Birth Mother: Memoir of a Woman who Placed her Infant for Adoption in the 1960's (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781916707726)

In April 1969, a day before her 22nd birthday, Judith Ellen Bock gave birth to a 5 pound 15 ounce girl in a Tulsa hospital. Under the secrecy of a "NO SHOW, NO TELL" order, even Bock was kept from knowing much of anything about her newborn. Although she consented to the subsequent relinquishment of her parental rights and her daughter's adoption, she was haunted by unresolved grief that she submerged for years under the mantra that she had "done the right thing."

In writing this memoir Bock tries to explain to herself and her readers how anyone could do something as drastic as giving away their own child to strangers. She describes early losses and family influences that caused her to endure emotional suffering and to develop a method of detachment that protected her, or so she thought, from the grief and loss of giving her child away.

Several failed marriages, infertility and a lingering depression caused Bock to seek answers. In this memoir, she takes readers along with her on her journey through counseling, educating herself about adoption issues, and a search and reunion with her lost daughter.

Included in the book is an appendix with resources for more information on adoption, search and reunion, the author's writing journal notes, poems and articles, searching correspondence and a Birth Parent Bill of Rights.