"Adopted: not special, not chosen" is a story about the trauma, the shame and the pain of adoption; the things that adopted children don't talk about. As I grew up, I was always anxious to read anything about adoption. I wanted to know if what I felt was what other adopted children felt. I wanted a book to validate the pain I felt. I never found that book, so now I am writing it myself in the hope that any other adopted child, or indeed, given the "advances" in genetic engineering, any child who has not been born of the woman who conceived and bore him or her, as a result of her ovum joining with the sperm of the man who is the child's acknowledged father, might read it and know that someone else understands the wondering and longing to know, the feeling of being abandoned, the feeling of being different, and the self-doubt, that is his or her legacy. It is important, and normal, for people to want to know their background and where they are from. Calum.
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