Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir
Jessica O'Dwyer, 2010
Seal Press
312 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781580053341
Summary
This gripping memoir details an ordinary American woman’s quest to adopt a baby girl from Guatemala in the face of overwhelming adversity. At only 32 years old, Jessica O’Dwyer experiences early menopause, seemingly ending her chances of becoming a mother.
Years later, married but childless, she comes across a photo of a two-month-old girl on a Guatemalan adoption website — and feels an instant connection. From the get-go, Jessica and her husband face numerous and maddening obstacles. After a year of tireless efforts, Jessica finds herself abandoned by her adoption agency; undaunted, she quits her job and moves to Antigua so she can bring her little girl to live with her and wrap up the adoption, no matter what the cost.
Eventually, after months of disappointments, she finesses her way through the thorny adoption process and is finally able to bring her new daughter home. Mamalita is as much a story about the bond between a mother and child as it is about the lengths adoptive parents go to in their quest to bring their children home. At turns harrowing, heartbreaking, and inspiring, this is a classic story of the triumph of a mother’s love over almost insurmountable odds. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—New Jersey, USA
• Education—University of Delaware
• Awards—National League of American Pen
Women
• Currently—lives outside San Francisco, California, USA
Jessica O’Dwyer is the adoptive mother to two children born in Guatemala. Her essays have been published in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Adoptive Families, and the Marin Independent Journal; aired on radio; and won awards from the National League of American Pen Women.
She has worked in public relations and marketing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and has also taught jazz dance and high school English.
Jessica is a member of the Left Coast Writers and Writing Mamas, sponsored by Book Passage. A graduate of the University of Delaware, Jessica lives with her husband and children in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mamalita is her first book. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Richly written book, part thriller, part love story, part exposé.... [A] cautionary tale.
Adoptive Families Magazine
O'Dwyer's harrowing and moving journey to adopt a Guatemalan baby offers a look into one person's experience in the frustratingly convoluted process of adopting from unscrupulous "facilitators." O'Dwyer had gone through an early divorce and menopause at age 32 before marrying Tim, a divorced dermatologist over 50. They put together an adoption dossier and found an L.A. agency that promised a quick adoption while cutting the bureaucratic red tape. Intent on adopting a certain "Stefany Mishell" (they fell in love with from her online photo), the desperate couple soon discovered that the agency's methods were dilatory and sloppy, neglecting the important legal paperwork, such as filing the requisite DNA test, and using shady notarios (private attorneys), so that in the end the promised six-month adoption extended over a year. Moreover, O'Dwyer's occasional visits to Guatemala, where she met Stefany's foster family and spent a weekend with the baby at the Camino Real hotel in Guatemala City, turned into a permanent residency, as she moved to a city north of the capital, Antiqua, to live with Stefany (now Olivia) until family court finalized the adoption. Dealing with the greedy foster family, managing the baby's early separation anxiety, navigating the middlemen and interminable waiting are all deftly handled in O'Dwyer's somber tale.
Publishers Weekly
Debut memoir about trying to adopt a Guatemalan child amid the adversity of a corrupt system. "I've never given birth," writes O'Dwyer, "but I know the exact moment when I became a mother: 10:00A.M., September 6, 2002"—the moment she and her husband sat in a hotel lobby, awaiting the infant girl they hoped to adopt. Yet this celebratory moment was soon overshadowed by the corrupt Guatemalan adoption system. The author recounts her initial naiveté, how she and her husband shelled out vast amounts of money to adoption facilitators and notarios in order to assist them in wading through the red tape of a foreign adoption. Yet nearly two years and thousands of dollars later, O'Dwyer and her husband remained no closer to their goal. Rather than continue her transcontinental flights, the author quit her job and moved to Antigua to focus on her daughter's adoption full time. This decision led her into the dark side of adoption, a seedy terrain in which she was forced to weave through the barbs of a system set up to exploit the most money and resources from potential parents. Armed only with her elementary-level Spanish, she was forced to rely on a small band of trustworthy Guatemalan officials and potential American mothers struggling through the same experience. Her obsessive quest was constantly hampered by paperwork, signatures, DNA tests and countless other bureaucratic pitfalls. But despite the tragic circumstances, the optimistic author tells a hopeful tale in which she viewed every procedural misstep as a step leading her closer to her daughter. A scathing critique on a foreign adoption system and the harrowing account of one woman's attempt to fight it.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(Author Jessica O'Dwyer kindly provided the following Discussion Questions to LitLovers.)
