Louise Browne and Sarah Reinhardt created The Making of Me as a platform for conversations about all aspects of adoption. But it’s a podcast with a twist. In each episode, the hosts and their guests discuss a book about adoption. In the first season they tackled Nancy Verrier’s The Primal Wound, and now just a few episodes into their second season, they’re exploring another classic, Journey of the Adopted Self, by Betty Jean Lifton.

Meet the adoptee friends who pivoted from operating an ice cream truck to hosting a popular podcast.Can you each summarize your adoption journeys?

Sarah: My bio parents met in their first year of college but went their separate ways after the second semester ended; he went back to New Hampshire, and soon after, he was drafted in Vietnam. I’m not sure if he dropped out of college or what the circumstances were that he was drafted, but he never learned of the pregnancy. My bio mom kept it from her parents—weirdly, she was also adopted!—and on a plane from JFK (she was from Queens) to St. Louis where she was to go to nursing school, her water broke. There was no hiding that from her mother. She was not allowed to even hold me. I was immediately taken from her. I was placed with a foster mother for about six weeks and then adopted into my family. A few years later, they adopted a boy, and when he was five months old, they discovered they were pregnant with twins. They divorced when I was seven, and my brothers and I stayed with my dad (who remarried about five years later). My bio mom had four kids after me (and another she carried almost to term but lost after a terrible car accident)—all of whom were kept. My bio father, who died before I was able to meet him, had three kids, one from a second marriage. So I’m the oldest of seven biologically, and three from adoption. I also have three step-siblings. I met my bio mom and siblings in 1998 and stayed in touch with her until she died in 2009. I’m still in reunion with my sisters.

Louise: My biological mom chose to put me up for adoption in September 1968 after leaving college when she became pregnant with me. She was 18 years old. She’d known my biological father in high school in Colorado, where they dated. From what I’ve gathered, they met up again during the holidays and I was the result of that encounter. My biological father was already engaged to his girlfriend at the time who was also pregnant previous to their encounter. My bio mom took on the journey of having me on her own. My bio dad did know about me and signed off on my adoption. I believe that the decision to relinquish me was made by my bio mother “in her right mind” because I have letters from her to family members who had asked her to consider letting them raise me. She was very insistent that I have a father figure who was strong because of her missing some of that in her childhood and she did not want to see me being raised and not be my mother. She had strong convictions on having me be with an intact family. I do think it critically changed her path. From what I know from relatives, she may have regretted it later in life. She passed away at a young age in a drowning incident so I’ve never been able to ask her. I know who my bio dad is and who many of my family members are from knowing his name and having it confirmed on Ancestry. I have not had a reunion with them. I do stay in contact with my bio mom’s sister and cousins. My parents adopted me through an agency several days after I was born in Denver. They had one biological son and had lost a baby girl a few years prior to me in delivery. My mom could not have more children of her own. I then grew up in Littleton, Colorado

How did you meet?

Louise: Our sons were in elementary school together and we met through a mutual friend.

Sarah: Once we discovered we were both adopted, we became instant friends. Ultimately we opened a business together—a gourmet ice-cream truck in Los Angeles.

How did you decide to do a podcast about adoption together and what was your goal at the start?

Sarah: Adoption was what we initially connected over, and we had talked about starting a podcast. We were tossing around ideas and finally we were, “Uh, duh! We should talk about what we both know.”

Louise: Honestly, we didn’t really have a goal except to hear adoption stories and connect with other adoptees.

How did you find and build your audience? Were you already connected with a number of adoptees or with the adoptee community?

Sarah: We were not connected with the adoptee community. In fact, we didn’t even know there was such a thing until a few months in and we found Adoptee Twitter. Our initial audience came from word-of-mouth and friends listening and sharing, and then we started to build a following because people related to the stories and our connection with each other.

Louise: And then it took on a life of its own. People started reaching out to us to thank us, asking to be on the podcast and share their stories.

There are a number of adoptee podcasts – how do you describe The Making of Me?

Louise: I’d describe The Making of Me as more of a conversation around adoption. First we discuss a chapter of an adoption book. in Season One it was The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier, and Season Two is Journey of The Adopted Self by Betty Jean Lifton. After we discuss the book, we bring on a guest to tell their story.

Sarah: I think what draws people to the podcast is that even though it’s a deep topic, we bring levity and honest back-and-forth with our guests.

How and why did you conceive of the idea of linking chapters of books to adoptees’ stories?

Sarah: The chapter discussions are not necessarily linked to the stories. It’s kind of its own thing that we do together before we bring a guest on. But every chapter, every adoptee can relate to.

Do you plan to continue basing the podcast on books about adoption, and if so, do you already have thoughts about books you want to highlight in the future?

Louise: We plan on continuing to base it on books about adoption, at least at this moment. We’ve got a list we’re going through. We’re thinking possibly about a memoir by an adoptee for our next book.

Louise, on your website bio, you write about learning that your birth mother had been killed in an accident, saying “This piece of information proved to be a touchstone between the guiding and protective voice in her head and the events of the past.” Can you say more about that and what you mean by that?

Louise:  My bio mom’s family found me when I was 32 years old due to my bio grandmother being terminally ill. I learned the night that I got the call about them finding me that my bio mom had been killed in an accident when I was in the 2nd grade. This just made sense to me. I was overwhelmed, saddened but not that surprised, strangely. My entire life from around the fourth grade until my late 20s, I felt that I had a voice that protected me. Not my own internal voice, but a voice that would set me on the straight and narrow or give me warning signs when I was going off track too far. I always felt that it was ‘otherworldly’ and I have had many experiences since childhood with sensing people from beyond. When I found out that she was no longer on this earth I wasn’t shocked. I sort of knew this internally. It’s hard to explain. When I found out that she had passed away, I stopped having this sixth sense or voice in my head.

Louise, you’ve said that hosting the podcast has been life changing? In what way?

Louise: The way it has changed my life is that I never really had the experience of community with other adoptees. I have had adopted friends (many in fact), but when we touched on deeper issues about adoption that we all felt, I almost feel like we were scared to broach the topic. We would bond immediately over certain shared experiences that I couldn’t relate to others about, but would be a bit guarded about anything after that. I now have a sense that I can be more open to explore parts of myself that I have kept to myself and haven’t been able to describe or flush out. It is freeing and a bit scary.

Can you both describe your understanding of what is meant by being in the fog or coming out of the fog?

Sarah: How I see it, it’s waking up from the narrative I was told my entire life; I was “lucky,” I was “chosen”—and that was the end of the story. It’s having my eyes opened and understanding that was only the beginning of the story— seeing the deep trauma, how that first relinquishment (and subsequently second from my adopted mom and emotional abandonment from my adopted father) altered the course of my life, affecting almost every decision I’ve made, how I felt about myself, how I relate to people and the world around me. It’s been enlightening and also a grieving process. I’m getting to know myself in a different way. Even though there’s been some grief, it’s also been liberating because I now know I’m not alone, I’m not a freak, and I can begin to heal in a new way.

Louise: The concept of the fog perplexes me somewhat. I do feel I have crossed a line that I hadn’t crossed before in exploration and understanding of what some of my deeper issues are and what caused these issues (where they may have stemmed from). I’m not sure I had the understanding of the deeper core reasons as to why they were there before this. That feels amazing. So, yes, that does feel like coming out of a fog. I understand the fog and how important it is in describing these feelings. I feel I may always be moving through this fog and not just stepping out of it. Or stepping out and then maybe going back in. Maybe it’s a place I may always be in or out of? The way I can best describe it for me is like I am living in it and some days it is sunny and clear and other days it is so thick it may rain. I now feel that I am on a journey that has shifted, and wherever it takes me, I’m excited to have a deep understanding of myself. I feel calmer with this new insight and have developed some grace (for lack of a better word) in looking at the situation from many angles. I am not sure how else to describe it. I hope that makes sense.

What has most surprised you in the course of doing the podcast? What story most affected you?

Sarah: What has been most surprising for me is how far and wide the reach has been, and how many people want to connect, tell their stories, and just tell us how much they relate. And again—the community that I never knew existed!

All the stories have affected me in one way or another, but there are a couple that stand out. Sam, who was an LDA and didn’t find out he was adopted until he was in his early 50s with a life-threatening kidney disease. He had humor in dealing with it. Rachel, whose birth was the result of a violent act, and the grace in which she lives her life. And John, who was part of Operation Baby Lift out of Vietnam! Everyone’s story is so unique and yet the same. I love that.

Louise: I am going to echo Sarah here. I’m blown away daily by those who want to share their stories bravely and connect with us via many means. I feel so honored to have others reach out to us and tell us about their struggles and why they are ready to share their stories. It makes me care greatly about what we are doing and wanting to make sure we let others tell the truth as it is for them. Adoptees and our guests are so resilient, have great humor, and also have such deep souls. I’m grateful I’ve had this time to share with them and to grow in this along with my friend Sarah. Each story is my favorite when it comes out and after our interviews.

From your experience after so many episodes, what do you think is most misunderstood about adoptees by people who are not adopted?

Sarah: People who aren’t adopted don’t understand that it’s a trauma from the start—the “primal wound.” They assume the narrative that we were told—we’re “lucky,” we’re “chosen,” we were “spared a terrible existence.”

Louise: I think they don’t understand that babies carry that trauma on a cellular level. It seems that the mainstream general public hasn’t dug into hearing what adoptees have to say and focuses more on the adopters.

How much were you aware of the adoptee community when you began doing the podcast?

Sarah: How about this—ZERO awareness of the adoptee community! Isn’t that crazy?

Louise: For me, it’s been eye-opening and so informative. We’re really grateful for the community.

As with most communities, the adoptee community isn’t always unified in its beliefs or in its approach to advocacy. Has that ever been an issue for you as you’ve been working on the podcast?

Louise: We had a couple of bumps, mainly to do with being new in the community but because we were open to listening we’ve been welcomed by mostly everyone.

What do you love, if anything, about adoptee Twitter, and what, if anything, do you not love about adoptee Twitter?

Sarah: We love the community, that there are others who have gone through and feel the same as we do—mirrors that we never had, really. We love hearing about issues that we’d never heard in a public forum.

Louise: What can be difficult is that sometimes it feels black and white – not much nuance. If you don’t agree, then you are wrong – no middle-ground. Sometimes legitimate feelings feel dismissed if they’re not the exact same as others.

Why is it important for adoptees to share their stories?

Louise: It’s important to share stories so we can connect as a community, have a safe space to tell your story to people who understand you. We’ve talked to people who have never told their stories and listened to our podcast and found the courage to finally want to talk.

Sarah: It’s liberating to tell your story and be heard with love and compassion.

As advocates for adoptee rights, what do you think is the most significant issue that needs to be addressed?

Sarah: For starters, taking a look at why there are so many infant adoptions. If it’s really about wanting to be a parent, why must it be a baby? Someone else’s baby? Prospective adoptive parents might want to examine—is this about parenting or is this about wanting a baby for our own needs?

Louise: Take profit out of adoption. Resources to birth mothers and families—making keeping that family together the priority. Putting that first, not the needs (or wants!) of the prospective adopters.

Sarah: Legal guardianship rather than adoption (in most cases) is a better option. And NOT changing the child’s name. Why? Just, why is that even a thing anymore?

In Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, prolific essayist Melissa Febos, author of the memoir Whip Smart; Abandon Me; and the bestselling essay collection Girlhood, blends memoir with insight and guidance about the art of writing, primarily for an audience of memoirists.

Why highlight a book about the craft of writing in a magazine for adoptees, donor conceived people, and others who’ve experienced misattributed parentage? What does it have to do with you?

Possibly everything.

You needn’t be a writer to be inspired and educated by Body Work. The author’s razor-sharp insights are pertinent to anyone who wants to excavate their own truths; interrogate their traumas and their shame; and, especially, take ownership of their narratives.

