Along Came You by Karona Drummond and illustrated by Estelle Corke (Zonderkidz, April 2009) 32 pages, hardcover

“Before you, my home was decorated in style. After you, my home is decorated in love.”

“Before you, I liked to watch the rain. After you, I like to dance in the rain.”

“Before you, my world was quiet. After you, there is joyful noise.”

And so it goes. A parent lovingly recites how her world has changed, becoming richer and fuller since the arrival of her child. Along Came You is brightly illustrated with wonderful images of the mother-daughter relationship. Together, Karona Drummond and Estelle Corke have tenderly and joyfully captured some of the life changes that come with motherhood.

The themes of wonder, love, and joy resonate throughout. Drummond contrasts the before and after without being negative. Your child will find the simple language, repetitive structure, and the whimsical and playful illustrations engaging. This is a picture book that is sure to be worn out from being read.

Along Came You is a delightful picture book. The recommended ages for this book are 3-5, although my seven and nine year-olds read it and loved the timeless message of love and the colorful illustrations.

Judy’s essays and articles have appeared in parenting magazines. Her story, ”Souls Speak”,  is featured in A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families: Stories That Celebrate a Special Gift of Love. “Healing the Roots of Our Grafted Tree” is featured in the upcoming Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? (EMK Press, September, 2009). She blogs at The International Mom’s Blog.

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Some couples, however, struggle though treatment after treatment, month after month, and year after year, only to be repeatedly disappointed. I’m not saying we weren’t disappointed because we were. We were heartbroken at not conceiving and frustrated by the roller coaster of hormones and emotions. We just decided to stop after one horrific treatment and move on.

An although being barren may be considered a  Silent Sorority over 12% of the US reproductive population is infertile. And it does suck. The hurt does not go away and Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos clearly knows that, just like most of us do. The hurt doesn’t go away but we do find ways to deal with it. We learn when to hide in restaurant restrooms when baby showers commence at the next table, when to sulk at the neighborhood bowling game because someone told you it must be great to not pay for a babysitter, and when to yell F-You when parents bring kids to bars.

Before trying to get pregnant I never gave much thought to NOT getting pregnant. I don’t think many women do. For so many of us though, it is reality. My husband and I chose to adopt because we really wanted a family. We were only 28 and 29 when we realized what our future would be like without children and to us it just wasn’t right.  When Pamela and her husband stopped fertility treatments they chose to live childless.

Books abound with success stories which end with the arrival of a baby after infertility. This book is about one of the “failure stories,” which, as the title suggests, are also abundant but rarely shared, let alone made public. A seemingly depressing premise; no one likes a sad ending. And yet Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos has crafted a compelling story in three parts: the years of trying to conceive, told in a tone of wit and self-deprecation; the years of realization that a baby was not to be, told in jarringly vivid descriptions of the last-resort medical procedures and subsequent authentic tones of sadness and rage; and the years after, told in equally authentic tones of peace and acceptance of what this altered vision of family life will mean not only for her, but also for her husband, whose voice is heard throughout the book.

Tsigdinos’ mission is to raise awareness of the topic of infertility and the toll it takes on women physically and emotionally. Miscarriages and failed efforts to conceive are rarely discussed. And when brought to light, the responses from society are very often insensitive and unhelpful, sometimes even hostile (“Things could be worse, you know” or “The world doesn’t need any more kids”). Tsigdinos explains for the fertile world why responses like “Just relax and you’ll get pregnant” and “Maybe it’s God’s will,” while intended to be helpful, are quite the opposite. Her explanation of why, “Have you considered adoption?” is equally dismissive of the pain and loss of infertility bears reading by everyone who has a friend or family member struggling with this issue. – Amazon

Can a book that ends without a baby have a happy ending? YES. And honorably so. Pamela’s book, the Silent Sorority: A Barren Woman Gets Busy, Angry, Lost and Found is amazing and I have not put it down since I picked it up yesterday. If you struggled with fertility at all you absolutely HAVE to read this book. It is witty, fun, heartbreaking, and absolutely bittersweet.

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“I tell you this story because
for too many years,
people have told my stories for me.
I am ready to speak for myself.
So where do I begin?”
Juli Jeong Martin,
transnational/transracial adoptee (Pieces of Me)

Contributors range from ages eleven to sixty-three. The voices of birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoption professionals are loud and clear. Through poems, stories, songs, quotes, activities, art, and provocative questions Pieces of Me offers hope, healing and help for the adopted teen.

Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? focuses on the teen reader,  but every adoptive parent needs to have a copy. The book will make you smile and laugh. It will make you think; it will also make you ache and cry. You can order it here.

Pieces of me editor Bert Ballard was kind enough to answer a few questions about his background and the creation of  Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? Voices for and by adopted teens.

