This is the question that prompted the author to examine, for the first time, her true feelings about the child she gave up for adoption some twenty years earlier. In this collection of email letters and posts to mailing lists, the above question and similar ones are discussed by people from all three sides of the adoption triad: birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees. Topics of discussion include searching for one's birth parents or child, the fallacy of "birthmother's choice," abortion and adoption, and "The Best Adoption Whorehouse in America."
To say this book is an emotional one is a massive understatement: it is by turns heartwrenching and ecstatic; an incitement to anger and a blanket of comfort. I can hardly imagine what it would be like for someone who is a part of the adoption triad (I am not) to read it--I had to put it down a few times and wait for the tears to subside.
Thus, Confessions Of A Lost Mother is not just a book for those of an adoption triad, but for anyone interested in the psychology and sociology of family. In a very personal way, this book brings to light what adoption can really be like--and it's not about turning your back and going merrily on your way, which seems to be a favorite phrase of those who counsel pregnant teens. Read this book only if you are prepared to think and feel--and to have many of your previous notions turned upside down.