary: A powerful story of one woman's courage and spirituality!
Review: I travel and lecture to birthparents, adult adoptees and therapists all over the world. During my lectures, I am frequently asked to reccomend the best books on adoption issues.This is The one! A book that tells the true story of what it was like for the six million plus women that relinquished children in the closed adoption system.Ms Schafer takes you on a spiritual and emotionally complex journey as she struggles to keep her infant son, loses him and then finds him 19 years later. Her honest and painful story brings to life in words the wrong that was done to millions of unwed mothers by the social climate of the past. You experience her heartache and shame, her social isolation and finally her triumph joy at finding her beautiful son Jack.
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Summary: Birthmothers are finally speaking out!
Review: It is so nice to see Birthmoms coming out of the darkness (imposed upon them by the adoption industry and their families, guilt, shame, etc.) and telling their stories about relinquishing a child to adoption. As an adoptee, I especially appreciate it b/c it gives me a chance to understand the birthmom's perspective better, something that is so often forgotten or ignored. This is a very readable and sometimes heartbreaking book, and I highly recommend it to all members of the Triad-- including adoptive parents who often have no clue what the birthmother really went through. This book also brings up the much needed point that adoption has traditionally been shrouded in secrecy and shame in this country. This has got to end! Although there are *some* birthmothers who may wish to put their past behind them, there are far more out there that wish don't. Most birthmoms think about their relinquished children every day, and want to know what happened to the baby they gave away, that they grew up ok and were loved, etc. The adoption reform movement, and adoptee rights groups like Bastard Nation are trying to change the archaic closed records system so that birthmothers and adoptees no longer have to bear such the burden of shame. Kudos to Carol Schaefer for having the gumption to speak about her experience and to share it with us!
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