Third Time Charmed: what adopting an orphan taught me about love, loss & luck

by Alex King

Like thousands of childless American couples, Alex and Jane decide to adopt. They file an application, get approved, and travel to Cambodia to meet their new baby. They adopt little Ivy, and fly home as a family. Fifteen months later, they learn that the orphanage director who handed Ivy to them has been arrested--for trafficking children. Concerned, Alex begins to dig. Another trip around the world leads nowhere, and leaves open the possibility that Ivy wasn't really an orphan who needed a family. On their family's third journey to ask about Ivy's history, they finally find some answers. But this true story raises more questions than it resolves, about one family and about adoption as we know it. 'Third Time Charmed' will keep you riveted as one typical American family's international adoption unfolds, in surprising directions. From a seedy office in Phnom Penh to a Congressional office, it's a page-turner. As the governments of Cambodia and the US meet to discuss opening adoption from Cambodia to American families--after a 10-year shutdown following corruption charges against a US citizen--this story is both timely and troubling.

204 pages, Paperback

First published July 12, 2013

About the author

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Reviews

[Shannon Cate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too much written about adoption is overly simplified. It is usually simplified to a "win-win" situation in which a parent gets a child and a child gets a parent. The fact of adoption is that it entails heartbreaking loss for at least as many people as it brings joy.

This memoir unflinchingly presents the complexities that compose adoption--especially international, "orphan" adoption--while not letting go of its joys. It is perhaps most of all a portrait of a tenacious love that keeps the adoptive parents pursuing truth for their daughter against difficult odds and complicated ethics.

Many people confess to adopting abroad specifically to avoid or better conceal the truth from their children. "Third Time Charmed" is a blueprint for what international adoptive parents ought to be doing instead.

[Carla Bastos · Rating 4 out of 5]

A raw and honest look at a complex issue. The reader is along for the international adoption journey from page one. The journey is at once difficult and joyous, exhausting and rewarding. Not for the faint of heart, but a must-read for anyone who has adopted, has been adopted, or is considering adoption--especially the unique and challenging phenomenon of international adoption. Well done!