Product Description

The Baby Boat resonates with the joys and sorrows adoptive parents face. With dry humor and a quietly beautiful literary style, Patty Dann recounts the hurdles she and her husband encountered at every step during their journey to adopt a baby, from the endless waiting, through the heartbreaking loss of the infant girl who might have been their adoptive daughter, to their flight home from Lithuania with their son in their arms. As much an affecting love story as the poignant tale of one couples struggle to adopt, The Baby Boat captures the complex and subtle emotions of an adoptive parents experience.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1662106 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
Patty Dann's The Baby Boat is a poignant, evocative account of one couple's journey to adoptive parenthood. Dann's husband, Willem, is a Dutch citizen given to enchantingly incorrect speech patterns (he calls pinecones "pineapples," and, in a gesture that speaks to the depth and respect in their relationship, Dann never corrects him). "On our first date, my husband asked in his charming Dutch accent, 'Do you want to get children?'" Dann writes, explaining that Willem means "have" children. Yet Willem is inadvertently correct: after battling unsuccessful infertility treatments, the couple begins trying to adopt. Written in journal format, The Baby Boat chronicles the medical treatments, long episodes of waiting and delay, heartbreak when their promised daughter dies unseen, and the trip she and Willem make to Lithuania to claim their seven-month-old son. Dann's spare, understated writing style well suits this journey from emptiness to anticipation to sorrow to joy, as she and Willem finally "get" a baby. --Ericka Lutz

From Booklist
The sad, increasingly familiar story of infertility and longing takes a new turn in Dann's poignant, forthright account of international adoption. Dann records in painful detail the many bureaucratic hurdles and emotional challenges she and her husband faced when adopting an older infant born in Lithuania. The distressing circumstances of international adoption--the uncertainty, the endless waiting, the distance--all became unbearable to the couple when their prospective daughter suddenly died. Their gripping story continues with the hope that they will be united with a seven-month-old boy and their subsequent fear when he, too, takes ill. His recovery, their safe trip home, and their joy at finally becoming parents bring to a happy end a fascinating and moving tale of hope and love. Kathryn Carpenter

From Kirkus Reviews
An anxious memoir of an older Manhattan couples experience of adopting a Lithuanian child. Novelist Dann (Mermaid, 1986) pens a painfully self-conscious but often insightful record of how she became a mother in middle age. There are, however, some curious omissions. While Dann confides in us things we didn't have to know (like how it feels to be making love when your son is calling you), she doesnt explain the genesis of the decision to adopt a child from Lithuania, where the stork is the national bird but where the bureaucracy and residency requirements are nightmarish. An infant female promised to Dann and her husband dies before they can get to the Baltics to meet her. Undeterred, the couple keep trying. The process doesnt get easier: There are many more months of delays, foul-ups, and frustrations. Finally, they tackle the dilapidated justice system in Vilnius itself, and the bureaucratic wheels begin to move. Their second chance at parenthood, however, is nearly lost when the year-old boy they want to adopt gets ill and is confined in a frighteningly backward hospital. In decrepit and chaotic Lithuania, Danns husband, the calm, athletic, and resourceful Willem, proves adept at tracking down scarce medicine, baby food, and diapers. When grilled about their feelings for the child, Willem impresses a tough Lithuanian judge by saying, ``I fell in love with my wife in one day as well. Even in the final pages, with her bundle of joy in hand, the author remains a bundle of nerves. But while Dann is probably too anxious to be an entirely appealing character, she is a frank and droll one, noting at one point, that ``I've lived my life as if I was taking pictures with no film in the camera.'' While this is a far from objective look at the perils and problems of adopting infants abroad, it is a moving and often startlingly honest personal record. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

a funny and poignant happy-ending story of adoption
No wonder Patty Dann's memoir of adoption reads like a novel--she's a novelist! She wrote that movie MERMAIDS that Cher and Winona Ryder and Cristina Ricci were in. You can't put The Baby Boat down; you root for the characters; and you're choked up in some passages, smiling through others. The Baby Boat is a pleasure to read, and it also shows that courage and patience can pay off. Their new baby is a lucky little person, and I've given this book to other couples who are beginning the odyssey of adoption.

An insightful and positive view for a change!
This book provides an entertaining and informative look inside the world of international adoption. Written in journal format, it gives the reader insight which could only be obtained through a personal memoir. There are moments of great hilarity as well as great sadness. But the story has a happy ending, and gives a positive view overall of the adoption process. With so much negative press about adoption in general, this was a breath of fresh air!

The Baby Boat
I read this book and fell in love with it. Couldn't put it down! It is a wonderful book for parents who are in the process of international adoption and for their families who want to know and feel what they are going thru.