To be adoptees or NPEs* means that part of our stories—the most foundational parts—were taken from us before we could ever know them. They were stolen for a host of reasons, but typically to keep others from facing uncomfortable truths—a theft that not only deflected shame from them but projected it onto us, suggesting that we are its source. Secrets were kept from us, and our stories were rewritten to better fit others’ narratives and preserve their integrity at the expense of our own. Our stories may be hidden behind closed doors, guarded by gatekeepers who insist we have no right to try to open them. If we persist and manage to unlock the doors, those for whom secrecy was in their best interest may tell us that what we discover is not ours to share. Sometimes we tell ourselves these lies.

Right out of the gate, Febos blows up any responsibility we might feel to hold tight to our stories and privately tend our traumas, and she positions storytelling as a strategy of reclamation. “Writing,” she says, “is a form of freedom more accessible than many and there are forces at work in our society that would like to withhold it from those whose stories threaten the regimes that govern this society.”

In those words it’s easy to see the adoptee/NPE world as a microcosm of that larger society—in which the secret keepers who are threatened by our stories try to inhibit our voices. In this regard, her prescription is equally apt: “Fuck them. Write your life. Let this book be a totem of permission, encouragement, proof, whatever you need it to be.”

In literary criticism, the genre of memoir has been a durable punching bag, dismissed and derided—despite is popularity—as a vain and trivial exercise in “naval-gazing.”  It’s a judgment that tells would-be storytellers their histories aren’t worthwhile and their traumas are unseemly—not for public consumption. Febos annihilates the argument and makes a compelling case that personal narrative can be healing to the teller at the same time it’s a balm for readers. Writing, she says, “has become for me a primary means of digesting and integrating my experiences and thereby reducing the pains of living, or if not, at least making them useful to myself and to others. There is no pain in my life that has not been given value by the alchemy of creative attention.”

She brilliantly explores what’s behind the dismissal of the form and, in particular, the admonition not to write about trauma, and turns the criticism on its head, asserting that writing about trauma is subversive and that resistance to the stories of oppressed people “is a resistance to justice.” Telling one’s story, Febos says, is, in fact, a requirement for recovery from trauma and for integrating the experience into one’s life.

To everyone who’s bought into this idea that trauma is a private matter not suitable to written expression, she’s emphatic: “Listen to me: It is not gauche to write about trauma. It is subversive. The stigma of victimhood is a time-worn tool of oppressive powers to gaslight the people they subjugate into believing that by naming their disempowerment they are being dramatic, whining, attention grabbing, or else beating a dead horse. By convincing us to police our own and each other’s stories, they have enlisted us in the project of our own continued disempowerment.”

Febos acknowledges secrets as the seed of almost all her writing and recognizes the power of untold secrets to imprison. She argues that writing can liberate us both from our fears about the subjects we hesitate to write about and form the isolation we feel about them, demonstrating to ourselves and readers that we’re not alone.

The third of the book’s four essay chapters, “A Big Shitty Party: Six Parables About Writing About Other People,” will be of special interest to many NPEs who wonder how to tell their stories when doing so may cause collateral damage. Febos asks who has the right to tell a story and offers perspective for how to look at the ethical issues that may arise when the narrative you have to share could upset or wound others.

Whether you wish to write to publish or to simply to bear witness and feel heard, there’s much in Body Work that will validate your aspirations and inform your process. Febos inspires and encourages and insists not only that personal narratives are valuable but also that creating and sharing them are imperative. If you’ve been shamed, made vulnerable, been traumatized, told that your story isn’t yours to tell, Body Work will speak to you.

*NPE: not parent expected, non-paternal event, non-paternity event—BKJ

By Sherrie L. KappaMy biological mother met my biological father in Alexandria, Virginia. I was told she met him after she had locked her keys in her car and he was a local fireman who came to help her.

I was born in 1961 in West Virginia and adopted by a family that had a 9-year-old biological daughter. My adoptive father was a coal miner and a pastor of a church, and my adoptive mother did not work.

They had not planned to disclose my adoption to me, but I learned about it by accident when I was 13 years old and  found a letter my adoptive mother had written to another pastor’s wife in which she stated she had two adopted children—a teen daughter and a young son. My best friend was there with me and she confirmed that I was adopted and that everyone knew but me. Too scared to ask my often abusive, narcissistic mother, I waited until my father came home from work. He verified that it was true. He was a sweet man and hated lies. I think it was a relief to him.

That weekend he took me to meet my biological mother. He said he’d met her when she was only a few months pregnant. She was a waitress in a bar, and he was at the bar, he said, trying to save souls. He told her that she should be taking better care of herself, and she told him that she didn’t want the child and that he could have it when it was born. He gave her his phone number. In September of that year, she called and told him I had come early and was sick. I’d been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, and the doctors transfused my blood. My biological mother signed the forms to relinquish me for adoption and left the hospital before my adoptive parents arrived to pay the hospital bill and bring me home.

Several months after I found out about being adopted, I ran away to my biological mother’s home and met three half siblings. I learned that she’d also relinquished a 6-year-old son the same year I was born. My birthmother called my adoptive father to come pick me up and also called police to scare me into not coming back. Needless to say, I did not have any further contact with my birthmother until my older brother came looking for me when I was 16.

My adoptive father had a heart attack and died that same year, after which my adoptive mother decided I needed to work to pay rent, so I attended high school during the day and worked a full-time job at night at the local hospital. On my days off, I cleaned for her. She took my entire check every month. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, unless you’ve lived through it. She informed me that I would not be going to college; she wasn’t going to pay for a child that was not her blood.

I graduated high school when I was 17, immediately married my brother’s best friend, and got out. About six months later, we moved to the same town in which my biological mother and her family lived. My biological mother adored my husband, and this paved the way for me to try to be a part of her life. I lived right up the street from her house for four years, and although she never once visited me, I was invited to her home on the rare occasion. I believe I valued those visits much more than she did

I asked my birthmother who my father was. She said his name was Bennie H., he lived in Mockingbird, Texas, and worked for Bekins Transportation. She said he had blue eyes and his wife was Chinese, but she didn’t know much else. She’d  told him she was pregnant, and he took off. For many years I tried to find Bennie H. I called Bekins. I found out there is no Mockingbird, Texas, so called Information for towns all over the state. Most of the operators were kind; they would give me five numbers and five addresses at a time. I wrote nearly 100 letters. And when I had the money, I called as many numbers as I could.

In the early 1980s, along came the Internet, and I wrote or called every Bennie H. I could find, without luck. Lots of Google searches, lots of Yahoo searches. I couldn’t find any Bennie H. in Texas.

My life often interrupted my search, but I never gave up. I worked full time, divorced, re-married, and raised a son. I went back to school to obtain a degree, often working two jobs.

Along came Facebook. Same searches. Nothing new.

In 2016, my best friend and I discussed her search. She was looking for a grandfather, and she suggested I join a Facebook group for people using DNA to search for family; she also suggested several DNA testing sites that she was using. I sent my test to Ancestry and found a group on Facebook that had “search angels.” They pointed me toward several adoption registries, and I signed up with all of them.

About three days later, I got an email that one of the Angels had found a Bennie H. in an old 1961 Dallas city registry.  And there he was, listed as living on Mockingbird Lane. As it turned out, this was actually the address of Bekins, his employer. He lied to my mother so she wouldn’t track him down. The “angel” also gave me information on a Bennie in Kansas and one in North Carolina.

I called the number in North Carolina. It was the right one. I talked with his brother, and Bennie had been there all along, about a three-hour drive from my front door. He had died just eight months before my call. I talked to an aunt and uncle who told me about two sisters on the east coast and two in Texas, but they didn’t want to give me any other information. But I stalked, and within two days I had the married names and the telephone number of all four sisters.

I called and I wrote to each of them. We talked and texted and became friends. A few months later, I met two of them and the uncle on the east coast, and we made plans for all five sisters to get together. They shared pictures of Bennie, and although he didn’t look like me, I tried really hard in my head to make my blue eyes look just like his. And the curl in my hair to match his. And in my mind, his father, my grandfather, looked so much like my son.

I obtained his military records and learned that he has O+ blood, which I’m pretty sure my biological mother has as well. I am A negative—slightly rare, though not enormously so. So I called my maternal half-sister and asked if she thought our mother has type A blood. “Oh sure”, she says, “she does.”

I’d been asking the eldest paternal sister to do take an Ancestry DNA test so I could see “sister” come up on my computer screen. While waiting on my own DNA test results, I built an extensive Ancestry tree, tracing Bennie all the way back to 1040, to the original “H.”

Nine months into this journey, the eldest sister finally took the test.

In the middle of this madness, I received my DNA test results and saw those Hs. Among my matches was a second cousin, Leslie, who contacted me. She wasn’t from the H family, she said. “We’re the C family and you are my cousin.” We puzzled back and forth about this for several months, but we couldn’t seem to agree on how we were related so I let it go.

When my new paternal sister’s DNA results came in, they showed that we are not a match. They were Bennie’s children. I was not his child. We share cousins approximately six to eight generations back. We connect to the same H ancestors I observed among the 1,500 or so DNA matches. I cried. My new “not my sisters” cried. I have been looking for these girls all my life. I’d become attached. I loved them.

But they don’t belong to me at all. They are not family. They told me it didn’t matter, but oh boy, it sure does.

My mother at that point was old and sick so I didn’t call her directly to ask again who my biological father was. Instead, I called my maternal half-sister. She asked my mother, and my mother once again lied, insisting that Bennie H. was my father. She said the DNA was wrong and I was lying. I upset my mother, and my sister told me never to contact them again—any of them. A few cousins still talk to me on Facebook, but I won’t be getting any invitations to the family reunions.

After crying on the phone to an Ancestry representative for nearly an hour, asking if my DNA results could somehow be wrong, the representative explained to me that DNA does not lie. With her help, I started over with my Ancestry DNA tree. My new tree had only two leaves—one for me and one for my biological mother. Within a day, new half-sister, Lisa, turned up in my matches. I contacted her, and she said it was possible that we were sisters, that her father had many extramarital affairs. But, she said, he was mean, an alcoholic, and a pedophile, and the four living siblings didn’t want anything to do with me. I cried more. My new family didn’t want to talk to me at all. They were ashamed that I was alive. Two others are already dead and don’t get an opinion. She gave me that one day in which to ask questions, which she answered, and then she blocked me on Ancestry and on Facebook, as did all her (my) other siblings and their children.

I pull up my bootstraps and keep going on in this mad world.

But I have my father’s name—the real one—William C. And pictures shared on Ancestry. In them is my face, my son’s face. There’s no denying this DNA. By gosh, I actually look like someone.

I am one of 12 children between these two biological parents, and none other than my younger maternal half-brother wants me. He tries, but he has his own very full life with not a lot of time for a sister four hours away. He doesn’t want to get in between all the madness of my relationship with my maternal siblings and my biological mother, who don’t want me in their lives, but he and I do talk, and he is my one and only lifeline.

My adoptive siblings, a brother and a sister, now no longer talk to me either. They told me years ago that I should not have tried looking for biological family, that I should have been happy with the one I had. They say that they know I never wanted to be in their family. (They’re most certainly right about that one.) So I’ve had to let them go as well.

As for my friends and cousins, I wish they’d stop saying, “But at least you had a good family to raise you.” They only see what I have allowed them to see. I’ve gone through the gamut of emotions over this: anger—lots and lots of anger; grief over of losing someone I never met, over losing someone I looked for 40 years, over losing sisters that were not my sisters. I feel disconnected every single day.

