| Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies for Adoption Tell Their Stories |  | Author: Merry Jones
Publisher: iUniverse
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Seller: totalmedia
Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 122,722
Media: Paperback
Edition: Authors Guild Backinprint.com Ed
Pages: 316
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.8
ISBN: 059500637X
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.8298
EAN: 9780595006373
ASIN: 059500637X
Publication Date: August 4, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Birthmothers presents intimate and stirring accounts of more than seventy women who surrendered babies for adoption. It follows their lives long-term, from discovery of their pregnancies through the present, and identifies the Birthmother Syndrome —a pattern of behavior and emotions resulting from surrender. With heartwarming candor, it reveals the stories of the invisible side of the adoption triangle, and touches everyone involved in adoption, as well as anyone interested in motherhood, family and women in our society.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 I am a birthmother January 5, 1999
clark@arlington.net (Arlington, Texas)
22 out of 22 found this review helpful
I just last night finished this book. It is one of the best I have read so far. In some places of this book which I underlined or marked it was as if I myself wrote it. I felt alot of the things described and still do. I am a birthmother of 2 daughters from the 70's so I lived in the era that condemned, shamed and lied to us. It is a relief knowing it was NOT me who had all this happen to all alone that there are hundreds of thousands of other women. We birthmothers need to know we are not alone anymore. I highly recommend not only birthmothers to read this but adoptees and adoptive mothers as well. We all in this triad need to learn to feel for each other and understand each others pain. But most of all our adoptees need to be put first. They must no more be made to feel ashamed of who they are, they didn't ask to be adopted did they? PLEASE no one flame me for my opinion here! After all I am human and have a heart.
The best book I've read so far with research on Birth Moms! August 30, 2001
P. Henderson (Amherst, NY United States)
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
I wasn't so sure how useful I would find this book since it's about closed adoption birth mothers (and doesn't include research on semi-open or open adoption birth mothers.) However I found that so many things in the book apply to ALL birth mothers!! I especially think the author did a GREAT job talking about the depth of grief and life long effects it has on birth mothers. I haven't read a book on adoption yet that even comes close to being as accurate as this book is on the subject of birth mother grief and pain! Highly recommend this book for ALL members of the Adoption "triad"!
A painful and compassionate eye-opener September 6, 2003
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald (USA)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
This is a beautifully written and valuable book for our understanding of birthmothers who describe experiences in both closed and open adoptions. Many have grieved; others have felt relief; a number have entirely repressed their emotions. Regardless of what they think about relinquishment, many continue to struggle with the emotional effects of suppressing their maternal drive in the form of rage, frustration, sorrow, guilt, and self-doubt. Many birthmothers emphasized that reunion was not a cure for the regrets, angers, or grief they faced after relinquishing. The author writes that 'even in mutually rewarding reunions, most birthmothers experienced profound sensations of loss.' Yes, I understand this feeling because I have personal experience with the birthmother of our daughter. Relinquishment occurred in 1969, when the baby was 4 days old and 28 years later our birthmother found us. Today, we love one another and our daughter has a cordial relationship with her birthmother, but our birthmother is facing the terrible reality that her grown daughter, now a mother herself, is not the needy little baby she had relinquished and a late mother-child relationship is impossible. 'Even reunions can't make it right.'
I recommend this book to everyone, not just to members of the adoption triad. It is a book about humanity.
Gisela Gasper Fitzgerald, author of ADOPTION: An Open, Semi-Open or Closed Practice?
Should be required reading for prospective adoptive parents September 21, 1999
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
As a birthmother, I can fully relate to the level of pain and remorse described in this book. Entrusting one's child to adoption is the most heartbreaking decision anyone could ever have to make, and it is further complicated by the fact that for many women, there was no choice. (Coercion in adoption remains widespread.)All would-be adoptive parents need to read this book to fully understand the grief of their children's birthparents. If they do, they will learn to treat the birthfamily with love and respect, and welcome them in via a truly open adoption.
Birthmothers: Women Who Have Relinquished Babies December 17, 2002
P. Ann Evans (USA)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
An important work! I recommend that all triad members and adoption social workers read it. Jones is not a member of the adoption triad (i.e., she's not a birthmother, an adoptee, or an adoptive parent). The author interviewed birthmothers and put important nuggets of their experiences into this book. Though we don't get to know any of the birthmothers in depth, we do learn how they felt about relinquishment long-term, feelings ignored by our entire society for much too long.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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