May the Circle Be Unbroken:
An Intimate Journey into the Heart of Adoption

By Lynn C. Franklin
with Elizabeth Ferber

EXCERPT: Life in Reunion

After an often protracted and arduous search, birth parents usually want to establish a relationship with their children as soon as possible. Searching is all about finding a lost child or parent, but once a reunion takes place, energy needs to be refocused on the relationship. Because postreunion goals and expectations are often ambiguous, triad members tend to tiptoe around one another. Figuring out how to incorporate all the new family members into one’s already full life can be a formidable task for even the most grounded of individuals.

Franklin's memoir/study, written with the assistance of Ferber (Steven Spielberg), is in keeping with the current emphasis on open adoption, whereby members of the adoption "triad" (birth parents, adoptive parents, adoptees) have contact with one another. –Publishers Weekly