Tell us a little bit about your background.

I was adopted from Vietnam in April 1975, evacuated during Operation Baby-lift at the (supposed) age of 3 weeks. I moved a lot when I was young, but settled in Colorado after my parents divorced. I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Recreation Resources and a Ph.D. in Communication. I am currently an assistant professor for Communication, Leadership and Social Innovation at the University of Waterloo (Ontario).

My passion is the adoptee voice and cultivating an adoptee community. To that end, I have helped create a couple of adoptee organizations (Vietnamese Adoptee Network and International Adoptee Congress), served on a few adoption organization boards, been involved in Colorado Heritage Camp many times, and spoken and written about international adoption. I also research international and transracial adoption as it relates to identity and family communication.

As an only child with divorced parents, I generally felt very alone growing up. Being transracially and internationally adopted complicated that. It wasn’t really until the past few years that I have come to understand how lonely and challenging those times truly were for me. My desire to help put together Pieces of Mecame out of these experiences. My hope is that teenaged adoptees will hear from other adoptees when they need it most – when they feel lonely or are struggling and want to know that they are not the only ones experiencing and feeling what they are going through.

Where did the idea for Pieces of Me come from? Why now?

Pieces of Mebegan about 3 years ago with Sheena Macrae and Carrie Kitze, both adoptive parents and editors/authors at EMK Press. (Carrie’s also the publisher.) The idea was to put together a book similar to Adoption Toolkit with lots of different contributors and perspectives built on the theme of “What my parents couldn’t tell me.” I was involved in the initial planning phases at that time.

As development for the project evolved, it was realized that there were a lot of topics that needed addressing. It was also realized that no matter how talented Sheena and Carrie are (and they are VERY talented), as adoptive parents, they could only take it so far. This was a very important lesson to come out of the development of this book, the realization that adoptive parents cannot be and cannot do everything, that there are some places they cannot go.

Adoptive parents are no doubt very important in the life and development of the adopted child, but there are some things and some places that the parents can’t go, like into the world and experiences of the adoptee. There are some things outside of the parents’ control – and that is a good thing! A parent’s role is to love, support, encourage, and care; it is not to fix, heal, or put the pieces together. Ultimately, that is left up to the adoptee.

Given this important realization, I, as an adopted person (and a willing person) was asked to take over the editorial duties, and the decision has proven to be fun, challenging, and a growing experience.

As for why now, well, it was just a project I really felt I wanted to be a part of, and I’m glad I did. I had finished graduate school when I started the project and the timing felt right.

How did you come up with the title of Pieces of Me?

I didn’t actually. One of the biggest challenges was finding a name that would capture its complexity with something marketable and attractive, yet not turn away parents, guidance counselors or librarians. So, instead of us trying to figure it out, we asked others and ran a contest. The winning title wasn’t actually “Pieces of Me,” but instead pointed toward puzzles and figuring out how to put one’s pieces together. As we thought about it – Carrie and my wife Sarah were instrumental here – we realized that a puzzle was something that would appeal to everyone. It could help us structure all of the different experiences of our contributors without it being too directional or formulaic. We are all made up of a lot of different pieces and we take many different paths to becoming who we want to be. This made sense with a puzzle idea and so, “Pieces of Me: Who do I want to be?” was born!

Pieces of Me draws the reader in with the graphics, different fonts, and artwork. I had the feeling of layers, with rawness and honesty, as I read. I heard individual voices. Why did you design Pieces of Me to look the way it does? What did you envision?

I can’t take all the credit for this. Carrie worked very, very hard on the layout. Even though I had a lot of the ideas, she really made them come alive!

As for the ideas themselves, today’s teenaged generation is very unique. They live in a multi-tasking world, where doing many things at once is not unheard of, like talking on a cell phone while listening to music or texting while also carrying on a face-to-face conversation. With all of the technology, like the web, they don’t think linearly, meaning they see multiple pieces simultaneously. While often accused of having short attention spans, it is less that than just the fact that they see life more holistically and critically.

Yet, their lives are very structured. They go to school, to lessons, to activities, study, try to keep grades up for college, and have lots of peer pressure with their days full of structured activities. Amidst all this, they are dealing with lots of issues even my generation (I’m not that old – only 35!) didn’t deal with in the same way – STIs, pregnancy, suicide, alcoholism, drugs, divorce, debt, instant communication, sex, and so on. What I think a lot of them are looking for is authenticity and connection. In a world where the media, marketing, and even family have an agenda, they crave authentic connection.

