I had really requested this book b/c this author is a very well-known adoption doctor and so I kind of thought it was more about her (I thought the entire title was just Carried in Our Hearts), but once I got the book itself, I realized it’s just a compilation of adoption stories. Oh well, it was still interesting.
It is a compilation of stories from many international adoptive families, divided and organized into about 6 categories such as: waiting, meeting each other, coming home and getting acclimated, etc. The tales are heartwarming indeed and you walk away thinking, “Gee, this is really a book of how ordinary people can do extraordinary things.” Really. And I am including the adoptive children in this assessment. These kids do completely extraordinary things in being uprooted, in many cases, multiple times (first from birth family, then to an orphanage or foster family, sometimes another transition or two in there even before being adopted, then adopted into [hopefully] a forever family). Kids are so brave and your heart really breaks when you start to think about what these kids go through.
On the other hand, I do think the book has some weaknesses. Not surprisingly, the book draws heavily from Dr. Aronson’s patient lists, so that means the families skew heavily Northeastern/New Yorkers, WEALTHY (if not wealthy, certainly not lacking in financial means), and (in many cases) Jewish. So it’s not really a representative sample of what American international adoption looks like. It is just one snapshot of what SOME adoptive families look like. Nothing wrong with this, just something to keep in mind while reading, I believe.
It also does not focus on long-term acclimation, attachment, etc. Therefore, I think it in some ways paints adoption superficially as “feel-good.”
Lastly, I think the main strength (or the most salient “take-away” for me personally) was only touched upon a bit in Dr. Aronson’s summary at the end. In it, she talks about how the face of international adoption in the US has changed so radically since its height in 2004. Since then, many countries have closed and the entire “operation” has contracted severely. She even has had to reduce her patient days from 5 to 3, b/c the demand is just not there anymore. The effect of the Hague Convention on Adoption cannot be underestimated and, though well-meaning, to introduce transparency, reduce fraud, it had the unintended effect of dampening adoption so heavily that some agencies had to close, some countries had to withdraw from adoptions entirely b/c they were not Hague-compliant, etc. The result? There are still orphans, but they just cannot be adopted. Where are they? Living in group homes, foster homes, orphanages, etc. in their home countires. Adoption people can and do argue and discuss the benefits and downsides of Hague until the cows come home, but Aronson comes down on the side of it being too heavily restrictive. Currently, the only countries that have systemic adoption to the US are China, South Korea, Taiwan, Ethiopia, one more I am forgetting (Colombia?), and the rest are just a few random smatterings, probably arranged privately.