I am a member of the adoption community and have had the wonderful opportunity—and that is an utter understatement—to read the book, “The Scarlet Thread,” by Yvonne Curri. She is a birth mom, and I am blessed to have her in my friendship circle. “The Scarlet Thread” is a beautifully written narrative of Yvonne’s life events. Yvonne has the ability to educate the reader through humor, but also through raw, real, intense emotions: sometimes happy, sometimes sensual, and, at times, devastating.
The reader will dive right into Yvonne’s pool of words. The book describes the experiences of Yvonne as a little girl fighting through a current of harsh adjectives spoken to her daily by her mother. It leads the reader to Yvonne’s teenage years and into the world of a mature woman still navigating the later years. This story takes the reader into Yvonne’s mind as she falls for a boy, and you sit right next to Yvonne as she and this boy fall in love, and Yvonne experiences pregnancy at the age 19. Yvonne’s mother-daughter relationship is discussed throughout the book in detail as it plays an undeniable role in Yvonne’s complex feelings about her pregnancy, her baby, and her ultimate decision.
Yvonne discusses the history of adoption in the United States in the 1960s and early 1970’s, and the stigma of pregnancy of unwed mothers. “The Scarlet Thread” lets the public inside a home for unwed mothers, and we get to glimpse and feel the emotions, the love, and the loss that go on inside that home. The story does not end at the birth of Yvonne’s baby. It goes on to discuss Yvonne’s relationships after the birth, relationships with her family, her friends, her husbands, and the father of the baby.
Yvonne decides to start a search for her baby in 2010. What she unveils is beyond physical. She unveils emotions that had been suppressed for so many years, and as she begins to deal with those emotions, her heart and soul begin to heal. In this book, the people in Yvonne’s life that have played integral parts in creating her life and who she has become leave her side and then return. Yvonne’s experience as a birth mom is so well characterized through her writing style, the words are beautifully strung into a story of love lost, found, and lost again.
I am an adoptee. I have never been a birth mom, but after reading Yvonne’s story, I know it takes extreme courage and strength to move forward in your life while leaving a piece of you behind. A piece that was a part of you not for a minute, not for an hour, but for nine months, plus a lifetime. “The Scarlet Thread” ties together all affected by adoption, and all of those who believe in destiny.
To find other books about adoption visit adoptionbooks.net.