I’m not putting all this out here so anyone will feel sorry for me. My story is much nicer than that of many I have read. I now know my truth. I have a wonderful husband. He works hard, he loves me, and is my best friend. I have the very best son. He’s much like his dad—he works hard and he loves his momma. He has a hard time with relationships though; he’s had no family around him growing up—no aunts, uncles, cousins, or siblings. No one. Much like me. All alone, always. He doesn’t want children. And his aloneness makes me saddest of all.Sherrie L. Kappa lives in North Carolina with her husband and fur baby. She’s a medical staff professional and volunteers with a DNA research group. To date, she’s helped 34 individuals find and connect with their biological family.

By Sara EasterlyAdoptees are used to others telling our adoption stories—to us and for us. This makes sense to some degree, considering many of our adoptions took place at a preverbal time in our lives. And it takes time, developmentally, to grasp the concept of adoption—let alone make sense of relinquishment’s effects on us.

But at a certain point in our growth process, it becomes essential that we, as adoptees, take the lead with our stories. We’re the survivors of relinquishment. We know adoption from the inside. We alone have experienced the complicated mix of emotions swirling inside—many of which we’ve hidden or pressed down upon out of overwhelm, denial, peacekeeping, shame, fear, or because we prioritize our feelings last. Our voices matter—for our emotional health and for that of the adoption narrative.

Sometimes we don’t fully understand our emotions, or their depth, until we put pen to paper and our unconscious feels free to flow. But organizing our thoughts into story form—through journaling, memoir, essay, fiction, or poetry—can help us make sense of the past with an eye toward future growth.

What’s more, others in the adoption constellation need our perspectives. Fellow adoptees need to know they’re not alone. Each time we write and share our stories, we’re helping normalize dynamics that others may be struggling with in isolation. Historically, adoptive parents’ voices have taken center stage. But without adoptee voices, adoption-related literature falls flat (and very often gets it wrong). Our words can and do make a difference.

Supporting Adoptee Voices

It’s for these reasons that Adoptee Voices came to be—offering writing groups for adult adoptees and creating another space for publishing adoptee essays, poetry, and articles. Through the groups, Adoptee Voices offers:

• Dedicated writing time
• Adoption-specific writing prompts
• Writing accountability
• Community with other adoptee writers
• Publishing and writing advice

With Fall on the horizon, Adoptee Voices is preparing to launch its next writing groups for adoptees:

Craft & Publication-Oriented Writing Group: Eight Wednesdays Starting September 8th

This writing group meets and writes together online, with a focus on the craft of storytelling, writing with publication in mind, and marketing to agents, publishers, and readers. Adoptees can write from weekly prompts or bring their current works-in-progress. After writing together in community, we break into small groups for sharing our writing and giving/receiving feedback. Led by Sara Easterly (Searching for Mom), Ridghaus (Six Word Adoption Memoirs), and Alice Stephens (Famous Adopted People).

Writing as an Emotional Playground: Eight Mondays Starting September 13th

Meeting and writing together online, this group is focused on writing as an emotional playground. Adoptees can write from adoption-specific prompts designed to help explore the unconscious and play with emotions through words. Small groups help to create a supportive environment and build community. Led by Sara Easterly (Searching for Mom), Jennifer Dyan Ghoston (The Truth So Far and Once Upon a Time…in Adopteeland), and Kate Murphy, LCSW (The Couchblog).

For a taste of the writing that other adoptee-writers have shared from the writing groups, visit adoptee-voices.com/e-zine.

Registration for both Fall groups is currently open, but spaces are limited. Adult adoptees can find information and register by visiting adoptee-voices.com.Sara Easterly is an adoptee and award-winning author of books and essays. Her memoir, Searching for Mom, won a Gold Medal in the Illumination Book Awards, among many other honors. Her essays and articles have been published by Psychology Today, Dear Adoption, Red Letter Christians, Feminine Collective, Her View From Home, Godspace, and others. Find her online at saraeasterly.com, on Facebook, on Instagram @saraeasterlyauthor, and on Twitter @saraeasterly.

Read her essay on Severance here.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles and essays about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

If you’re willing, could you summarize your own adoption experience?

I was adopted as an infant in a closed domestic adoption. I searched in my early twenties for my first mother and had a brief reunion before she chose secondary rejection. I reunited with my biological father when I was 27, and we are in a decade-long reunion, including my three siblings who are now young adults.

On your website you describe yourself as an introvert, which probably would come as a surprise to anyone listening to you for the first time. You seem remarkably at ease conversing with everyone and did from the start. Is that a great challenge for you or does it come as easily as it appears to?

I have always loved having deep, in-depth conversations about meaningful topics with one person at a time. If you put me with a group, even with ten of my closest and dearest people, I will be awkward, uncomfortable, and questioning my life’s choices. One-on-one feels natural, and being in the role of interviewer gives a permission that I would love to have in everyday life: ask any questions that pop into my head, even if they’re invasive.

I find you describing yourself as an introvert also surprising because you stood on a stage and did stand-up comedy. That’s not something many introverts can do. Tell us about stand-up comedy—what was your experience and what has it done for you? How if at all does it relate to the experience of adoption?

My brief foray into stand-up comedy came from a desire to add to my interviewing toolkit (and reduce my public speaking nerves). The Adoptees On podcast covers challenging topics, often with a heaviness that can feel unbearable. I need to occasionally add levity into our conversations. I took a stand-up class with maybe a half a dozen others for six weeks. I loved my teacher. He asked us to lead with our story and personal experiences vs. “telling jokes,” which was much more in line with what I wanted to do. The class finished with a public performance of our comedy sets. It was fully one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done. Generously, the audience did indeed laugh at my set. I’ll always be proudest of my first joke, “The best part about being adopted is never having to think about your parents having sex.” For the adopted people that listen to my podcast, finding good things to think about our adoption experience can sometimes be hard to come by.

I would say relating to the experience of adoption, for many of us, the loss of connection to our biological mothers was the worst thing that ever happened to us in our lives. The relinquishment trauma is real. To do a terrifying thing by choice felt incredibly stupid and like the worst thing in the moment, but afterwards the euphoria carried me for several days.

Did you anticipate Adoptees On becoming quite the phenomenon it’s become and that so many people would be listening?

I never expected Adoptees On to become what it has. My show gets between 20,000 and 25,000 downloads a month and has had 650,000+ downloads all time. Podcasts are a very slow build unless you have some sort of celebrity name associated with them or already have a massive following. There’s this draw to podcasting because it seems easy to do, and people wrongly think that with podcasting comes instant fame. It’s safe to say that Adoptees On is in the top 15% of all podcasts.

You’ve created an extraordinary space for adoptee voices. Why did you start Adoptees On? What purpose did you hope it would fulfill?

I started the podcast because I felt alone. I struggled and lost my first reunion with my biological mother to secondary rejection. I struggled in my second reunion with my biological father and was convinced I was the broken common denominator. I was able to find adoptee blogs to help me feel connected and was building friendships with several other adult adoptees on Twitter. They were the only ones that “got it,” and I had the deep desire to be able to hear all of their experiences so I wouldn’t feel so alone. I have loved podcasts for years. To give the hipster answer, I loved podcasts before they were cool. I listened to podcasts walking to and from university all the way back when I had to download them on iTunes on my desktop computer and transfer them over to my Sony mp3 player and then later my video iPod in 2005. In 2015, I happened to be listening to two different indie podcasts that both had episodes about “how to” podcast. They weren’t shows about that. They both independently had gotten a lot of questions from listeners and shared what they were doing. I had that lightbulb moment—I could do that! Lonely adopted me had found the secret way in. Podcasting meant I could interview adoptees to feel connection. It seems selfish as I look back on that motivation, but I’m thankful it hasn’t stayed that way. It has instead become a way to build connection for many adult adopted people that feel/felt like I did.

Can you tell readers who may not be aware of it about your other podcast?

I do indeed have a second podcast. It’s behind a paywall so a lot of people don’t know about it. I wanted to have something to give as a thank you when listeners signed up to support Adoptees On monthly on Patreon. It’s called Adoptees Off Script, and my main co-host is Carrie Cahill Mulligan (she was my first guest on the main feed, and one of my first adoptee Twitter friends!). We chat about adoptee/adoption news articles, upcoming events of note, personal things that I never talk about on the main show (like what I’m talking about in therapy), and we also have this amazing book club where we read adoptee-authored books once a month. It’s a whole other wealth of resources, but more fun with a mix of serious and silly. I try hard to leave it almost all unedited, so you hear my mistakes and all. It’s one of my favorite things I do. It’s also one of those things where I’m sure I put my foot in my mouth at least a few times a month. It feels safe to talk with Carrie and so I probably dish a little more than I should. We wrap every Adoptees Off Script episode with things we’re loving right now, none of which can be adoption-related. Think book recommendations, movies, podcasts, recipes, products, and one of my latest loves was this gigantic disco ball I bought used from FB marketplace. It’s a rich tapestry.

How important is it for adoptees to feel heard and be seen?

I don’t know if there is anything more important. Having validation of our experiences has been the number one healing tool for many of us.

I believe that storytelling is healing and gives people agency—that it’s healing for the teller and the listener. Can you talk about why you think it’s important—the role you think storytelling plays in healing or in coping? What do you believe both the storyteller and the listener get out of the conversations you have?

I remember once talking with an adopted person in their fifties and they were sobbing as they finished telling me some of their story, “No one has ever heard this before.” Imagine going five decades and hiding the most intrinsic part of your story from both yourself and everyone around you.

Sharing our story is undeniably scary, especially when expressing any amount of discontent or pain with the thing that all of society has always told you is the best thing that could have happened to you. It’s a huge risk sharing a story that includes a narrative that’s contrary to the dominant one—the risk being that of denial or rejection by the listener.

My intent is that when a guest is sharing their story with me, I give them my full attention. Questions come up organically that I’m curious about or that the future listeners will be wondering, and as we dive deeper I almost always empathize and identify with many of the things they reveal. I know my listeners empathize and feel seen even while listening because there is almost always a part of the guest’s story that is relatable. My highest hope is that listeners know they aren’t alone.

Adopted people, former foster youth, foundlings, late discovery adoptees (LDAs), not parent expected (NPEs), stepparent adoptees, donor-conceived people, so many of the communities you serve, BK, can identify with my guests’ stories. The pain in being disconnected from some part of your genetic heritage is real and manifests in many relatable ways.

You’ve talked to a number of guests about how creative pursuits bring healing. Can you comment about some of the ways people have explored or helped cope with their feelings through creative means?

I’ve talked with musicians, actors, painters, jewelry makers, writers (memoir, fiction, poetry), playwrights, costumers, photographers, graphic designers, singers and songwriters, both fine artists and hobbyists, filmmakers, chefs, fiber and textile artists… and I’m sure I’ve missed some. When I say there’s something for everyone to express themselves creatively, that’s no exaggeration. My creative hobby that helps me practice mindfulness is probably a little tacky, but I’m obsessed with 5D diamond painting (think paint-by-number with tiny glittery beads). It’s extraordinarily satisfying.

Have you found that many of your guests find the experiencing of doing the podcast something of an unburdening—that the sharing of their experience with you relieves them in some way just through the conversation?

That is definitely one of the surprises for me of doing this show. I’ve had many guests tell me that their interview was a powerful step in their journey and felt healing to them. To be clear, I’m not a therapist by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s the power of adopted people being heard by another adoptee: fully feeling seen and having their pain acknowledged.

You once wrote in a newsletter that it’s necessary for adoptees to be writing the books, becoming social workers, organizing events, etc. Do you see that happening at the level it needs to happen? If not, what is standing in the way?

I still believe that it’s necessary and want to support as much as possible adopted people leading the way in these areas. I am one 100% biased toward the adoptee voice and family preservation and I have no qualms about saying that. And no, I don’t see it happening at the level it needs to happen. It’s still woefully lacking.

