Book excerpt: Adopted at age five, author Elaine Pinkerton hid the fact that her original parents didnt want her. At age ten, she found comfort in keeping a diary and escaped into the world of books. Now, years later, Pinkerton revisits four decades of diaries and offers a look at her life and what it meant to her to be adopted. Based on those forty diaries, she shares her story in The Goodbye Baby. With diary excerpts included, as well as narrative, Pinkerton tells about her journey through the thorny issues of adoption, a search for healing, and an inspiring finale. Praise for The Goodbye Baby The Goodbye Baby is a touching story that will inspire readers, whether or not adoption played a part in their lives. Elaine Pinkerton demonstrates how we can come to understand our inherent worth, regardless of early circumstances. Jann Arrington Wolcott, Author, Brujo So many of us appear fine on the outside. Yet internally we are struggling with a negative belief we developed in childhood, a self-invalidating perception that colored the experiences that followed. The Goodbye Baby reveals a wonderful accomplishment: the full-grown woman who has come to see that she is gem! Martha Davis, Licensed Psychotherapist, Santa Fe, New Mexico In The Goodbye Baby, Elaine Pinkerton reveals the bruises of adoption that impacted her from the tender age of five. Through excerpts from personal journals she kept for forty years, we experience her frustrations and successes as she strives to be good enough for her beloved adoptive parents and in all areas of her later life. Rosemary Zibart, Journalist and Author, Far and Away