When Mama Can't Kiss it Better, A journey of love, loss and acceptance

WHEN MAMA CAN’T KISS IT BETTER is the raw account of a true story that shocked the nation in 2010. Gertz was America's most hated mother when news of a decision to place her adopted child in another family broke in the media. Called out by many as an unfit mother and an evil woman who threw away her child, she was catapulted into the national and international media. Her daughter, Emily suffered from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, reactive attachment disorder, bipolar disorder, and other disorders. She had never bonded with Lori, her father or her siblings and had begun a spiral of self-destruction that often involved running into traffic and other dangerous behaviors. While Gertz recalls feeling isolated, accounts like hers are not rare. Stories like When Mama Can’t Kiss it Better are not told terribly often because of the stigma and finger pointing. She writes, “The mother is always blamed first when a child suffers from extreme behavioral disabilities.” There are millions of parents who are struggling to raise children with behavioral disabilities, who feel misunderstood, unheard, and judged, and who want to be reassured that there are others like them. With one in four Americans struggling with mental illness (NIMH) every year everyone in this country either lives with mental illness or knows someone who does. The greatest tragedy is that 60% of the adults and 50% of the children suffering from mental disorders will receive absolutely NO services or support for their mental illness. WHEN MAMA CAN’T KISS IT BETTER covers: * The adoption of their daughter Emily, early signs of trouble, their birthmother's suicide, the truth about her pregnancy and warnings about how to avoid what happened to the author and her family * Raw and honest details about her daughter's rages, suicide attempts, and hospitalizations * The turmoil that living with mental illness causes for everyone in the home and how it affects siblings and marriages * The difficulty in receiving support from physicians, educators, & clinicians * The author’s increasing desperation to find answers and help as rages and impulsivity became safety issues * Being judged by doctors, schools, and outsiders as "the problem" while her daughter collected diagnosis after diagnosis * The painful decision to place her daughter in another family and how she came to accept that she had to do the unthinkable * Parents worldwide waging verbal attacks on her since if the fault belonged to Gertz alone, it couldn't happen to anyone else