So, as we put all of this together, we thought the book should be visually appealing, yet not linear; it should be multi-layered, yet have some kind of theme; readers should be able to start reading it from wherever and not feel pressure to read it front to back yet be able to find a broader connection; it should relate to hopes, fears, joys, pains, struggles, hurts, happiness, inspiration, and the like as that means it captures the whole person, yet not offer a single path to fitting the pieces together; it shouldn’t patronize, but invite; it should speak to, with, and through, not “lecture” or give a formula (teens would see right through that anyway); it should not demean or compare, but empower and relate.

We did our best to bring all of this together. I’m glad to hear how it affected you. I hope others will feel the same way.

Make no mistake though, we aimed for today’s teenaged generation, and not everyone, not even some parents, will be attracted to the way we did it. There might be some topics or stories that are uncomfortable for parents, and that is understandable. But teens (and even many tweens) will get it. This isn’t necessarily for parents. Read with the right frame of mind though, it will provide a lot of insight into teens who are also adopted.

We’re pretty happy with the way it turned out.

The contributors to Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Beare as young as eleven and as old as sixty-three. They are adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, family members, and adoption professionals. Why did you decide to have such a wide range of contributors?

I think this goes back to authenticity. I really wanted to cast the net as wide as we could. I could offer my perspective, but I’m only one person with a small range of experiences. I felt that we needed a broad range of voices to try to capture the range of feelings of our readers. And you never know where that will come from – an adoptee, a family member, young, old. You just don’t know how a reader will react to what, so we wanted to offer as many possibilities as we could.

Further, we thought a lifelong perspective would be beneficial, to help our readers know that their feelings exist in all kinds of people at all different kinds of ages from all different walks of life. Being adopted means joining a community, a community that while connected through adoption – whether it is foster, transracial, or international – reflects the diversity of the world everywhere. This is why we have both U.S. based and non-U.S. based contributors.

Finally, I really wanted new voices, to hear from folks who haven’t always spoken. Let’s face it, in the adoption community, we hear from many of the same folks over and over again. That’s not to say that is a bad thing or that we shouldn’t listen to them, but it would be great to offer a chance for others who are out there to speak out and speak up.

What do you hope Pieces of Me will contribute to the adoption community, and more specifically, to teens?

In my wildest, I hope it will be a New York Times bestseller so I can retire! Ha!

Seriously, I hope that for many it will become a companion, a source of voices, perspectives and experiences that readers will turn to in times of struggle or joy or whatever when they need to feel a connection to someone else or to feel grounded. I hope readers will write in it, copy it, bend pages, read submissions over and over again, take the activities seriously, and revisit them again and again. (Of course, they should write in it only if it’s theirs and not a library copy!) And I hope that when they are adults, they look back on it as a book that really helped them through some challenging times and empowered them to believe in themselves.

I also hope that it will become a beginning point for connection and conversation, between adoptees, between adoptees and their parents, and between adoptees and adoption professionals. In Pieces of Me, we present some pretty authentic stories, some wonderful, some not so much. But they are real. And if we can open up the conversations, especially between adoptees and their parents, we can help put those pieces together. I think the book has the potential to develop understanding between all of these different perspectives, most especially between adoptees and their parents.

Once the book is launched, we will also be developing our online Pieces of MeFacebook page. Here, we hope readers will connect with one another to discuss how the book impacts who they are and how they struggle with their own life’s puzzle pieces. So, be on the lookout for an invitation to this group!

In another way, I hope the book represents a turning point in the variety of generations speaking in the world of adoption. There is a huge shift in the awareness of adoption, and this book can represent how today’s younger adoptees can speak out about their experiences. It is important for our voices as adoptees to be heard – I hope this book contributes to this effort in meaningful ways.

How about you? In what ways were you affected by working on the book?

I think the book really helped me to think about my own adoption experiences and how they have affected how I see myself and relate to my family and friends, to face some of my own fears, and to truly appreciate each day. I recognized that even though I have a PhD, and have written and spoken a lot about adoption, I am on my own journey. Specifically, I realized that my adoption and separation from my birth mother combined with being an only child with parents who divorced really affected how I relate to others and my own fear of rejection. I also realized that for everything I have accomplished in my life, there are others who are farther along in their path than I am, and that is nothing to be ashamed of.

Simply, I’ve grown and I continue to grow. I do not see myself as any better or more privileged, but just someone fortunate enough to have been a part of the project. I’m one of the voices in the book – just one of many who is trying to figure out the Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be?

Judy M. Miller lives in the Midwest with her husband and four children. She focuses her writing on parenting and adoption. Her articles and essays have appeared in adoption and parenting magazines. “Souls Speak” was included in the national best selling A Cup of Comfort series, A Cup of Comfort for Adoptive Families: Stories That Celebrate a Special Gift of Love (Adams Media). “I Can’t Be Loved” is featured in the upcoming Pieces of Me: Who Do I Want to Be? (EMK Press, November, 2009). She is a columnist for the adoption network, Grown in My Heart, an editor for Story Circle Network Book Reviews and blogs at The International Mom.