We’ve seen the success of authors telling our stories without truly knowing what it’s like to be adopted. In the “#ownvoices movement” there’s a drive to ensure those who have lived it get the opportunities and I hope that will extend to adopted people getting the bestsellers instead of just our allies. We’ve wrestled with this conversation a bit on the Adoptees Off Script podcast and in my private Facebook group, and some of the thoughtful responses mostly boil down to the fact that adoption and relinquishment trauma is still not accepted or believed by the general public, and often when it’s adoptee voices sharing their truth they are seen as playing the victim.

What prompted me to write that newsletter, if it’s the one I’m thinking of, was sitting at a table of self-identified allies of adopted people who were mocking a painful situation for a pair of adoptees. They recounted a story that took place in my province years ago: a couple fell in love and got married and once the adoption records opened they discovered they were full siblings and had to separate and come to terms with a difficult circumstance. I never want to call someone an ally that would openly mock the adoptees they say they’re serving.

I’ve watched several adoption-related organizations dissolve (or implode) over the past few years, and one thing I’ve noted as an outside observer, is the commonality of what is merely lip service to centering adoptees. I asked an organizer at one conference who had requested me to come and speak, “how many of your other speakers are adopted people” and the response of incredulity on her face was my answer. The thought literally hadn’t even occurred to them that ensuring adequate adoptee representation should be at the forefront at an adoption conference. Some of it is a desire to cater to everyone and so we become an afterthought. I also see the adoptee-led organizations that are thriving, and applaud the challenging work they’re obviously putting in to secure safety and full representation.

In what other ways can adoptees ensure their voices are heard?

I’m prefacing this with a reminder that I recommend doing all advocacy work out of a place of wholeness (serving with the scars vs. an open wound to borrow a common expression). As unfair as it is to have this responsibility, I believe it is our job to tell the whole truth about adoption. If the only people willing to share are the adoptive parents and the folks who only share the brief glimpses of happiness (the reunion porn, as some of us call it), these false societal narratives are going to continue to be dominant.

To ensure being heard? What doesn’t work is the rage-y call-out culture. That gets people blocked and silenced. Instead I think it’s the quiet one-on-one moments when we share candidly with safe friends and family how adoption has truly impacted us. When we’re not under pressure of the quick come-back on a Facebook post; when we’re sharing a full, nuanced picture of our experiences; when we can back up what we’re saying with facts and articles, these are ways we’ll be taken seriously and be heard.

How often do your guests make you cry?

It used to be every single episode, now it’s probably half of the time.

Is there an emotional cost, or burden, of receiving all the stories you hear? How do you carry that and what sort of self-care do you do in response?

First, I want to acknowledge there is a huge cost to my guests sharing their stories. Risk of backlash from their friends and loved ones. Potentially painful recounting of past inner work. Their emotional labor is real.

For me personally, I get wiped out after recording. I often nap afterwards. Sadly I’ve gotten somewhat numb to the hard things people share with me. I have to compartmentalize because otherwise the things I hear haunt me. I have an excellent psychologist who helps me process when things get too challenging. I’ve been known to take a bath in the middle of the day to try and wash away the feelings.

I believe you’ve said that the podcast has literally been lifesaving for some people. Can you explain?

*TW – Suicide

I have had multiple adopted people write to me and share they were experiencing suicidal ideation, a couple of whom had already made suicide plans. Each one found the podcast and for the first time in their lives felt seen and heard by hearing other adoptees share. All of them chose to stay in this world and got supports in place that were adoptee-specific. What a miracle that hearing another adoptee’s story could be lifesaving. Talk about validation being important!

The other surprising note I’ve gotten a few times is that the show has saved a couple of marriages. All of these messages expressed a similar circumstance: relationship problems stemming from search/reunion where the partner didn’t get it. The adopted person shared some episodes from the relationship series with their partners (including an episode my husband did with me) and it led to each of the couples going to therapy with adoption- competent therapists to repair their connections.

Adoptee voices are so important and yet often I get the impression that those voices are in an echo chamber—that adoptees are largely speaking to an audience of adoptees. Do you agree, and if so, doesn’t this limit the ability to truly spread awareness? What do you think needs to happen to make change in this regard?

It takes incredibly strong people with a support system in place to safely challenge the narrative publicly. A lot of us are still working on figuring out our identity, confidence building, and truly learning to love ourselves. Talking with other adopted people and sharing our work with them may feel like a safe first step.

I understand not wanting to put yourself out there—even talking to other members of the adoption constellation isn’t innocuous. Some listeners may remember the disgusting personal attack Caitríona Palmer and I experienced at an adoption conference by a biological mother in 2019. We were presenting a session on our mutual experience of secondary rejection from our mothers. We were describing our personal stories, what we did, what we regretted and wished we had done differently. Truly it was a recounting of our personal stories and memories, when a fellow presenter, who was also a biological mother, ran up to the mic that was for Q&A at the end of the session and yelled at us. Her primary message was that everything we had done as adoptees was wrong and “of course” our mothers left us because of our actions. It was one of the most egregious outbursts I have ever seen in a professional setting and one of the most painful experiences of my life. Both abusive to us as presenters and for the adopted people in the session to witness. I’ve never named her publicly, but I’ve seen her booked at other events and it’s always a shock to see her name on the agenda. Sharing adoptee thoughts and experiences is not always welcome.

When I see adopted people building their muscles in adoptee-land, I hope they will grow into service and sharing in the greater community when they’re ready. I sort of answered part of this earlier, that talking one-on-one to our safe friends and family about what we’ve experienced is the way I believe will spread awareness and change the narrative.

What aspects of the adoptee experience do you feel remain least understood and most require awareness?

Because of the depth of loss, identity confusion, and the loyalty trauma response, many adopted people may not have been able to tell you adoption was a problem until later in life. I have friends that deeply regret their complicity in being the “poster child for adoption” in their teens and early adulthood. Promoting adoption can sometimes be the only way to push down the cognitive dissonance some of us experience.

If you could say any one thing to someone who is not adopted about adoptees what  would it be?

The privilege of the kept is the innate knowledge of identity. They have a naïveté of the importance of access to original birth certificates, medical information, and a full racial, cultural, and genealogical history. When you have always known who you are and where you came from, it’s not obvious that everyone needs and deserves access to that same information. It’s almost impossible to understand what the lack of that knowledge does to us because you can’t remove your intrinsic knowledge of identity to put yourself in our shoes.

What are your plans for Adoptees On going forward?

You’ll see more interviews with academics, more therapists, and more deep dives into topics that I find fascinating. I hope to add some new voices to the community and have been slowly working away at that behind-the-scenes.

What might readers be surprised to know about you?

One of my gifts of reunion is being diagnosed with celiac disease. My biological father passed that down to me, and now that I’ve been tested and am completely gluten-free I feel a million times better. I’ve mastered GF cooking, but GF baking feels impossible to adapt to. The perfect GF cookie remains elusive.

You’ve talked to virtually everyone in the adoptee world. Is there anyone you haven’t talked to that you’re dying to have as a guest?

I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface! I’ve only publicly interviewed 100+ people in the adoptee world. My hopefully-one-day list is extremely long and the limitation is the capacity for the number of episodes I produce each year. I have a lot of people request celebrities like Sarah McLachlan or Keegan-Michael Key. Maybe one day! Truthfully some of my favorite interviews are with adopted people who aren’t necessarily well-known. I love being able to share someone’s story who might not otherwise be heard. If you twisted my arm to name names, my current top two are Jeanette Winterson and A.M. Homes. We’ve been reading some of their work in our Adoptees Off Script book club and I want to be friends with them and thank them for their bravery in telling adoptee stories in mainstream publishing.

What haven’t I asked you that you wish I had?

Absolutely nothing! Thank you for the honor to share with your readers. I appreciate your service to the genetically severed community. What a brilliant magazine name, Severance. Perfection.

What do you do when you’re not researching guests and recording your podcast?

I enjoy interior design and I’m desperately trying to love gardening (mostly failing). I’m always in search of my next favorite podcast. When I read for pleasure, they’re mostly psychological thrillers and I cross my fingers the plot twist isn’t adoptee or adoption- related. I’m being a mama to my two little boys (7 and 9) and I’ve been married for 16 years to my amazing husband who was my first long-suffering listener to me constantly talking about adoption.Haley Radke is the creator and host of the Adoptees On podcast. She’s an adult adoptee advocate, co-facilitator of the Edmonton Adoptees Connect group, and has a BA in psychology. Radke is passionate about elevating adoptee voices to help challenge and change the traditional adoption narrative. Find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles and essays about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

A health scare kickstarted Julie Ryan McGue’s five-year search for her birth family, recounted in her new memoir, “Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging,” which will be published by She Writes Press in May.By Julie McGueLisa gives me a warm hug, and I introduce her to Jenny. “This is my twin sister.”

Her eyes flick from Jenny to me several times. “Wow. You two really do look alike.”

Jenny laughs and glances over at me. “About a month ago, we learned through DNA testing that we’re identical.” This isn’t a setup. Jenny and I hadn’t planned on bringing this up today.

Tagging on to my sister’s comment, I’m conscious of keeping my voice free of accusation. “When we were adopted, Catholic Charities told my parents that we were fraternal twins. Perhaps you can shed light on how this mistake might have happened?”

A slight frown erases Lisa’s smile. “Before coming over here to meet you, I studied your file. Your birth mother did not deliver you here at St. Vincent’s but at a maternity hospital. Whatever information was sent over from the hospital is what would have been captured in the records. I’m sorry for the error, but I’m happy you found out the truth.” So there it is, an apology, leaving me with no one to blame.

Lisa’s perfectly arched eyebrows frame her blue-green eyes. Her smile reappears. “Since you’ve already viewed the old photographs down the hall, I’ll show you a few other areas, and then we can finish in the chapel.”

We follow Lisa to the old elevator. As she walks, the social worker gathers her long brown hair into one fist and then drops it behind her shoulders. I remember this habit of hers from the post-adoption support group meeting last month.

The format of the meeting was simple. After signing in, we went around the U-shaped conference table and stated our name, disclosed whether we were an adoptee, birth parent, or adoptive parent, and then we shared where we were in the search and reunion process. If we brought someone with us, we introduced them.

For the icebreaker piece, Lisa asked that we offer a response to this question: “If you could say one thing to the family member you seek, what would that be?”

Ethnically and racially diverse, the group members ran the spectrum in age from thirtysomethings to seventy-year-olds. With the exception of two birth mothers, the rest were adult adoptees, and all but three were women. The common thread: Catholic Charities had facilitated everyone’s adoption. I was grateful that Howie and I had chosen seats at one end of the horseshoe. Since this was my first meeting, it settled my nerves to hear the group’s answers before taking my turn.

More than half of us were waiting to hear back from a birth parent or birth daughter/son. From my recent experience of waiting weeks for my birth mom to answer Linda’s outreach, I knew how excruciating passing the time can be. A woman, I guessed her to be in her late thirties, had been anticipating a response from her birth mother for over a year. When she broke down in sobs during her introduction, the Kleenex box at the center of the table shot over to her like a hockey puck.

Two older adoptees, both males, had yet to decide to send their first outreach letter. Howie fell in this category. For them, taking in the experiences of the group and deliberating over the pros and cons of search and reunion kept bringing them to the meetings. I understood their reluctance. Only twice in my fifty-one years had I seriously considered looking into my own adoption. If it hadn’t been for the breast biopsy pushing me down this path, I might not have learned of the confidential intermediary program or Catholic Charities Post Adoption Services.

One of the birth mothers and a female adoptee shared their reunion stories. Both glowed like someone who’d recently fallen in love. They passed around photos of themselves beaming, wrapped in tight embraces with their newfound relatives. To the group’s credit, each of us ogled at how much the searchers resembled their child or parent, and each attendee professed such joy and support for the searcher that I wondered why I’d delayed in joining such a compassionate crowd. Given the recent dismissal by my birth mom, I doubted I’d be sharing photos of my twin and me flanking our birth mother anytime soon. Nor could I envision Jenny and me sandwiched between both of our mothers—that thought almost made me laugh out loud.

