When you work on something as long as I worked on writing Mamalita, you develop little incentives to keep yourself going–at least I did. One incentive that motivated me a lot was the hope that someday, somewhere, someone might read our story and react with: “This book has made me think about adoption in a different way.” If that were to happen for even one reader, I would consider my efforts a success.

Today, Paty LQ posted a blog in which she speaks about how Mamalita did exactly that. She picked up the book at Upstart Crow in San Diego, and read passages from it to her husband. Soon after, they came to my presentation at the Santee Public Library, where we chatted about adoption and my experience with it. That same day, they filed foster-adoption paperwork with the County of San Diego. Paty writes:

Until the moment before I started reading the book I felt that parents looking to adopt were victims of a complicated system.  I felt that the system had become a business and that you had to be very careful of people who will try to take advantage of you.  I felt like when I was planning our wedding and all those vendors tried to take advantage of us, and we had to haggle.  Somehow this felt worst, we were talking about a child (life).  I felt that as potential adoptive parents we were doing a great thing and that people working in adoption should take that into consideration.  While some of the things I mention before I still feel are truth, my eye opener was the other side of the story, the mothers that give up their children to adoption.  This part of the story in the book no longer made me feel as a victim.  My feelings started shifting from unfortunate to blessed.  Now I feel grateful…  My husband and I are thinking about having an open adoption.  

Thank you, Paty, for sharing your thoughts. I’m humbled. I look forward to following your adoption journey on your Adoption Journal blog.

The other good Mamalita news is that the author of one of my favorite blogs, Little Dragon Fruit, loved the book and included it in her latest “Stuff I’m Liking These Days” round-up. In addition to being the adoptive mom to a daughter from China, Sam is hilarious and brilliant, and a great writer. Reading Sam’s blog and keeping up with her fascinating thoughts and life is a highlight of my day. My book and I are ranked at #4:

I’m also loving the book she just published, which I truly could not put down: Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, about her experience living in Guatemala while trying to facilitate her daughter’s adoption.

Check out the rest of what Sam wrote and her entire blog here.

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Tags: Adoption Journal blog, adoptive families, Little Dragon Fruit blog, Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, Santee Public Library, Seaport Village San Diego, transracial adoptive families, Upstart Crow Bookstore

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