1. The first scene opens in a hotel lobby in Guatemala City, when Jessica is handed her baby for the first time. She claims to have become a mother at that moment. Do you think that’s possible? When do we become parents? Can you name that moment for yourself?
2. Jessica went through early menopause, which prevented her from creating children “of her own.” For Jessica, adoption was the right choice. If faced with a similar diagnosis, what choice would you make?
3. The country of Guatemala plays an important role in the book. How do you feel about the way Jessica represents the country? Is she balanced in her observations? What did you learn about Guatemala from reading the book? Do you feel you understand it better?
4. Jessica and her husband, Tim, proceed with the adoption despite their growing distrust of Yolanda and Theodore. Were they naïve to trust their facilitators? Should they have abandoned the process and started over with a new agency, and therefore a different baby? How loyal should an adoptive parent be? At what point should they walk away? What would you do?
5. When the foster family invites Jessica and Tim to their home, they are able to see their daughter in her familiar setting, with a family she has lived with for nearly a year and has grown to love, and who loves her. Seeing Olivia with her foster mother is extremely painful for Jessica, because she understands they have developed a strong bond. At the same time, the foster family asks Jessica and Tim for shoes, blue jeans, a new car. What do you think of that relationship? Later in the book, Jessica says, “There is no map for the road on which we are traveling.” Would you navigate the foster family relationship the same way as Jessica, or differently?
6. Jessica and Tim decide to change their baby’s name from “Stefany” to “Olivia” when they learn Yolanda named all the babies “Caitlyn or Emily or Stefany, because those are names Americans like.” How do you feel about their decision? How important is name to our identity?
7. When Jessica sees the DNA photo of Olivia on her birth mother’s lap, she says she grasped the enormity of adoption: “That for one woman to become a mother, another mother had to give up her child.” How do you feel about adoption? Has reading the book changed your feelings? Enlarged them? What have you learned about the process?
8. Jessica and Tim were newlyweds when Jessica made the decision to quit her job and move to Antigua, Guatemala, to live with her daughter and fight to complete the adoption. Was that the right decision? Is it right to potentially sacrifice a marriage in order to become a mother?
9. What defines a mother? Or father. What does it mean to be a parent?
10. Imagine your reaction if, like Jessica, you saw your adoption facilitator caught on hidden camera on national TV, accused of being an “adoption broker.” Jessica decided to hire a professional searcher in Guatemala to find her daughter’s birth mother, Ana, to confirm that the adoption was Ana’s decision, made with free will. Did you agree with Jessica’s decision to search?
11. Most adoptions in the U.S. are “open,” meaning the birth mother and adoptive family maintain contact. In general, international adoptions are “closed,” with no contact. Jessica went against this trend by finding Olivia’s birth mother. Do parents have the “right” to make contact with birth family? Or should the decision to search be left up to children themselves, when they are older? What are the benefits and hazards of each?
12. How important is it to connect with biological family? Has reading the book influenced your opinion on the subject? If so, how?
13. Guatemala endured a 36-year civil war and is now a country in chaos, wracked by violence, unemployment, and drug trafficking. Jessica calls it “the beautiful and flawed country.” Adoptions closed in Guatemala in December 2007. Should efforts be made to reopen the system? Or is the system beyond repair? Is it better for children to remain in their country of origin, even if that means growing up in an orphanage? Families in Guatemala very rarely adopt non-blood relatives. How do you feel about international adoption, in general?
14. In the final scene, Jessica is about to introduce Olivia to Ana. Can you visualize the meeting? How would feel as Olivia’s adoptive mother, witnessing Olivia meeting her birth mother for the first time.
15. Did reading the book change you in any way?
(Questions courtesy of author)
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