When it was my turn to talk, I clasped my sweaty hands tightly in my lap. “I’m Julie. This is my first meeting. I’m an adoptee.” I tried to make eye contact with the people across the table. “I also happen to be a twin. Thanks to Catholic Charities’ policy of keeping twins together, my sister and I were adopted into the same family.” I smiled at Lisa, our moderator, and then I looked down at the tabletop. “Due to health concerns, I began the search for my birth mother last year.” I felt my brother’s reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Last month, I learned that she didn’t want to connect with us. I’m hoping she’ll change her mind someday.” When I glanced up, I caught the Kleenex box just in time.

Plucking a tissue, I introduced Howie. “He was adopted through Catholic Charities too and is considering a search for his birth relatives.”

Lisa jumped in. “And Julie, how would you answer the icebreaker question?”

The tissue balled up in my palm. I’d thought hard about this when the others spoke. The angry-rejected-adoptee-me, the one I’d been working hard at controlling these days, wanted to ask my birth mom: how could she look herself in the mirror every day–she who gave up not one, but two daughters, and rejected both of them? Twice.

The person-that-was-me-before-this-adoption-search, the one I was desperately trying to reclaim 24/7, chose a different response to offer the group. “I would ask her if she has thought of my sister and me throughout her life, and if she ever wondered what had happened to us.”Julie Ryan McGue is an author, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She writes extensively about finding out who you are, where you belong and making sense of it. Her weekly blogs That Girl, This Life and her monthly column at The Beacher focus on identity, family, and life’s quirky moments. Born in Chicago, Illinois, McGue received a BA from Indiana University in psychology and an MM in Marketing from the Kellogg Graduate School of Business, Northwestern University. She’s served multiple terms on the board of the Midwest Adoption Center and is an active member of the American Adoption Congress. Married for more than 35 years, McGue and her husband split their time between Northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida. She’s the mother of four adult children and has three grandsons. If she’s not at her computer, McGue is on the tennis court or out exploring with her Nikon, and she’s working on a collection of personal essays. Visit her website, and find her on Facebook, on Twitter @juliermcgue, and on Instagram @Juliemcgue.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles and essays about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

By Megan Culhane GalbraithOnce upon a time a little girl was born in a charity hospital in Hell’s Kitchen to an unwed mother.

Her name was Gabriella Herman and she was adopted about six months later. Her name was changed and her identity was erased. Her birth certificate was dated two years after she was born.

By the time she was six months old she’d had three mothers: a birth mother, a foster mother, and an adoptive mother.

_____

My reunification with my birth mother began via a letter from Catholic Charities followed by another by Air Mail from my birth mother. To me it felt like a new beginning. Perhaps then it is fitting that our relationship would end with a letter. This time it was sent 25 years later and by certified mail.

_____

The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book is my attempt at unwinding the story of my birth and identity through the lens of stories told to me by my birth mother. The book was accepted for publication on Mother’s Day 2020. The synchronicity was not lost on me. My debut! My first-born! My book baby! My mother—dead for decades—wasn’t here to celebrate my happy news, so I called my birth mother to tell her my book was about to be born.

She was excited for me on the phone. She mailed me a congratulatory card. Inside she wrote; “You did it! Congratulations on getting your book in print in 2021. How wonderful! XOX.”

She was fond of using the USPS and had a habit of sending me envelopes stuffed with news clippings, Harper’s articles she’d torn out of the magazine, and typed letters that contained sternly worded directives even though I hadn’t asked for her advice. I called these her “lectures.” I shrugged them off in the interest of maintaining a relationship with her. After all, she was the only mother I had left.

_____

I use dolls as a window into my story by recreating photos from my baby book in my dollhouse. Doing this allowed me some distance from my fears. By playing with dolls I could examine those fears through a different lens. Dolls are used to understand trauma in myriad ways—“show me where he touched you,” or “point to where it hurts” or “can you show me where she hit you?”

Memory born from trauma is full of dead ends. Shame is spring-loaded. My birth mother’s stories circled back on themselves: they were versions of a truth.

When I brought up the shame and the trauma I felt as an adoptee, she said they were useless emotions.

_____

As I dove into editing my book I sought permissions from my father, my siblings, and my birth mother to use various photos from my baby book or, in my birth mother’s case, from the album she’d given me titled “Our Family Album.” These were photos of her as a teenager, in her early 20s, and of our reunion in New York City, at a hotel just blocks away from The Guild of the Infant Saviour, the Catholic unwed mother’s home where she’d been sent to have me.

Dad gave his immediate approval: “No one can tell your story but you, honey,” he said. One of my siblings supported me; the other did not.

After weeks of unusual silence from my birth mother I became concerned. My follow-up emails were met with what felt like chilly silences. When she finally wrote back her tone was cold.

“I sent you a letter about permissions,” she said. “You need to go to your local post office to investigate.”

“Need” and “investigate.” Those words sent me into a spiral of anxiety.

In the early stages of my search for her I’d used the number on my birth certificate to compare with the numbers in the genealogical listings at the New York Public Library. It was an exhaustive and fruitless effort. Now, she was asking me to search again, but without a USPS tracking number I was at a loss. It was like I was setting out on another search but this time without even a number as a clue.

_____

I began thinking about silences. I re-read Silences, by Tillie Olsen.

THE BABY; THE GIRL-CHILD; THE GIRL; THE YOUNG WRITER-WOMAN

“We cannot speak of women writers in our century (we cannot speak of some in an area of recognized human
achievement) without speaking also of the invisible, the as-innately-capable: the born to the wrong circumstances—diminished, excluded, foundered, silenced,” writes Olsen.

“We who write are survivors . . .”

_____

Many emails later, my birth mother forwarded the USPS details to me. As I clicked through the tracking system I realized she’d sent me a certified letter. I was stunned. It had been undeliverable for nearly a month and was now on its way back to her marked, “Return to Sender.”

_____

re.turn  |  \ ri-ˈtərn
intransitive verb
1.     to go back or come back again //return home

transitive verb
2.     give, put, or send (something) back to a place or person

sent\ ‘sent\; sending
transitive verb
1.     to cause to go: such as
        a. to propel or throw in a particular direction
        b. DELIVER //sent a blow to the chin
2.     to cause to happen //whatever fate may send
3a:   to force to go: drive way
         b. to cause to assume a specified state //sent them into a rage

_____

A wise friend of mine told me her experience with book publishing was 90 percent wonderful and 10 percent “a blow to the head you never saw coming.” Here was my 10 percent. I felt physically sick for days. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I felt nauseated and deeply lonely. The two people most opposed to me using my voice were the two most closely connected to me by adoption.

Why a certified letter? Why such an abrupt change in tone? Why the long silence and sudden secrecy? What had changed in the days between our upbeat phone call, my birth mother’s congratulatory card, and this letter? Why couldn’t she have returned my phone calls?

“Can you please email me the contents of the letter?” I wrote.

“After two failed attempts by the U.S. Postal Service to deliver this May 22, 2020, certified letter to you, I have no choice but to send it by e-mail,” she wrote, copying my editor and the series editor.

Before she’d grant me permission to use the three photos she’d need to read, revise, and edit my entire manuscript, she said. She suggested there were inaccuracies. She requested her privacy.

“I hope that you will have the honesty and integrity to grant this request,” she wrote.

Was she trying to keep my book from being published? Why was she making this about her? I felt like she was trying to silence me just at the time I was finding my voice.

_____

The search for my birth mother began nearly 25 years ago via a letter from Catholic Charities that contained her “non-identifying information.” From those spare details, plus a search by my caseworker, I found her. She’d been willing to be found. We began a long-term relationship. She’d promised to be my open book. She’d said I could ask her anything. I listened to her stories and wrote a book about piecing together my identity via her memory, among other things.

She’d surrendered me when she was 19 years old. We’d done the hard work of knitting each other into our families. Now she was demanding I erase her from my narrative.

How could I choose a name for her that would signify this second erasure, this silencing?

_____

erased; erasing; erasure
transitive verb
1a.   to rub or scrape out //erase an error
b.     to remove written or drawn marks from //erase a blackboard
c.      to remove (recorded matter) from a magnetic medium //erase a videotape
d.      to delete from a computer storage //erase a file
2a.    to remove from existence or memory as if by erasing
          b. to nullify the effect or force of

_____

Fairy tales fascinate and annoy me because of the lack of agency of the female characters. The women are acted upon, locked away, shut up, and shut down (many times this involves a wicked stepmother.) They wait for permission to speak, or for a prince to rescue them.

In deciding on a pseudonym for my birth mother I was firm that I would not erase my birth name, or our shared last name. I’d had enough of the shame, secrets, and half-truths that burden us adoptees. The shame wasn’t mine to carry anymore. If she wanted to live in the shadows, so be it.

I’ll rename her in my book I told my editors, but I won’t erase myself in the process.

I chose the name Ursula. It reminds me of another tale; that of Ursula the Sea Witch in Hans Christian Anderson’s 1836 version of The Little Mermaid. Ursula demands the little mermaid’s voice in exchange for fulfilling her desires.

“But if you take away my voice,” said the little mermaid, “what is left for me?” goes the tale. … “Put out your little tongue that I may cut it off as my payment …” says Ursula.

_____

In his column for Catapult called “Love and Silence,” my friend and fellow adoptee Matt Salesses writes about how hard it is to tell a story the narrator is not supposed to tell.

He teaches Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. He writes:
“. . . begins with a story the narrator is not supposed to tell. It is the story of her drowned aunt, who was erased by her family because her story is unacceptable: She became pregnant out of wedlock. In punishment, the townspeople burned the family’s crops and killed their livestock, and the next day, the aunt was found with her baby in a well. The narrator, Maxine, is told this story by her mother, on the day she gets her first period.

“Beware, the story implies, of desire. The narrator’s retelling of her mother’s story doesn’t censor desire, but explores it, wondering whether the baby was a result of rape or love, why the aunt did not abort it, why she jumped into the well with it—a kind of mercy? The retelling is an act of love. Maxine frees her aunt from erasure, by making the story-that-should-not-be-told (which is always only one story) into many stories, reinstating her aunt in the realm of imaginative possibility.”

The retelling is an act of love … in the realm of imaginative possibility.

_____

One of Ursula’s favorite books was Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. I have the copy she gave me here in my lap. I’ve read the novel many times. It was Setterfield’s first published book.

The narrator is Margaret Lea—whose name is near perfectly similar to my birth mother’s. In the novel, Lea admits to feeling like half a person who is compelled to unwind the narrative threads and the secrets of a reclusive writer named Vida Winter. Winter tells her dark family story through Lea, who is not allowed to ask questions.

The epigraph of the novel reads:

“All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind, and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t is the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.”
—Vida Winter, Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation

The Thirteenth Tale is a story about endings as much as beginnings. It is structured to begin where it ends because, in the end, both characters confront the weight of family secrets, their pasts, and their intersecting stories. Its themes are identity, loss, reconciliation, and death.

I’m unsure what compelled me to pick up the book again except the vague memory that it was a book about a book about memory, and that it was significant to my birth mother. When I first read it years ago, I’d wondered if she was trying to tell me something. It felt like a harbinger. Just like the main character, Ursula had been telling me stories about my birth and her life for years. Many times she bristled at my questions and shut me down.

“The past is the past, just leave it there.”

“Whose memoir are you writing, mine or yours?”

The end always justifies the beginning.

_____

I have a poem by Lucille Clifton secured to my refrigerator titled, “why some people be mad at me sometimes” …
“they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and I keep on remembering
mine.”

_____

Most fairy tales have a “happy ending,” but that rarely happens with adoption. Have we come to the end of our story? Is this what is meant by “coming full circle?”

