The Right Choices? (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781460981412)

The author represents almost the entirety of the adoption cycle. She herself is adopted, she and her husband adopted a First Nations daughter, she and her husband have a biological child, she is a birth grandmother, and a grandmother. The birth of this book arose with the birth of her first grand-daughter. She never imagined her 14-year-old daughter would be pregnant and they would not know until 3 weeks prior to the birth. Her daughter had already decided that she wasn't ready to be a parent, and that she was going to place the baby in an open adoption. Real cultural issues existed; growing up native in a white household, as is her child and an in-road to her culture. The adoptive family withdrew emotionally and eventually stopped contact: no reason was provided, no mediation attempted. Her daughter asked what she had done wrong. The author tried to find out. No answer has been found. That frustration impelled the author to write this novel. There have been long term negative effects of the violation of that promise on the entire family and that have extended into the next generation. The author attended birthmother support groups with her daughter, which helped her gain real understanding of the traumas faced by many birthmothers. The author found and contacted her daughter's birth family. Overnight her daughter became a member of a very large extended First Nations family. She also found and met her birthmother, her half-brother and an aunt. She has waited over 20 years for her half-sister and other half-brother to know of her existence. The author's birth family was directly opposite that of her daughter's family. She was feared and not wanted. The author's work as a Court Appointed Special Advocate has provided further insight to the effects on all parties of the adoption triad. The author lives with her husband in Covington, Washington. Together they are joyfully raising their eldest grandson, and their two youngest grand-daughters. The author drew on her experiences living in Calgary, Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Kailua, Hawaii, and Lethbridge, Alberta to paint pictures of the locales featured in this story.