Closed adoption, heralded as the answer to the problem of unplanned pregnancy, shows its other side in A Life Let Go, A Memoir and Five Birth Mother Stories of Closed Adoption. These women tell how they experienced unplanned pregnancy in the restrictiveness of the last decades of the twentieth century. All gave up a child in closed adoption--the only option--understanding they would never see them again, a dark contract made under great duress.

The women:

1972: Patricia is not yet 16 when her parents learn she is pregnant. They decide she will stay hidden in the...