Abby’s Road: The Long and Winding Road to Adoption and how Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped received a wonderful review from Reader Views online.

The cover of Abby’s Road

Here is the review:

Abby’s Road: The Long and Winding Road to Adoption

Michael Curry
Curry Books (2014)
ISBN 9780692221532
Reviewed by Daryn Watson for Reader Views (2/15)

Michael Curry’s book “Abby’s Road: The Long and Winding Road to Adoption” shares the trials and tribulations of the author and his wife Esther as they embark on their quest to adopt a baby. After trying naturally and using in vitro fertilization methods, the couple realizes that in order to fulfill their dreams of becoming parents, they must chose adoption.

After waiting four more years, Michael and Esther become proactive with their decision to adopt. They discuss their fears of birth mothers appearing to reclaim their child, similar to what is portrayed in Lifetime movies. They also discussed foreign adoptions and the challenges of obtaining a child from overseas. Eventually they decide on the route of domestic adoption and their adoption adventure begins.

After compiling a very detailed profile about themselves, along with a few dozen photos, Michael and Esther are chosen as suitable adoptive parents from a couple in Long Island, New York.  The expecting mother, Valerie, had previously relinquished two children to adoption and at the age of thirty-eight, her third child would be going to the Curry’s.

Michael Curry has a great way of describing in detail the steps of their journey. He is very witty and entertaining with his delivery of their adoption journey. He describes very well in detail the surroundings of the places he and Esther visit while awaiting the arrival of their bundle of joy from Valerie.  Eventually the baby arrives and the joyous couple make their way back home to Central Illinois to begin their life as new parents.

“Abby’s Road: The Long and Winding Road to Adoption” by Michael Curry is fun, informative and entertaining. As a reader, I gained a great deal of knowledge of what the adoption process is like for adoptive couples. However, the book does very little to educate the public on the experience of other sides of the adoption triad. The trauma and loss that both the birth parents and the infant adoptee experience.  As an adoptee myself, I feel these topics need to be discussed in order to educate the public on adoption trauma. During the update at the end of the book, I would like to have known of any contact (if any) the family had with the birth mother.

Reader Views website with the review is here.

And I agree with the reviewer – it would have been nice to show the adopting parents’ side of the triangle. But unfortunately, in our story, that door was closed by the parents. The birth mother specifically did not want to see the baby or to meet with us. We set up an online photo sharing account with Smugmug and had no visits from her over the past three years. The birthmother called the adoption agency to contact us for the password and information on how to access the picks, and in the next week there was a spike of visits to the site, but nothing since.

I can only imagine what the birth mother thought and felt during the process and afterward. But anything I wrote about it would be a fiction I created,  as I do not know how Valerie felt or feels. That’s very sad.  We kept a letter she sent to us, some of the voice mails she left (so Abby will be able to hear her voice) and the onsie she brought with her when she was in labor. It is the only thing we have to give Abby that was from her birth mother – other than her pretty eyes and pouty profile. The  sweetness she gets from my wife and her temper from me!

We miss Valerie. We never met her, but we’re both very sorry we never got to. Both? I mean all three of us.

“Abby’s Road, the Long and Winding Road to Adoption and how Facebook, Aquaman and Theodore Roosevelt Helped” leads a couple through their days of infertility treatments and adoption. It is told with gentle (and sometimes not-so-gentle) humor from the perspective of a nerdy father and his loving and understanding wife.

Join Mike and Esther as they go through IUIs and IFVs, as they search for an adoption agency, are selected by a birth mother, prepare their house, prepare their family, prepare themselves and wait for their daughter to be born a thousand miles from home.

Winner, Honorable Mention, 2014, Great Midwest Book Festival

Abby’s Road is available at Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Abbys-Road-Long-Winding-Adoption/product-reviews/0692221530/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

at Barnes and Noble here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abbys-road-the-long-and-winding-road-to-adoption-and-how-facebook-aquaman-and-theodore-roosevelt-helped-michael-curry/1119971924?ean=9780692221532

and at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/457270

Original Material Copyright 2015 Michael Curry; the Reader View review copyright its holder or holders.