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Adopting Alesia: My Crusade for My Russian Daughter
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$ 17.40
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| Item Number |
773431 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
What do you do when you encounter a spirited little girl in a Russian orphanage and know in your heart that she is yours and you have to adopt her? For single, childless, 40-year-old Dee Thompson, it began with an astonishing dream of a little girl reaching out to her. Meeting the little girl led to an almost two year odyssey that changed Dee forever. Throughout the adoption, hurdles kept popping up that sent Dee reeling-a job layoff, an uncooperative orphanage director, a boyfriend who broke her heart, friends and family members telling her she was crazy, an uncaring agency that kept telling her to choose a different child-and many others. Despite everything, Dee's faith in God, support from her mother, and single-minded conviction that she had to bring her daughter home helped her stay on course. Letters from her daughter Alesia brightened the long, scary months of waiting. Finally, all the mountains had been moved, and a mother and daughter came home from Russia, a family at last.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 202
Dimensions: Length: 8.4" Width: 5.5" Height: 0.5"
Weight: 0.2 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Jun 1, 2009
ISBN 1932279008
EAN 9781932279009
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Availability 100 units.
Availability accurate as of May 24, 2012 11:02.
Usually ships within one to two business days from La Vergne, TN.
Orders shipping to an address other than a confirmed Credit Card / Paypal Billing address may incur and additional processing delay.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Tears and laughter! Jul 20, 2009 |
This book is an incredible story of one woman's faith, determination, and love for a child she "meets in a dream"; a child she is determined to save from the sickening fate of most older unadopted children in Russia. A child she is determined to bring home as her daughter. I found the story from almost the beginning to the end absolutely riveting. About one-third of the way into it I found myself hanging on to each twist in the story and rooting for the author and her soon-to be-adoptive daughter.
The photograph of Alesia on the front cover made me pick this book up; though I really had no idea what sort of a read I was in for.
I am sure this would be a great book for anyone to read who is considering a foreign adoption, as it is a vivid account of both the emotional and bureaucratic hoops adoptive parents must jump through.
But for me, it was also a great story of faith, love, and the mysterious threads that tie all us, as humans, together.
Also, it's nice and short so you can read it one or two sittings!:) | | | | Engaging and Uplifting Read! Jul 16, 2009 |
| Dee Thompson has written an inspiring book about the struggles and joys of adopting her daughter, Alesia, from an orphanage in Russia, describing the overall experience in vivid detail. Every aspect of the adoption process is beautifully told in this book from the very beginning when Dee first saw Alesia in a Russian orphanage until the happy conclusion when Alesia is finally in her new home. Dee remained steadfast in her determination to bring her daughter home when others would have crumbled under the difficult circumstances she faced along the way. This is an engaging and uplifting read. Anyone who is contemplating adopting an older child from another country should read this book! I also highly recommned Ms. Thompson's other book, Jack's New Family, about a young boy from an orphanage in Russia adapting to his new life after being adopted. | | | | Prevailing Determination Jul 15, 2009 |
Probably what enthralled me the most was Dee Thompson's vivid descriptions of Khabarovsk, Russia. I've neither read much about it, nor ever considered it on my long list of places I'd like to travel to someday. She made a cold, hard place seem downright enticing.
Her adoption plans, initiated in a dream, fulfilled surprisingly quickly as she immediately and literally met the specific girl in her dreams, and then slowly succeeded against all odds in adopting Alesia.
Adoptive parents often fall in love with a potential child through adoption photolistings of waiting children or babies, yet nearly every time, the parent is immediately discouraged by experienced and well-meaning social workers to not get their hearts set upon a particular child, as there are often formidable roadblocks in one's quest.
Added to the struggle equation was the cold, hard, stark reality that no American had ever been able to adopt a child from Topolevo.
Not ever making the reader feel as if this were a pie-in-the sky dream, instead Dee Thompson literally embarked upon a crusade, a single-minded mission to get this one particular older child, Alesia, out of a bleak orphanage with few options in her future.
Weaving in stories about her own life back in Atlanta, the challenges of being a 40 year old single woman with the obvious need to support herself and any future children, and a bit of a love life, readers will find themselves devouring the story, hoping and praying both for Dee and Alesia to be reunited and living together in the United States at some point, to begin their life together, as it truly seemed not only inevitable, but absolutely necessary.
I've had the unique opportunity for the past several years to be peeking in the windows of Dee's home that she now lives in with her two children and her mother via her blog The Crab Chronicles. I knew how the story would end, yet I was breathless with anticipation for Dee to return to Russia in order to bring Alesia home to Atlanta, where it seemed she was destined to live someday, if this headstrong woman had her way.
It made me think about how many more children could be adopted, or how many more orphanages could be helped, or how many more adoptions could be financially facilitated if more people would follow Dee's lead and pour themselves into some sort of a mission somewhere.
A motivating, feel good book with a happy ending, however once fraught with difficulties this journey seemed to be filled with along the way.
Adopting Alesia is a powerful read. | | |  | A mother's journey Jul 15, 2009 |
Being a parent is an amazing thing. I always wanted to have a child, and I was blessed with an amazing, funny, rambunctious boy who smiles and my heart melts. I love him more than I can ever explain. And I thank the dear Lord for the blessings he has given me. But what if that had not happened? What if I hadn't met and married a wonderful man and had my son? Would I have been brave enough and determined enough to find and adopt a child who helped complete my family?
Dee did. I met Dee Thompson online. We live in the same city but only through the power of the Internet did we become friendly. She sent me a copy of her new book when it was published and I just completed it. It is about her struggle and journey of adopting a beautiful 12 year old girl from Russia. Pregnancy lasts only nine months, but Dee's work and labor lasted 18 months. Can you imagine? Knowing you'd met your child, but have to wait that long to make her part of your family.
Dee had a dream one night; a dream that showed her a child. She met that child very soon afterward at an orphanage in the town where her choral group was performing -- in Khabarovsk, Russia. Through much soul searching, faith, prayer and hard work Dee found the will and strength to make an adoption that, at first, seemed impossible. Her memoir of this time in her life shows her character and conviction, her love of God and belief in family.
This memoir chronicles her journey with actual conversations, journal entries, emails and letters written to and from Dee, Alesia and the adoption agency. It has a great deal of information on international adoption, adoption issues, and Russian culture. I had no idea what adoption entailed, let alone how much more difficult international adoption and adoption of an older child could be. | | |  | Disappointed in the mundane storytelling Jul 13, 2009 |
| I heard about this book on an e-mail list and read it in a weekend. I was very disappointed. The author re-hashes every aspect of her attempt to adopt a child who first appeared to her in a dream. The author's degree in creative writing is not apparent in this totally prosaic telling of her experiences, complete with a level of detail that no one but a mother would care about (like the author's losing her coat in the airport somewhere and arriving in frigid Russia without it). And the inclusion of every e-mail exchanged between the writer and her daughter-to-be is tedious (and hard to follow in the beginning, when the translation of the Russian e-mail messages was strained and odd-sounding). This would have been a much better book if the writer had done some research on the plight of teenagers in Russian orphanages, and what happens to them when they "age out" of the care system. Interspersing such information with the more personal story would have given this book a much-needed broader perspective, and would have made the personal story that much more compelling. | | | Write your own review about Adopting Alesia: My Crusade for My Russian Daughter
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