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Title:  Which One of You is the Mother?: The Absolutely Positively True Adoption Story of Two Gay Dads by Sean Michael O'Donnell Publisher: Amazon Digital Services Format: Kindle Pages: 130 pages Genre: Adoption, LGBT Synopsis:  After fifteen years of up-all-night gay disco dance parties, Sean O'Donnell and his longtime partner Todd decided to trade in their leather chaps for mom jeans and start a family. In August 2012 the not-so ambiguously gay duo walked into a Pittsburgh-based adoption agency and said, "We'd like a child, please." For the next several months they attended parenting classes, subjected themselves to probing FBI background checks, and completed enough paperwork to reforest the whole of the Amazon River basin. Despite lacking a magical baby-making vagina the pair successfully made omelets without eggs when in July 2013 they flew to Oregon to meet their seven-year-old son for the first time. No longer Sean and Todd they would now be fore...

Title:   Sophia's Broken Crayons: A Story of Surrogacy from a Young Child's Perspective by Crystal Falk Publisher: Amazon's digital Services Format: E-book Genre: Surrogacy, Children Synopsis:  Why is the sky blue? Why do dogs bark? When will I be tall? Where do babies come from? Kids ask a lot of questions. Some of them are easier to answer than others. Explaining why someone would choose to become a surrogate or why a family would choose a surrogate to help grow their family are even harder questions to answer. Sophia’s Broken Crayons can help you answer those questions.  (50)Review:  A simplistic story to explain surrogacy to a young child.  The book is geared toward ages 2-6 and would be great to help children of surrogates understand why the baby isn’t staying with them and also to help the child that is born through surrogacy understand the process.  It doesn’t get into great detail it just talks about how one family shared their tummy t...

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of  Should Be Reading . Anyone can play along! •  Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page •  BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!  ( make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others! ) •  Share the  title & author , too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers! My Teaser Tuesday is  The Guilty One: A Novel by Lisa Ballantyne " The vast majority of clients have had really difficult upbringings...D'you know how much a damaged child in the care system will cost the state throughout the course of its life? Irene narrowed her eyes, considering, then shrugged." 

Title:   Instant Mom by Nia Vardalos Publisher: Harper Collins 251 Pages Genre: Autobiography Synopsis:  Nia Vardalos, writer and star of  My Big Fat Greek Wedding , tells her hilarious and poignant road-to-parenting story that eventually leads to her daughter and prompts her to become a major advocate for adoption. Vardalos chronicles her attempts to have a baby, and how she tries everything—from drinking jugs of green mud tea, to acupuncture, to working with two surrogates. Finally, she and her husband, actor Ian Gomez, decide to try adoption and discover a free service: Foster Family Agencies. Then one day, the social workers "match" her with an almost-three-year-old girl, who she knows, instantly, is her daughter. Review:  Honest, funny and honest Nia Vardalos writes about her struggles with infertility, the overwhelming sense of failure while going through IVF and ultimately her decision to adopt through foster care. Nia and her husband adopt a 3 year...

Title:   Waiting to Forget by Sheila Kelly Welch Publisher: Namelos 170 Pages Genre: YA Synopsis: T.J. has always looked out for his little sister, Angela. When Momma used to go out and leave them home alone, he'd lock the door so they'd be safe, keep Angela entertained, and get out the cereal and milk for her. When Momma's boyfriend got angry at them, he'd try to protect Angela. Later, at their foster homes, T.J. was the only one who knew how to coax his little sister out of her bad moods. The only one who understood why she made origami paper cranes and threw them out the window. But now T.J. is sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, wondering if Angela, unconscious after a fall, will ever wake up. Wondering, too, if he will ever feel at home with his and Angela's new parents—Marlene, who insists on calling him Timothy, and Dan, who seems to want a different son. Going back and forth between Now and Then, weaving the uncertain present with the painf...

Title: Another Place at the Table by Kathy Harrison Publisher: Penguin 224 Pages Genre: non-fiction - foster care- adoption Synopsis: It's 1988, and Harrison, a happily married mother of three, takes a job with Head Start, working with at-risk four-year-olds. Her heart goes out to the foster kids; before long, she and her husband take state training and adopt two sisters. Five children make a big family, but Harrison finds it tough to turn her back on needy children. She and her husband start accepting emergency care "hot-line" foster children, too; soon, Harrison quits her day job and becomes a full-time-overtime, really-foster parent. In addition to a stay-at-home mom's usual duties, Harrison is caring for children with serious emotional baggage and often complex medical problems. There are lawyers, therapists and social service people to meet with, plus the scheduling of visits to birth mothers, an emotional roller coaster for all parties. Birth mothers, she...