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Rating: 
Summary: We beat the odds!
Review: After meeting a woman in a local parking lot who was hand in hand with a precious biracial little boy and engaging in an "adoption conversation", we contacted Mrs Martin and asked some simple questions, read her first book from cover to cover, and began our "baby search. About 16 months months later, (7/98) with the assistance of Dru and Cynthia as our adoption facilitators we became the proud parents of a healthy newborn biracial beautiful baby girl! We followed their steps and instructions and it WORKS!!! I have since read this book and passed them both on to prospective parents.
Rating:
Summary: We beat the odds!
Review: After meeting a woman in a local parking lot who was hand in hand with a precious biracial little boy and engaging in an "adoption conversation", we contacted Mrs Martin and asked some simple questions, read her first book from cover to cover, and began our "baby search. About 16 months months later, (7/98) with the assistance of Dru and Cynthia as our adoption facilitators we became the proud parents of a healthy newborn biracial beautiful baby girl! We followed their steps and instructions and it WORKS!!! I have since read this book and passed them both on to prospective parents.
Rating:
Summary: Preparing for an adoption
Review: As an adult adoptee and a married woman who hopes to adopt soon, I found this book to be realistic and comprehensive. It earns extra points for being the collaborative work of an adoptive mother and her daughter, both now working in adoption. Perhaps their understanding of adoption from so many angles is what makes this book stand out as THE handbook for prospective adoptive families. The criticism from a UK reader really doesn't hold much weight. Cynthia and Dru facilitate adoptions with an emphasis on placing African-American and bi-racial babies. Reading this book is time well spent for anyone creating a family through adoption -- including extended family and friends who want insight into what's happening with the adoptive family. I recommend this book to everyone I know that is considering adoption.
Rating: 
Summary: Unnecessary and Anxiety-Producing Information
Review: As an excited adoptive mother-to-be, I found this book to include completely unnecessary, anxiety-producing, and sometimes even judgemental information and commentary. After having experienced 5 years of infertility, AND read so many brilliant reviews about this book, I expected to encounter text that would conclusively lead me joyfully toward sourcing my children. Instead, I read ridiculous quips that urged me to "never underestimate the power of my social worker," second-guess myself in terms of the level of my education (I hold a terminal graduate degree), my age (40), and my decision to adopt internationally. I finally had to put the book away. Once tucked away, my husband and I breezed through our home study (no need for the anxiety caused by the countless "tips" about what to say and what not to say to your social worker), the building of our dossier, and are now awaiting the identification of a baby that will soon be ours. For sensitive folks like me, I do not recommend this book. There are several others that are much more helpful, supportive and informative.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful, honest, gives clear information, hopeful, Real!
Review: Beating the Adoption Odds:Using Your Head and Your Heart To Adopt gives an important, much needed look at adoption. A must have for anyone considering adopting or placing. The well-written, informative book helps people thru the maze of the adoption process teaching them how to do it right - anticipating problems, avoiding obstacles, and honestly dealing with the myriad issues involved with adoption. Written from a unique perspective of both a woman who has adopted 7 children of various wonderful backgrounds, Dr. Martin, with her oldest adopted daughter, Dru, give the reader an upclose and personal view into adoptions today. True adoption stories, a tell it like it is approach, hopeful, timely and invaluable. This unique Mother-Daughter team share with us infusing the reader with the joy of adoption!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Excellent and thorough explanation of the adoption process. Anyone who is even considering adopting should read this book. It explains not only the legal end but also the different problems and issues that adoptive parents face with their children.
Rating: 
Summary: Head, maybe, but no heart
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking well thought-out, insightful, complete information on adoption. I have read 5 adoption books in the last 3 weeks and this is the best by far!!!
Rating:
Summary: The best how-to book on adoption that I have read !!!
Review: I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking well thought-out, insightful, complete information on adoption. I have read 5 adoption books in the last 3 weeks and this is the best by far!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Wow, if you want a baby by hook or by crook, read this book!
Review: The authors shrink from nothing, including suggesting looking on the black market and in high unemployment areas and sending out ten thousand cards with your phone number and the message that you will help someone who could help you find a baby. You get drilled on how to approach social workers and lawyers to the point of lying by omission. This book is seductive in that it is written in a sure-handed style and provides a great deal of useful information.
I like the fact that the authors are open minded and do not insist on one adoption practice over another. That's good and confidence inspiring for the prospective adoptive parents. The authors say: 'We live in a diverse society, and adoption should reflect that diversity. Open adoption is appropriate for some people; more traditional agency adoption is appropriate for others. Some people's needs will be best met in independent adoptions, others' in private agency adoptions.' The authors are also cautious about the new extreme in today's adoption practices, openness, and write: 'The best single reason for being cautious about some kinds of open adoption is the lack of research on how it affects the child, the birth parents, and the adoptive parents in our own culture.' Here, Martin and Groves echo Grotevant's and McRoy's report in their longitudinal study, Openness in Adoption, Exploring Family Connections (Sage 1998): 'The clearest policy implication of our work is that no single type of adoption is best for everyone.' These authors warn that the long-term impact of openness for all parties in the adoptive kinship network is not known and longitudinal research is necessary to answer this question.
Good luck to everyone who is looking for a baby. I almost feel guilty about how easy it was to adopt our infant daughter in 1969. As in a fairy tale, we had a baby inside one year.
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald, author of ADOPTION: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice?
Rating:
Summary: Head, maybe, but no heart
Review: This should really be re-titled "how to get a healthy white newborn as fast as possible with no questions asked".I was appalled by the book's total lack of any ethical perspective. A few examples: the author advises readers to lie to adoption agencies in order to be approved as adoptive parents (she dismisses the idea that some people might make unsuitable adoptive parents by saying that prospective abusers will get to children anyway and that unsuitable parents will get children on the blackmarket!) She suggests searching for birth mothers in areas of high unemployment as this makes it more likely that birthmothers will be unable to afford to raise their babies themselves. She even argues that there's nothing wrong with black market adoption except its illegality, and that birthparents should be free to selll babies for profit to those who want to buy. The "heart" referred to in the title seems to have no trouble treating children as commodities.
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