Janis Cooke Newman’s memoire on the adoption of her son from Russia (The Russian Word for Snow) is a great read about the challenges of adopting from Russia during a turbulent political time.  Newman and her husband go home with their son at the the end of a roller coaster of a journey fraught with uncertainty and plain lack of information.  Newman captures well the emotional tides of the “waiting time,” the frustrations, the joys and surprising responses in most unusual circumstances.  Such an honest portrayal of what it means in the end to finally go home with your child that was born in your heart, and dealing with the sudden responsibilities of becoming a parent.  “How do we give him a bath?  And am I an awful parent because he cried all the way through it?”  

Published in 2001, the political players are different now, but this is a great account of the emotional, spiritual, and adminsitrative challenges of adoption and the resilience and resourcefulness of parents determined to love. 

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 12:59 pm and is filed under Adoption Pages, Books on Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.