I was born. I was surrendered. I was adopted.

We were reunited: lost and found and lost.

It’s been nearly a year of silence from her. My book will be born on almost the same day one year after she sent me that certified letter.

I must now be the one to surrender.

THE ENDMegan Culhane Galbraith is a writer and visual artist. Her work was a Notable Mention in Best American Essays 2017, has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and has been published in Tupelo Quarterly, Redivider, Catapult, Hobart, Longreads, and Hotel America, among others. She is associate director of the Bennington Writing Seminars and the founding director of the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont Young Writers Institute. Look for her on Twitter, on Instagram here and here, and on Facebook here and here. Go here to buy signed copies of The Guild of the Infant Saviour and for information about events and interviews.

By Sara Easterly, Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, and Lori HoldenIf you’ve ever spent time in what is known as “Adoption Land”—various communities that exist to support people with emotions and struggles particular to adoptees, first/birth parents, and adoptive parents—you’ve likely noticed an array of fiercely held perspectives on adoption.

While Adoption Land helps normalize and heal, there can be a danger in looking at adoption dogmatically or in an echo chamber.

Adoptive parents who sing the praises of adoption tend to lead the narrative that’s most familiar in mainstream culture: adoption is a beautiful thing, children are gifts, adoptive parents are selfless, orphans and unwanted children abound, and the best way to help them is through adoption.

This perspective, which elevates adoptive parents to saint-like status, misses the profound nuances of adoption and excludes important perspectives from other key players—adoptees and first/birth families (for simplicity, from here on referenced as birth families)—whose voices are critical to serving the adoption community.

Adult adoptees who speak out often focus on the trauma of adoption. Losing a mother is one of the greatest separations imaginable, and yet adoptee mother loss is often diminished, ignored, or equated with other kinds of losses. Adoptee pain is not the happy “positive” story of adoption that mainstream culture usually takes interest in, but it is scientifically proven: from the moment of relinquishment, adoptee brains are wired to protect from further loss. This can manifest as people-pleasing, perfectionism, anxiety, aggression, depression, addiction, suicidal ideation, or other self-harm. These are critical, life-saving dynamics to shed light upon, and it’s important that adoptees continue to speak up about the effects of attachment loss.

But while unpacking the emotional turmoil that goes hand-in-hand with adoption, adoptees can get stuck in darkness and hopelessness. It’s easy to lose the “forest for the trees,” straying into the “Trauma Olympics,” or forgetting about the plasticity of the human brain and our enormous capacity for resilience. What’s more, over time adoptees may disengage with, or even block, adoptive parents, together with a large swath of society, after becoming fatigued or retraumatized by constant microaggressions, gaslighting, and flawed information. But engage they must—especially if they feel a calling to support other generations of adoptees and work toward industry reform.

Birth parents’ voices are still desperately needed in Adoption Land. When birth parents remain silent, adoptees miss out on their perspectives, which can serve as a balm for the scars of relinquishment. Also, when birth parents remain quiet, adoptive parents may be prone to carry on as if first bonds don’t matter (out of sight/out of mind), when those first roots are deeply significant to most, if not all, adoptees and must be honored for everyone’s emotional health.

That said, it’s no secret that there’s a power dynamic that contributes to shaming and silencing birth parents. Adoptive parents, because they, unlike the birth parents, are actually parenting the children, naturally are in a superior position. Birth parents, observing from the shadows, are typically waiting for the moment they can join in. Some birth parents, so engulfed by the shame of their placement, are nowhere to be found. Entombed by the layers of their trauma and feelings of unworthiness, speaking out could be the last thing on their minds. Additionally, speaking out means talking about the present time as well as the past. An open adoption arrangement can be greatly affected by what birth parents choose to say. The consequences for speaking out could be dramatic: the difference between seeing your child or not, in visits or even just pictures.

This is why it’s important for birth parents to feel an invitation to enter Adoption Land—both from its participants and generally from adoptive parents—and why that invitation must be shame-free and punishment-free.

Working Together for True Change

Change happens when people work together. Although progress has been made, a greater evolution is still needed for the betterment of the 100 million families affected by adoption. We all benefit when we empathize with others and are willing to look within for what we can do.

Toward that goal, three women living in adoption share three different perspectives on working with others from within the adoption constellation. We’ll start with the adopted person for two reasons: first, this is the person in the “triad” who had no voice or choice in their relinquishment and adoption, and second, adoption practices are supposed to be about the “best interests of child”—a child who may at first seem readily adaptable, but grows to have her own independent views and voice.

Sara Easterly, Adult Adoptee

I recently met another mom, and as we talked, she learned that I was an author and adoptee. She asked about my memoir (Searching for Mom), and within minutes the conversation turned to her friends who were adoptive parents and might want to read my book. I nodded, momentarily basking in flattery … though it was rather short-lived. In the same breath, this mom started telling me about how awful these adopted children of her friends were: out-of-control, acting up, wreaking havoc on their families, and destroying their adoptive parents’ marriages.

I confess that I made an immediate, judgmental assessment of the adoptive parents without knowing them or understanding the situations further. Inside, I felt pretty irked by the double-standard: how culture loves to pretend adoption is about saving needy, powerless children, but when adoption gets hard or doesn’t add up to beautiful, it becomes about blaming the kids—no longer seen as needy and powerless. Instead, it’s their parents who are victims, overlooking the fact that they chose adoption and have benefitted from it too.

Thankfully, this mom was a long-winded talker, which gave me time for a lot of deep breaths that stopped me from speaking out of my anger. As she continued, I remembered the cultural lack of awareness when it comes to human attachment dynamics and how losses manifest, particularly for adoptees. Most people don’t even consider that adoption is rooted in loss.

I also thought about how hard parenting is when our children don’t behave as we’ve hoped and when we feel like we are failing them. As a mom, I’m aware that parenting has its pain points. I reflected on how difficult it is to admit that what we’re doing as parents isn’t working, and how much easier it is to blame our children and circumstances, rather than face ourselves or a situation we’ve had a hand in—a defense mechanism employed to protect us from pain. As an adoptee, too, I know about defense mechanisms. Noticing all of these commonalities was my path toward empathy for these adoptive parents and out of the “othering” line of thinking that could have propelled me to defend, attack, or shut down. I thought of my adoptive mom and what she might have said to her closest friends. I know I wasn’t always easy to parent either.

My adoption took place before there was much awareness or sharing of the effects of relinquishment. My parents, like so many others, were instructed to take me home and pretend as if my adoption made no difference in my life. With this as an unspoken rule, I grew up playing the same pretending game … but the long-term result was that I became an enigma to my parents. From most outward appearances, I seemed to be thriving. But my parents had no idea of the incredible grief, secret mother-fantasies, and flight from vulnerable feelings that boiled inside of me. My growth, as well as a deep attachment to my adoptive parents, was hindered by a lack of unity and information-sharing between all parties. How I wish my parents had had access to adult adoptees when I was a child and had been open to hearing perspectives from birth parents too! It may not have made parenting me a cakewalk, but I’m certain more awareness would have gone a long way for us all.

I don’t want to see other adoptees and families (both adoptive and birth families) getting unnecessarily stuck too. That’s why I continue to write and speak about my experiences now. It’s also why I listen—even when it’s hard, like it was when this mom shared about her friends’ adopted children. It can take effort, but it helps to see their perspectives as a gift. For one thing, their sharing helps me, as an adoptee advocate, see where more progress is needed. There’s a personal benefit too: an opportunity to continue my healing journey, with a less-personal window into parents’ struggles and needs. Similarly, by being in community with adoptive and birth parents, I know I am offering a gift: helping them understand the often-misunderstood hearts of adoptees.

Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard, Birth Mom

Birth parents who speak about their adoption experiences are more often birth mothers than birth fathers. From this perspective, birth moms who speak out typically fall into one of two groups.

First are those who speak from the traumatizing circumstances surrounding their placement that has left an open wound. The circumstances that have deeply affected them could have been any number of events, but most often they have either been forced or coerced to place their children or they have heavy regret about their decisions. In more recent times, many birth moms are speaking out because promises that were made to uphold an open adoption were broken.

Second are the birth mothers who are relatively fresh out of their placements and aim to testify about their experience for inspirational purposes. They typically tell their stories while parroting the extremely positive rhetoric taught to them from whomever facilitated their adoption. Most often, these are women whose adoptions were open to some degree. Perhaps they are looking for some sort of redeeming value in what was an almost unbearably painful chapter in their lives. This may explain why some become adoption cheerleaders early in their post-placement journeys.

Each group of birth moms is aware of the other; they often find themselves in stark opposition one another, clinging to their rigid perspectives of how adoption has affected their lives. Both groups have more in common than they know, even in their different experiences, levels of openness, and trauma sources. It’s highly likely that both groups were told a sugar-sweet tale of how the adoption process would be. Some adoption professionals stash away critical information that would be useful to educate birth mothers on the after-effects of placing their children for adoption. This decision by adoption professionals—to conceal from birth mothers the inevitable mental and emotional outcomes of adoption—is likely made from fear of “negatively” influencing their adoption decisions, thus causing the professionals to lose thousands of dollars, damage their reputations, and erode the trust of their client: the prospective adoptive parents.

It’s no surprise that when a baby leaves the arms of one of these birth moms, all of the rah-rah rhetoric that has set the birth mom upon a high heroic pedestal vanishes and leaves her to fall a long way back down to earth. The fall from adoption glory is a hard one. I, myself, have experienced the terror of the plunge. It was as though I walked out of the hospital and into a sea of “tell us your inspiring story of redemption!” Redemption? What do I need to be redeemed of? The pressure of turning our stories of relinquishment into a flowery fairy tale is an extension of the shame placed upon single pregnant women. It took me some time to confront my faulty ideals of adoption, but with each milestone of understanding, I chipped away at the conflict within myself and parted ways with the shame surrounding my adoption and pregnancy. More important, this prepares me to one day have real and honest answers to the questions my child will ask. My imperfections and those in my story are not to be hidden away or crafted into a phony fable; facing the ugly head-on is healing in the long run.

I speak up to demystify the less familiar and often unavailable birth mom perspective. To keep our voices clear and audible, we must continuously protect our paper from presumptive pens. Every time we disappoint society’s craving for a fairy-tale ending, we dismantle the shame and free other birth mothers from the captivity of a dishonest narrative. Through listening to each other and speaking in truth, we can remove the barricades to deeper relationships with our children.

Lori Holden, Adoptive Mom

Many (not all) adoptive parents come to domestic infant adoption after enduring the indignities and grief of infertility. Like fertility treatments, the process to adopt can be invasive, uncertain, and fraught with emotion. By the time new parents finally bring home a baby, it’s no wonder they might end up thinking the whole process was “worth it,” “meant to be,” and that all their troubles are behind them. That neither they, nor their beloved babies, will ever need to worry about anything adoption-related again.

It’s a short leap to “adoption is wonderful. Just look at us as proof!”

I’m not just speaking about others. That was me. I joined the ranks of insufferable new adoptive parents back in my early days of adopting my daughter and my son. In the time before social media, when parents gathered in online bulletin boards and forums, I went in proclaiming my amazing! experience! as the truth of everyone in adoption. After all, I felt it so fully it must be The Truth!

It didn’t take long to find out just how wrong I was.

I got called out on a forum for my exuberance and audacity—rightly so. Though it hurt, I began to listen—especially to adult adoptees and birth moms who explained to me situations similar to those Sara and Kelsey have shared here. I began to understand the complexities and nuances of adoption. I began to gain a wider array of perspectives that helped me become a more attuned and empathetic mom to my children. I am grateful for the adoptees, birth parents, and other adoptive parents who have helped me to see beyond the “adoption is wonderful” narrative.

