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| Acknowledgments | |
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| Prologue (B.C.: Before Child) | |
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| To Produce or to Purchase? (Either way, it's gonna cost) | |
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| Could We Love Somebody Else's Child? (What if we get a dud?) | |
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| The Home Study: Mr. and Mrs. Perfect (Your house will never (and need never) be this clean again) | |
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| Meeting Your Child's Mother (What do you wear, what do you say, and how do you look without staring?) | |
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| Expecting Without Pregnancy (Buy the crib, but hang on to the receipt) | |
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| Unspoken Preferences (What matters is what you get, not what you want) | |
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| Excitement or Doom? (There's a thin line between being thrilled and being nauseated) | |
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| Show Time (Labor and deliverance) | |
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| If This Is the Happiest Day of My Life, Why Am I So Sad? (The myth of bliss) | |
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| Why This Baby? (Of all the babies born tonight, how did you get us? Of all the people wanting a baby, how did we get you?) | |
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| A Family of Strangers (Related, but not relatives) | |
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| The Name Game (Should we name him after my family, your family, or her family?) | |
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| Loving Before It's Legal (Parenting without permission) | |
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| Saying Good-bye (Even the right decision can feel wrong) | |
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| Coming Home (Everything old seems new; everything new seems foreign) | |
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| Family Trees Without Roots (Hoping blood isn't thicker than water) | |
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| Motherlove (Babies can make mommies drool) | |
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| Spit-up Is Spit-up (Adopted poop doesn't smell any different) | |
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| Can We Return This Child? (Feelings that top the taboos) | |
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| Should We Send Cute or Ugly Pictures? (Will she want him back when she sees those dimples?) | |
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| Is It Mother's Day or Mothers' Day? (No one's serving her breakfast in bed) | |
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| Adoption: The Ultimate Birthmark (Well, that explains everything, or nothing at all) | |
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| Being Black and Jewish (Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Chanukah) | |
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| Friendly Racism (Are they staring, or am I paranoid?) | |
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| Whites Raising Blacks (Good intentions, bad qualifications) | |
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| Mother and Child Reunion (Is she going to kiss him or kidnap him?) | |
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| Epilogue | |
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| Author's Note | |