Customer Reviews

The Adoption Reunion Survival Guide: Preparing Yourself for the Search, Reunion, and Beyond

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...for anyone in search, or hoping to have a reunion, this book is an incredible guide! It's filled with a lot of common sense and logic, humor, sadness, great stories used as examples for the "DO" and "DO NOT" approaches to reunion. I especially loved the "REUNION AEROBICS" advice, and the chapter explaining the "Stages of Reunion." This book gave me the strength and preparation I needed to avoid some major mistakes as I approached reunion. It also gave me a great deal of "food for thought," and helped me fine-tune the reasons why I wanted a reunion, which helped to decrease my anxiety and focus on what I really needed to accomplish by meeting my birth family. I think that this book is a "MUST READ" before someone makes contact, because in the end, the advice contained in the pages of THE ADOPTION REUNION SURVIVAL GUIDE will save all parties involved a lot of heartache.

This is book is a must have for anyone who is a member of the adoption triad. It gives some real insight on the worlds that the adopted person as well as the birthmother live in, and poses some thought provoking questions for the reader to help understand some of the complex feelings and emotions that are present for those desiring contact with a seperated loved one. The reader is left feeling better equipped for the prospect of reunion, and more knowledgeable about legislation and laws that address this complex situation.

This book has some good guidelines if you're somewhere along the search for your birth parents, but is cluttered with New Age gobbledegook which, in my opinion, got in the way of the authors' more practical advice.

I was adopted as an infant (5 months), and at age 47 began a search for my birth parents. I was surprised at how easy it was, and how quickly I located my birth mother's name and her whereabouts, as well as finding out about her two additional children. I had been advised by a woman who had guided others in making initial contact. I followed her advice but never got a response. After reading this book, I discovered I probably should have handled a couple things differently. The authors of Survival Guide have good advice on making initial contact, and include examples of letters and commication tips, as well as testimonials from others as to what worked and what didn't. This was helpful.

However, you have to wade through a great deal of the authors' presumptive characterizations of adopted people to glean the advice and guidance that the title of this book suggests. That is, the authors spent a good bit of time doing such inconsequential things as attempting to generalize what drives adoptees to seek out their birth parents. They tend to characterize adoptees as people with a lack of something or a missing piece in their life's puzzle - people with a yearning of which they may not be aware or of which they are in denial (!!). Personally, I never felt any lack of anything as a result of being adopted, emotional or otherwise. I'd just like to know who gave me my genes, what my parents look like now so I know what to expect, and whether I can look forward to any physiological challenges, such as predisposition to conditions or diseases. It would have suited my needs better if the authors had kept more focus on the title of this book, and dropped the quasi-analytical "who are we adoptees and why are we doing this" business.

Having said all that, however, I found the book helpful.

For anyone considering searching; for anyone who is involved in a search, or for anyone simply wishing to understand the issues at hand ~ this book is good reading. Bailey & Giddens have explored "adoption reunion" with insight, compassionate, and obvious experience! It gives honest insight into some of the feelings which people in the adoption triangle are experiencing.

I highly recommend it!!

I recently had my reuinon with my son after 40 years and this book helped me with all the fears, doubts and insecurities I was facing. It gave me suggestions and tips on what to say and what to do, and avoid anything that would push my son away. This book is a must read for anyone who is venturing a reunion. Thank you so much.

This is a terrific book that walks you though the many tedious steps towards reunion between adopted adults and birth-family members. I find the outline and organization of this book most helpful. Especially of great assistance are the self-check questions at the end of each chapter.

I highly suggest keeping a tablet or journal alongside this book as you read it, and answer the questions. Be honest with yourself, and this book will go far to bring you the support you need. I facilitate a monthly search and support group, and this book has touched and influenced countless people as they prepare for, or enter reunion.

The book is specifically geared for adoptees and first-family members, and NOT for use by those who morally oppose reunions. Why people still oppose our right to seek our identity in this day and age is beyond me. Naysayers abound when authors have the courage and knowledge to create a text that has the astounding potential of this book. Please do not allow some of the other negative comments posted here influence you.

This is a tremendous reunion guide.

This book purports to be about reunion, but the authors clearly want to communicate their anti-adoption agenda.

The authors offer some good suggestions on how to prepare for a reunion, but their overall philosophy toward adoption is harmful. They are clearly against adoption. They state that birthmothers are being wrongly convinced to give up the child for adoption. They believe that the child should always stay with the birthparents. This is wrong and could only lead people to second guess their decisions and will likely lead to unnecessary feelings of guilt. It is too bad that the authors chose to send this harmful message rather than to stick with the topic that their title suggests.

I've been trying to find a book for my teenage sister who wants to find her birthmom. I bought this one, but after flipping through it and reading a few pages here and there, decided against it. There were some things that I thought would have been very helpful for her (mainly about realizing her fantasies, etc), but there was just TOO much garbage mixed in with it, and she doesn't need that kind of propoganda. The author treats adoption like a bad thing, that the adoptee needs to recover from. It takes the position that open adoption should be the status quo and closed adoption should be completely done away with. (That would have never worked in my sister's situation.) Also hints that all adoptees need to find their birth parents, which I don't think is true either - my brother has no desire to find his, and it doesn't mean he has weak relational skills! The most absurd thing I read, though, was that newborns are "severely traumatized" by separation from their birthmothers. It said they will cry all the time, and refuse to be comforted, "like they have been scalded with boiling water"!!! That is the most unscientific and untrue thing I have ever heard. I don't see how anyone could read this book, and then actually give their child up for adoption! The book also celebrated the changing times that single motherhood is accepted now, so adoption is less necessary.

Overall, it was obvious that these authors had an agenda, and it's too bad they let that ruin their good points. This might be okay for a mature adult who can sift through the biases, but not for an impressionable teen.