title: A Life Let Go: A Memoir and Five Birth Mother Stories of Closed Adoption
author:  Patricia Florin 
description: <span>As an adoptive parent of the 1960s, reading <i>A Life Let Go</i> by Patricia Florin was painful and illuminating. Florin explores her own and other birth mothers' experiences from the time of conception through delivery and "giving the child up" for adoption... This is must reading for adoptive parents, important reading for adoptees, and an occasion for appreciating and celebrating the shared experiences of its author, Patricia Florin. -</span><span>Herbert Long, Th.D.; Diplomate, Process Oriented Psych.; Former Dean of Students and Peabody Lecturer, Harvard Div. School; Adjunct Faculty, Marylhurst Univ.</span><br /><br /><i><span>A Life Let Go</span></i><span>invites us into the amazing transformation possible when the trauma of giving up a baby is healed through love, honesty and courage in this heart rending, inspiring true story of a pregnant teen hiding in the house, frozen and blind to all possibility beyond invisibility, as a baby grew in the dark and a mother weds herself to shame.... I highly recommend these stories of women who have given up their babies due to social mores, family pressure, or emotional and financial limitations....This intimate confessional inspires compassion and deep healing. </span><span>- Becky Hale, Psychotherapist</span><span></span><br /><br /><span>A collection of compelling stories told with great insight and compassion, each so different, yet all reveal the devastating impact of closed adoption and the tragedy of living in a rigid, judgmental society. It is impossible not to feel deeply for each of the mothers, so much so that other mothers will find comfort and support for their own stories, adoptees will gain greater understanding of why they were never forgotten, and adoptive parents will feel empathy rather than fear for their child's original mother. Highly recommended. </span><span>- Carol Schaefer, author of <i>The Other Mother </i>and<i> Searching</i>...</span>
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  > Cadillac Press
  
    
  
    
  
    
  
  Cadillac Press
  
  185 Drummond St. Rd
  
  Drummond, NB E3Y 1V9
  
  Canada
  
  Copyright © 2017 Wendy L. Koenig
  
  All rights reserved
  
  Printed in the United States of America
  
  > This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without
  > permission. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the
  > Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is
  > illegal and punishable by law.
  
  Cover image by Taria Reed
  
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  FIRST EDITION THIS PUBLISHER
  
  Birthright
  
  Wendy L. Koenig
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > Chapter 1
  
  Fiera watched the body of her mother slowly disappear. One-by-one, the
  villagers placed their stones on the woman that had borne her and, until that
  morning, had brushed her hair every day. Her father lay nearby, under his own
  pile, settled from rains that had come too late for her parents. Now Fiera was
  alone. With her parents’ death 