Listening to, much less engaging with, people who are less-than-positive about adoption can seem scary. You’re positive, they’re negative. What could a Negative Nancy possibly have to say worth listening to? Turns out, a lot, if we listen from a place of openness. When we can actually understand practices that have harmed the Saras and the Kelseys (and even the Loris) of Adoption Land, we can then make different and better decisions. For example, once I began hearing the common lament from adoptees that splitting their loyalty between their adoptive parents and birth parents was painful for them, I began embracing a Both/And heart set, which replaced the prevailing Either/Or mindset. My daughter and son are better off for that.

What a fortunate time to be in, to have access to varied voices through the Internet. Instead of shying away from possible conflict, we should be taking advantage of these spaces that enable us to grow beyond our comfort zones.

Yet I also want to caution that there can be too much of a good thing. You can collect all of the insight from all of the voices and still not know what to do with it—much of it may even be conflicting. In addition to listening outside you, I also encourage you to listen within, to discern what is true for you and your situation. Find a balance between letting in other voices and tuning in to your own. In this way, you can cultivate confidence in how you approach adoption both in your own life and with others online. But not just confidence; confidence with compassion.

Leaps and Strides

It’s almost funny to consider how we, as a culture, took a leap to the “adoption is beautiful” fairytale when in reality it’s built on a foundation of loss, pain, and heartache. Perhaps this is a reflection of society as a whole, showing its fear of the dark and our existential human longing for an easy, breezy, happy ending.

Ironically, we can only make strides toward a satisfying ending when we embrace the full, real, messy aspects of adoption too. When we make proper room for all that is hard, there’s more space for the light. There can certainly be a lot of light in adoption—of course! But Adoption Land has historically spent decades tucking away the darker, harder parts, and it’s time to acknowledge that it’s complicated and look beyond our perspectives.

Perhaps this is the challenge for each group in Adoption Land: to recognize that each of us is carrying pain. The adoptee has the pain of separation. Birth parents have the pain of relinquishment and shame. Adoptive parents have the pain of insecurity and sometimes grief from previous losses. Seeing each other’s pain is what gives us empathy for one another.

With empathy as the baseline, the second challenge is to listen to each other. Listening to others’ perspectives can be hard and may sometimes seem like a tall order. Until we feel solid in our own beliefs, we might find others’ views threatening or stifling. But once we find our confidence, listening is where significant growth can unfold. If we listen only to voices that come from our perspectives in the triad, or to people with whom we already agree, we won’t discover information that may help us become better versions of ourselves. We can get stuck. Being open to others’ perspectives not only can help us make better decisions at the personal level, but can also improve Adoption Land by advocating for practices and policies that more effectively serve us all.Sara Easterly is an award-winning author of books and essays. Her spiritual memoir, Searching for Mom, won a Gold Medal in the 2020 Illumination Book Awards, among many other awards and honors. Easterly’s adoption-focused articles and essays have been published by Psychology Today, Dear Adoption, Feminine Collective, Godspace, Her View From Home, and Severance Magazine, to name a few. Follow her on Facebook, on Twitter @saraeasterly, and on Instagram @saraeasterlyauthor.Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard is the director of advocacy and policy at AdoptMatch. She’s a birth mother who is passionate about greatly raising the standards in adoption to better serve the children, mothers, and families affected by family separation. Ranyard has worked at various agencies and law firms in the adoption field and can often be found fervently and frequently begging the question, “How do we fix this?” She is also a co-host of the birth mom podcast,Twisted Sisterhood. Follow her on Instagram @fromanothamotha.Lori Holden writes at LavenderLuz.com and hosts the podcast Adoption: The Long View. She’s the author of The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole, written with her daughter’s birth mom and acclaimed by people in all parts of the adoption constellation. She has keynoted and presented at adoption conferences around the US, and her work has appeared in magazines such as Parenting and Adoptive Families. Follow her on Facebook, on Instagram @Lavluz, and Twitter @Lavluz.BEFORE YOU GO…

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Recognizing the challenges facing individuals who experience DNA surprises, Adoption Network Cleveland (ANC) has launched the DNA Discoveries Peer Support Group, a virtual peer support program focused on the emotional impacts of the journey. It kicks off with a special panel on February 2 facilitated by ANC’s search specialist, Traci Onders, that will feature an individual who’s discovered misattributed parentage, a donor-conceived person, and adoptees who have found birth family. Onders spoke with us about the program and the personal journey that led her to working with ANC.

How did you come to Adoption Network Cleveland and how did you become interested in this work?

I started as program coordinator for adult adoptees and birthparents in 2016. I’d begun volunteering at Adoption Network Cleveland (ANC) prior to that because its mission was personally important to me. Adoption Network Cleveland advocated for adoptee access to records in Ohio for more than 25 years, and finally in 2013 Ohio passed legislation that opened up original birth certificates to adult adoptees. It’s hard to imagine this would have happened without the steadfast determination of ANC, and as an adoptee, I wanted to give back to the organization that made it possible for me to request and receive my original birth certificate. ANC is a nonprofit organization and has a reputation for advocacy rooted in understanding, support, and education—a meaningful mission to me.

I was born to a woman who had been sent to a home for unwed mothers to hide the shame of pregnancy from the small town in which her family lived. There was no counseling available for the grief of relinquishing a child, and she was told to go on with her life and forget about it. These homes no longer exist; we know now how awful and hurtful this practice, rooted in shame, is.

My birthfather died a year later in a tragic accident. He was also an adoptee, raised as a son by his maternal grandparents. I will never know if he knew who his father was, but thanks to DNA, I do.

I first searched for my birthmother more than 20 years ago after my children were born. Pregnancy and childbirth made me want to know more about the woman who carried me and gave me a deep understanding that she made decisions that had to be extremely difficult and painful in a way that I had not previously appreciated. I had complicated pregnancies and no medical history for myself or my children. As a mother, I felt compelled to know and understand more about both my history and my beginning. At that time, I discovered that the agency that handled my adoption, Ohio Children’s Society, had destroyed its records. I had no information at all to work with, and my search hit a brick wall. It was important to me that I connect with my birthmother in a way that was respectful. I didn’t know if she had told anyone she’d relinquished me, and I was concerned that if I hired a private investigator, the PI might use tactics that I wasn’t comfortable with or make a possible secret known to others, and that this somehow might hurt my birthmother or her family. Until I could request my original birth certificate in 2015, I didn’t have many options. In 2015, adoptees were finally able to access their original birth certificates in Ohio, and when I did this, it named my birthmother. I also discovered that I have a maternal half-sister. My birthmother and I reunited very shortly after that. I was finally able to learn her story and to gain a more complete and ongoing medical history. Knowing these things and my relationship with her have been blessings in my life that for many years I did not imagine would be possible. A few months later I met the extended family, and their warm welcome touched my heart.

My search for my birthfather led me to test my DNA at Ancestry and 23andMe. I‘d been told who he was, but since he died very young, I did not have the opportunity to connect with him or understand his story. Using DNA, I was able to confirm what I’d been told, which allowed resolution that I might not have been able to find in such ambiguous circumstances. He was a kinship adoptee, and I was able to determine his parentage.

I learned that although he died when he was twenty-three years old, he’d had three children with 3 different women—that I have two paternal half-brothers, both born to different woman. The first died as an infant. The second brother took a DNA test to learn his ethnicity. He discovered misattributed parentage—that the man who raised him and is on his birth certificate is not his biological father and that I am his paternal half-sister. We don’t know if his father knows, or even if his mother knows for sure. He doesn’t want to discuss this with them, and that’s his decision.

At ANC, we use DNA to help adoptees solve for unknown parentage, and my own search made me acutely aware of how much in recent years DNA was tearing down brick walls and helping connect people who might otherwise never find each other. It also made me particularly sensitive to the fact that some of these discoveries can be quite earth-shifting for people.

As my work in this area grew, I was promoted to search specialist to greater focus on assisting those in search, utilizing both traditional methods and DNA. ANC provides support and guidance throughout the journey of search—before, during and after—and has for more than 30 years. I came to appreciate how many people outside the adoption community were also  touched by DNA discoveries.

My own personal history of search and reunion give me an important connection with the people I work with because I can truly understand how these questions can consume one’s thoughts and time. I can relate to the frustrations, the joys, the sadness, the loss, the quest for knowledge when one doesn’t know their “chapter one,” the feeling of having to write “medical history unknown—adopted” every time one fills out medical forms or sees a new healthcare provider. Having reunited with my birthmother, I know the roller coaster of emotions that reunions can bring. I have a deep respect and understanding of the birthparent’s experience because of my work with many birth families and also my connections to my birth family.

Through my own journey, I have come to realize many things about adoption. It’s a lifelong journey, and not a one-time transaction. My work helping others separated by adoption to find each other—whether it is adoptees searching for birth family, birth family searching for adoptees, or more recently people that have DNA surprise discoveries—has revealed many complexities and similarities. When we shine a light on these discoveries, we find the impacts of secrets, shame, infertility, racism, money, power, privilege, mental health, abuse, neglect, domestic violence, trauma, addiction, grief, loss, religion, social class—to name a few. For me, it’s important to advocate for progressive practices and reform in adoption and child welfare.

The DNA Discovery Peer Support February 2 panel discussion is a joint endeavor by Adoption Network Cleveland and Adoption Knowledge Affiliates. Can you describe the nature of the collaboration?

Adoption Network Cleveland founded in 1988 and Adoption Knowledge Affiliates founded in 1991 have a lot in common. Both organizations were founded by adoptees with a vision to bring together adoptees, birthparents, adoptive parents, and professionals in an effort to increase knowledge, service, and understanding. Both have been impactful organizations over the years. With the pandemic and our world going virtual, ANC and AKA partnered to host a joint virtual conference in October 2020, combining conferences each organization had planned and been forced to cancel in the spring.

At ANC, we had been discussing how to better meet the needs of people who were coming to us with DNA discoveries—not only adoptees but those with misattributed parentage, individuals who are donor conceived, and others. Adoption Knowledge Affiliates started its DNA Discovery Peer Support Group in Sept. 2020, and ANC planned to start one in 2021. Adoption Network Cleveland and AKA are collaborating for the panel discussion on Feb. 2, and from there each will individually hold its own DNA Discovery Peer Support groups. People who might find more than one meeting a month helpful might like to have options.

How was ANC’s DNA Discoveries Peer Support group developed and conceived and why it was felt to be necessary?

At this point the majority of searches we assist with have a DNA component. In addition, we’d like to increase engagement of people with DNA discoveries beyond adoption-based situations. We have expertise in this area and would like to be a resource in a broad variety of situations. People are finding biological family or are being found; and they’re finding new information about their core identity, such as ethnicity, birth order, unexpected relatives, and more. There can be a wide range of reactions by those being found and those searching.

Many of the issues that folks are working through with a DNA discovery are the very same core issues experienced by the adoption community, such as loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and control.

We felt uniquely positioned to offer support and guidance in a manner similar to what we have been doing through our General Discussion Meetings, which are open to anyone touched by adoption and/or foster care. Adoption Network Cleveland started holding these meetings more than 30 years ago, so we bring deep knowledge and the meetings evolve to meet current needs. More information about those meetings can be found here.

Adoptees who are using DNA to make these discoveries are excited to find new information and new relatives. It can be important to remember that we don’t know what this discovery might mean for the person on the other side, such as in the case of misattributed parentage for example, where someone might be learning that the man that raised them isn’t their biological father.

We wanted to create a safe place for people to speak about the emotional impact of these discoveries, in a confidential environment with people who have walked a similar journey and truly understand.

Are the groups being held via Zoom? Are they virtual as a consequence of COVID-19 or will they remain open to people from any location when virus restrictions lift?

We will be using Google Meet, which is a lot like Zoom. The DNA Discovery Peer Support Group and our General Discussion Meetings are free, but advance registration is required so that one can receive the link for the meeting. The meetings are the second Tuesday each month, 8-10 PM Eastern Time. Registration can be found on our calendar. We plan to assess and see once it’s off the ground if the meetings will remain structured virtually. Personally, I see this continuing as a virtual group if there is a demand.

