Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Adoption & Fostering

The syndicated sex-advice columnist of "Savage Love" tells a no-holds-barred story of an ordinary American couple who want to have a baby, except that in this case, the couple happens to be Savage and his boyfriend.

One misty evening, Jennings Michael Burch's mother, too sick to care for him, left her eight-year-old son at an orphanage with the words, "I'll be right back." She wasn't.... Shuttled through a bleak series of foster homes, orphanages, and institutions, Jennings never remained in any of them long enough to make a friend. Instead, he clung to a tattered stuffed animal named Doggie, his sole source of comfort in a frightening world. Here, in his own words, Jennings Michael Burch reveals the abuse and neglect he experienced during his lost childhood.

The adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of women into surrendering their children.

The acclaimed writer A. M. Homes was given up for adoption before she was born. Her biological mother was a twenty-two-year-old single woman who was having an affair with a much older married man with a family of his own. The Mistress's Daughter is the ruthlessly honest account of what happened when, thirty years later, her birth parents came looking for her.

Uncovering the mystery of her mother’s disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her family story. In the autumn of 1929, a small child was kidnapped from a Lincolnshire beach. Five agonising days went by before she was found in a nearby village. The child remembered nothing of these events and nobody ever spoke of them at home. It was another 50 years before she even learned of the kidnap.

At only five years old, Saroo Brierley got lost on a train in India. Unable to read or write or recall the name of his hometown or even his own last name, he survived alone for weeks on the rough streets of Calcutta before ultimately being transferred to an agency and adopted by a couple in Australia. Despite his gratitude, Brierley always wondered about his origins.

When Lisa Faulkner learned that she wouldn’t have biological children, her plans and expectations for her life were derailed. But, in the months and years that followed, she discovered that there was more than one way to build a family - and that there is a lot of joy to be found in life’s unexpected detours. In a raw and inspiring story of one woman’s journey through motherhood, family life and self-discovery, Lisa explores the many forms that family can take and discovers the power of embracing your plan B.

A powerful, intimate memoir of Eritrean British journalist Hannah Azieb-Pool, who returns to Eritrea at the age of 30 to meet her family for the first time. In her 20s, Hannah Azieb-Pool is given a letter that unravels everything she knows about her life. She knew she was adopted from an orphanage in Eritrea and that as her adoptive family brought her to the UK, they believed she did not have any surviving relatives. When she discovers the truth in a letter from her brother - that her birth father is alive and her Eritrean family are desperate to meet her.

How to find an outlet for a love that demands expression? Single, in her mid-40s and having experienced a sudden early menopause, the realisation comes to Peggy quietly and clearly: she decides to adopt a child. But the preparation is arduous and the scrutiny is intense. There are questions about past lives, about her own childhood, heritage, capabilities, expectations and identity.