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Her stories of meeting her daughter in China are haunting in the first feelings of sadness and loss – both for mother and child.  Learning how much she mourns for her daughter’s first months of life and what Grace has already lived through; it was deafening to hear that she could also feel anger and resentment toward this child she fiercely wanted to protect.  That is the poison of PAD – conflict and guilt align to create something that is unlivable on many frontiers.  This is a story of both failure and success as she learns to parent each of her children where they are – and where she is with them.

I suffered from PAD and still live residually with it today.  If you ever felt at a loss or even if you didn’t – this book can transform your day into understanding what it’s like to not fall madly in love with your adopted child.  I ached throughout much of my reading – feeling as though she was writing about me and our lives…I’m sure many others will feel the same way.

To order a copy and read more about Elizabeth and her family, you can order the book from Amazon: Don’t Call Me Mother

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The process is complicated with a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ and most adoptive families can understand that. The story here differs somewhat, in that Dee met Alesia on a choir trip with no intent to adopt. What follows is one woman’s struggle to learn where a child, an adoption and a journey half-way around the world can really take her. Her descriptions of times, places and people are very real and I felt myself being transported back to our time in Russia while reading. It’s a great book for anyone in the adoption world!

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What inspired you to write this story as symbolic, rather than use people?

I chose a flower since it is easy to see how a flower develops from a tiny seed into a beautiful being if it receives good care, and I wanted the story to be fun for a child to read.  Mostly I wanted the child to be able to identify with the seed/flower in their own way. For example, if I used an Asian child as the setting for the story, then it would mostly only appeal to Asian children.

The adoption message is clear for the adults reading the story–did you not use the word “adoption” in the story for a reason?

I purposely didn’t use the word adoption so that the child can interpret the story at his/her own pace in a way that they are ready for.  A parent reading this story with their child could discuss the theme with their child to see what their understanding of their adoption is and discuss it from there.

When you decided to adopt, how did you come to chose trans-racial adoption?

We were quite open to any child when we first considered adoption, but I think we liked the idea of a foreign adoption so that the birth mother couldn’t change her mind (although a disadvantage has been that we don’t know anything about our daughter’s birth mother).  Also, the process of adopting from Vietnam at the time was very quick (only 9 months), and the children are beautiful.

Did you think, at the time, that there would be unique challenges to becoming parents of a child with a different cultural background? Were there fears you had that weren’t realized or did obstacles you didn’t anticipate pop up?
Our adoption agency prepared us for these issues ahead of time, although it wasn’t a surprise to learn about the challenges of raising a child in a multi-racial family.  We have always been very open with our daughter about her background and expose her to Vietnamese culture.  She is proud of her background and likes to tell people that she is from Vietnam.  We know many other families with adopted Asian children, so I don’t think that it seems unusual to her.  I grew up with a Jewish father and Catholic mother, so I can relate to growing up in a “mixed” family, which was quite difficult for me.  One thing that surprised me was how sad I was for my daughter when we flew her out of Vietnam.  I felt like she was being ripped away from her homeland.

As your daughter matures, do you find the challenges of being a multi-racial family change?

Right now my daughter is only 7 1/2 years old, so there will no doubt be issues that arise when she is a teenager.  So far it has been hard when she asks questions about her birth family that we don’t know the answer to, and when she sees how similar I look to my mother and twin sister I think she feels left out.

This is a story that can be read again and again, and each time, your child will be able to take a little more away from the story. With illustrations inspired by Lois Ehlert and Eric Carle (two of Nepa’s favorites), it’s bound to become a favorite on the bookshelf.

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“God has a special purpose in mind for every person created in His image and that includes each one who is learning different!”

This book offers a solid introduction to the world of learning differences.  It provides concise descriptions of eight learning differences, ranging from perceptual dysfunction to emotional problems.  It describes all six types of attention-deficit disorder.  It briefly, but directly mentions adoptive children when referencing sensory deprivation and cultural deprivation or disadvantage.

Author Maren Angelotti also describes commonly occurring forms of parental denial and addresses the fears surrounding many learning differences, even listing some of their advantages.  The book later goes on to suggest discipline and time-management techniques and to provide suggestions for navigating the worlds of public, private and home schooling with a child who learns differently.

Of Different Minds is an excellent resource for Christian parents who have a child who learns differently.  While still an excellent resource for non-Christians, parents should be aware that Of Different Minds contains several Scriptural references, two Bible studies and an overall Biblical perspective.

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