Canadian Council of Natural Mothers' Library

Saying Goodbye to a Baby

Volume 1 – The Birthparent’s Guide to
Loss and Grief in Adoption

Patricia Roles

Patricia Roles is a natural mother who relinquished her child for adoption. Having a master's degree in social work from The University of British Columbia, she presently works with teenaged natural parents.

Saying Goodbye to a Baby is a book intended mostly to help pregnant teens assess their options and explain to them what it will be like if they choose adoption.

The author gives a very realistic and clear picture of the pain that the birthmother will suffer. Although most of the book is devoted to explaining the phases of grief and giving advice on how best to cope with this grief and move on, it will be very useful to validate the feelings of natural mothers of another era who were never allowed to grieve and who always wondered if they were the only ones to feel as they did.
This book validates their experience and helps them relive the past in order to deal with it.

Reviewer: Sandra Falconer Pace

© The Canadian Council of Natural Mothers