Inspirational
Carried in Our Hearts: The Gift of Adoption, Inspiring Stories of Families Created Across Continents
This delightful collection of 75 essays by adoptive parents—some well-known, others just heroes to their kids—captures every facet of the adoption journey, with a slight lean toward international stories. Inspiring and easy to read, it can be enjoyed all at once or savored slowly, one essay at a time. And yes, you’re allowed to skip around and can sneak read the essays by the “famous” adoptive parents, for quick doses of encouragement and perspective. You can listen to an interview with Dr. Aronson on the Creating a Family Radio Show/Podcast.
No Biking in the House Without a Helmet: 9 Kids, 3 Continents, 2 Parents, 1 Family
In No Biking in the House Without a Helmet, Melissa Fay Greene shares the joys and challenges of raising nine children—four by birth and five through adoption from Bulgaria and Ethiopia. With humor and honesty, she explores blending families, adopting out of birth order, and the doubts all parents face, while celebrating the laughter and love that make it all worthwhile. A heartfelt and often hilarious read—highly recommended!
There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Her Country’s Children
There Is No Me Without You tells the moving story of Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian woman who turned her home into an orphanage during the AIDS crisis, caring for countless children and facilitating adoptions. Melissa Fay Greene portrays both the heartbreak and hope of this era, acknowledging adoption as one imperfect but vital solution for children in need. A powerful, compassionate book by a gifted author and adoptive mom.
Everything You Ever Wanted
Everything You Ever Wanted tells Jillian Lauren and her husband Scott Shriner’s journey through infertility, adoption, and parenting their son from Ethiopia, later diagnosed with PTSD and sensory processing disorder. With honesty and compassion, Lauren shares the struggles and healing, revealing a powerful love story between husband and wife, and mother and child. Beautifully written and deeply moving—highly recommended.
Becoming Patrick: A Memoir
In this moving memoir, McMahon recounts his search for his first mother, confronting bureaucratic obstacles, conflicted emotions, and the silence of the Baby-Scoop Era. He writes with honesty about how secrecy and shame shaped his identity, and how reunion brought truth, healing, and a deeper understanding of the universal need for connection.
The Women Who Raised Me
In The Women Who Raised Me, actress Victoria Rowell shares her powerful journey from foster care to achieving the American Dream. She honors the women—birth mother, foster mothers, mentors—who inspired and lifted her along the way, showing how love transcends biology. Rowell’s memoir is both moving and triumphant, highlighting resilience, gratitude, and her commitment to give back through her nonprofit supporting foster youth.
Instant Mom
In Instant Mom, actress Nia Vardalos (of My Big Fat Greek Wedding) shares her funny and heartfelt journey to motherhood. After years of infertility treatments, failed surrogacy, and adoption setbacks, she and her husband adopted a nearly three-year-old from foster care. With warmth and humor, Vardalos captures both the joys and challenges of adopting an older child, offering encouragement and laughter along the way.
Now I Am Known
In Now I Am Known, Peter Mutabazi shares his remarkable journey from surviving the streets of Kampala, Uganda, to becoming a foster dad and adoptive parent in the U.S. His story of resilience highlights the power of forgiveness, hope, and breaking cycles of hardship. From working with the Red Cross to advocating for vulnerable children today, Mutabazi’s memoir is both inspiring and transformative—a testament to the impact one life can make.
Three Hearts Stitched: Poems About Adoption
Award-winning author and adoptee Celaine Charles offers a moving collection of contemporary poems drawn from her own story and fictionalized adoption experiences. With voices from adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive families, the poems capture longing, loss, love, and healing. A beautifully crafted reflection on the many emotions of the adoption journey.
Foster & Adoptive Parenting
Written by a foster and adoptive mom passionate about attachment and trauma-informed care, this resource offers parents practical tools, creative exercises, and journal prompts to support both regulation and reflection. Full of encouragement and real-life wisdom, it’s perfect for busy parents needing a quick mindset reset, inspiration, or practical tip while raising children with trauma histories or neurodiversity.
Stretch-mark My Heart: Building Our Family Through Adoption One Child (or Two) at a Time
Stretch-mark My Heart follows the adoption journey of Matt and Niki Tschirgi and lays the groundwork from start to finish of what it takes to have a child permanently placed in your home for adoption. Through fostering, private adoption, open adoption, and foster-to-adopt, Niki recounts the lonely and grievous road of infertility, her and her husband’s decision-making process to choose adoption, the hard work and perseverance to get licensed to be foster parents, and the finalization of six adoptions.
The Children Money Can Buy: Stories from the Frontlines of Foster Care and Adoption
Part analysis, part memoir, The Children Money Can Buy chronicles Moody’s lifelong commitment to the world of adoption and foster care. Moody touches on the adoption sector’s ugly side, such as ‘baby buying’ and profit-driven adoption facilitators, but takes care to counterbalance these negatives by also detailing the positive changes that have occurred in the field over the course of her career, such as the increase in open adoptions. Both a social worker and an adoptive mother, Moody provides compelling behind the scenes anecdotes that span state, international and domestic adoption. A a great read for anyone exploring adoption.
From Beyond the Skies
Juli Boit’s memoir tells the powerful story of welcoming Ryan, a newborn whose mother died in childbirth in Kenya, into her family through international adoption. When Ryan and two siblings were later diagnosed with sickle cell disease, Juli and her husband Titus began the difficult journey of securing the best care. A moving testament to love, courage, and the hope found even in life’s darkest moments.
You’ll Forget This Ever Happened
This memoir tells the story of a birth mother forced to relinquish her child in the Deep South during the 1960s Baby Scoop Era. She recounts her time in a home for unwed mothers, the lifelong grief of separation, and her eventual reunion with her son. Honest and deeply moving, the book portrays trauma, resilience, and the search for hope, offering powerful insight into a hidden chapter of adoption history.
The Only Way Forward is Back
The Only Way Forward Is Back shares the extraordinary life story of Jackson TerKeurst, a war orphan who survived the Liberian Civil War before being adopted by a Christian family in America. Once defined by scarcity and trauma, Jackson discovered his true identity as a child of God. His journey—from hunger and violence to college graduation, entrepreneurship, and faith—has been featured on the Today Show and Oprah Winfrey Network. With honesty and hope, Jackson invites readers to see how God can redeem pain, transform identity, and inspire perseverance through His grace.
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