How do you envision how these groups will go? Will each group meeting be facilitated? By you? What’s the goal and desired outcome?

Our group will be focusing on the emotional impact of DNA discoveries. This is something that all discoveries have in common, and this will be a place where people can really connect and provide understanding, another perspective, and support. Our DNA Discovery Peer Support Group and our General Discussion Meetings are facilitated by experienced volunteers who are supported and overseen by our staff. I will be assisting with the DNA Discovery Peer Support Group as needed, and, as a search specialist, I am available for individualized guidance, one-on-one search assistance, and support. The experienced volunteer facilitation team members chosen for the DNA Discovery group are both adoptees with their own personal DNA discoveries. The group they lead is shifting from being one of ANC’s six monthly General Discussion Meetings to meet this specific need.

Our goal with the DNA Discovery Peer Support Group is to provide a safe and supportive environment where people feel open to discuss a major life event—finding out new information about themselves and their identities. One does not need a connection to adoption to attend these meetings. We will be focused on supporting people throughout their journey and helping them to connect with others who truly understand how earth-shifting this can feel, how others have worked through their own discoveries, and the accompanying emotions. We understand these types of discoveries are not a one-time event, they are lifelong journeys. Connecting with others who have walked a similar path can help to normalize what can be an overwhelming experience.

What do you believe are the most significant issues, the most pressing concerns, for which people need support after a DNA Discovery?

Every situation is individual and unique, so it’s hard to generalize. However, the core issues that arise are very much the same that we know from adoption and permanency: loss, rejection, guilt and shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and control.

DNA testing has the power to unravel decades old secrets and can make individuals question their ideas of family, or religion, or even morality. I am a firm believer that everyone has a right to know their genetic heritage, but that does not mean anyone has a right to a relationship, as that is something for both parties to determine. Many people who take a DNA test do not think they will receive a result that might include a surprise such as a different ethnicity, or a new sibling, a different parent, an unknown child, a niece or cousin. Discoveries can also include learning one is adopted (late-discovery adoptees) or donor conceived. These can be a very powerful experiences and can upend long held beliefs.

In what ways do you believe peer support makes a difference? How does it help?

Connecting with others who have been there and understand can be normalizing and healing.

We have followed a peer support model for our General Discussion Meetings for more than 30 years with great success. We’ve welcomed those with DNA discoveries to these meetings as technology has evolved. It can be extremely valuable to hear the perspectives of other individuals who have walked a similar journey and truly understand. I’ve seen people make wonderful connections with each other and learn insights that might not have happened anywhere else. Peer support offers a place to work through some of the core issues such as loss, rejection, grief, identity, shame and guilt. Hearing how other’s work through their journeys provides a variety of options as we consider connecting with relatives and offers a chance to see how people have gained a sense of control over the experience of discovery, and not have it control them. Peer support also offers an opportunity for people who are farther along in their journey to give back.

What limitations are there, if any, to peer support? 

Peer support is not meant to take the place of therapy, and individual therapy can be a very powerful and healing experience. Accessibility can be a limitation for some.

In addition to the peer support group, ANC also offers a Monday evening speakers group. Can you tell us more about that?

Adoption Network Cleveland is a leader in bringing the adoption community together to create a network of support and advocacy. In this critical and uncertain time for all of us, we are pleased to offer a Monday Evening Speaker Series full of topics that are of interest to a broad audience impacted by adoption, kinship, and foster care. More information and recordings of past presentations can be found here.

Learn more about the DNA Discovery Peer Support special February 2 panel and the ongoing group here. And for information about other programs and events, click here.

Look for Adoption Network Cleveland on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter @adoptionnetcle. Look for Adoption Knowledge Affiliates on Facebook and onInstagram @aadoptionknowledgeaffiliates.Traci Onders is a search specialist at Adoption Network Cleveland (ANC). An adoptee herself, she’s facilitating ANC’s new DNA Discovery Peer Support Group special panel on February 2. 

By Aimee Rose-HaynesDirect-to-consumer DNA testing via Ancestry, 23andMe, and other companies has rapidly replaced the arduous tasks of hands-on library research, grave searching, and contacting strangers for the purposes of finding long-lost relatives—a tremendous advance since just a decade ago, when locating biological family or records to validate family lineage was a near impossible feat.

While these tests—which rely on saliva samples—are simple, quick, and affordable, interpreting the results is often a confusing and time-intensive process.

An International Case

In November 2019, I took on a special challenge that illustrated the tenacity needed to solve cases. The case involved a search for records from Panama and Columbia to help determine the client’s origins. Bob called on DNAngels to help him find his mother’s biological father. Ann, his mother, was born in New York in 1961 and raised by an Italian-American mother and stepfather. Her mother refused to tell her who her biological father was and took his name to the grave. Ann thought that was it—that she’d never know her paternal family—and gave up on the thought of trying to find him.

Bob, wanting to help his mother in any way possible, ordered Ancestry DNA tests for her, himself, his sister, and a few other relatives. Once he received the kits, he mailed them back immediately in hopes of finding the man Ann had spent decades wondering about and answering her questions. Was he tall? Was he a nice man? Where was he raised? What were his parents like? What did he look like?

Bob found the results that arrived a few weeks later both exciting and confusing. Ann’s ethnicity report had significant amounts of Spanish, Panamanian, and Columbian heritage. This gave them their first clue about where her biological father could be from. For Bob, looking at the numbers and trying to figure what it all meant was like trying to read a foreign language. He needed help.

The Search
Bob contacted DNAngels in the autumn of 2019 for help solving his mother’s DNA parentage puzzle. I requested access to his family tree and his mother’s DNA and went to work. I started by sorting his matches and separating Ann’s maternal and paternal lines. This was very easy to do since Bob had gotten tests for so many people in the family.

I looked at Ann’s matches and anticipated that the matching process would be difficult. Ann had six matches in the range of 108 centimorgans (cM) to 184 cM. A cM is a unit of measurement representing the length of DNA shared by two DNA matches. Testing companies use an approximate range of roughly 8 cM to  3,700 cM to determine relationships. The higher the cM, the more closely one is related to a match, with 3,700 indicating a parent/child relationship. I began by looking at the trees of all of Ann’s matches to try to isolate a most recent common ancestor (MRCA). Unable to get very far, I updated Bob, with whom I was in daily contact at this point in the process.

Bob informed me that some additional family members had also taken a 23andMe DNA test, and with their login information in hand, I hoped to locate a missing puzzle piece. I had handwritten charts, sticky notes, and highlighted names all over the living room table and floor for nearly two months for this case!

I was able to build a tree based on Ann’s 186 cM match and discovered that Ann’s great grandparents and second great grandparents were the same couple. This indicated that Ann’s 186 cM match was inflated due to endogamy—the custom of marrying only within the limits of a local community, clan, or tribe. So that became another puzzle to work through. Complicating things still further was that two matches on 23andMe were uninterested in helping.

Nonetheless, I persisted, finally finding an MRCA and building the family tree, which included 9 children. I then began linking Ann’s DNA matches to the familial lines that were slowly coming together and soon was able to eliminate three lines, leaving five lines left to trace.

I began researching, reading through US, Columbian, and Panamanian newspaper clippings—obituaries and public records including port arrivals and departures—as well as social media, searching for anything that might help expand this family tree. Bob was also relentless in helping to track and contact anyone in these family lines.

I never imagined I would ever use what I’d learned in Mr. Flores’ high school Spanish class; if I had, I’d have paid more attention back then. Bob sent me messages and voice recordings from potential family members, most of which were in Spanish. Using Google Translate much more than I’d like to admit, I learned a few important things necessary to solve this case.

Bob had discovered that the MRCAs had taken in and adopted two sons. A week later, I discovered that another son had never left Panama. This narrowed the search from five family lines to two and the details finally started to come together.

Now left with two brothers as potential candidates for Ann’s grandfather, Bob and I were excited as we got closer to solving the case. By this point, I’d worked on this daily for about 10 weeks and refused to give up. I continued digging even deeper into these two men, John and William, trying to place either man from Columbia in New York, where he might have met Ann’s grandmother.

William was born in Columbia, and I located a record of him having lived in New York. He actually married someone who was related to Ann’s maternal line. This union proved he had been in the same area as Ann around the time she was born. William had 2 daughters and a special needs son who was eliminated as a suspected biological father. Bob, who had been in contact with one of William’s daughters at this time, had William’s granddaughter tested, which revealed that she shared 236 cM with Ann. This excluded William, because if he’d been Ann’s paternal grandfather, his granddaughter would be expected to match Ann at a half niece relationship (Ann and the granddaughter’s mother would be half-sisters), or about 600 cM to 1,300 cM.

John, the other potential grandfather to Ann, was a soldier in the U.S. Army who was killed in action in Korea. I found a port arrival record showing he came to New York in 1928. I also found a record indicating he married in New York a year later. He would go on to have daughters as well as three sons—Manny, Greg, and Jake.

Manny died in infancy, and Greg couldn’t be located, so Jake was the only possible relative to search for. If Jake were still living, he’d have been roughly 90 years old. Fortunately, one of the cousins Bob had contacted knew that Jake was still living and was in New York. That cousin helped Bob get in touch with Sam, one of Jake’s sons, who was shocked when Bob told him DNAngels had discovered his father might have been Ann’s biological father. He was intrigued and willing to help. Bob sent him a DNA test in late January 2020 to confirm the suspicion.

While Bob waited on pins and needles for Sam’s test to come back, I stayed busy and continued to research and build the family tree. Sam’s test came back on March 6, 2020, revealing that Ann and Sam matched at 1,455 cM, confirming a half sibling relationship. Jake was her biological father. Bob sent a DNA test to Jake, the results of which showed a 3,299 cM—an amount signifying a parent-child relationship. I’d solved Ann’s case after nearly five months.

Ann went from knowing nothing about her paternal line to not only knowing her father’s name but also being able to meet him. She now has 9 half-siblings as well as several aunts, uncles, and cousins. Jake’s family has welcomed her and her family into their lives with open hearts.

Never give up!If you have a question you’d like to see answered in a future column, send it to bkjax@icloud.com.Aimee Rose-Haynes is a lead genetic genealogist for DNAngels and a member of the International Society of Genetic Genealogy and the National Genealogical Society. She has 20 years of traditional genealogy and 6 years of genetic genealogy experience.

Stephanie Leslie and Margaret Renner also contributed to this article.DNAngels, an organization dedicated to DNA results interpretation and more, was founded by Laura Leslie-Olmsted in February 2019 with the goal of helping not parent expected (NPE), adopted, and donor-conceived clients find their biological families. Seven months after being founded, it became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. In 2019, the team solved approximately 550 cases; in 2020, it solved 697 cases, and it expects to continue to increase those numbers in 2021. DNAngels has a 92% case solve rate, which means the majority of its clients find the answers to their parentage mysteries. In 2021, it is dedicating every month to a specific theme. The theme for January is “Never Give Up” to highlight DNAngels’ dedication to finding answers for the 8% unsolved or “on hold” cases. Learn more about DNAngels at its website, and find it on Twitter @Dnangels4 and on Instagram @Dnangelsorg.

Christina Bryan has an impressive portfolio of skills that make her exceedingly good at her work as a genetic and family investigator, but it’s her tenacity that drives her success where others may fail. Based in Marin County, California, she helps clients across the country cope with life-altering DNA test results and shocking family surprises, untangling misattributed parentage discoveries and locating their biological family members. Whether working with adoptees, donor-conceived adults, or others who’ve had a misattributed parentage experience (MPE), she employs an array of investigative strategies and doesn’t stop until she’s solved a client’s puzzle.

A Portland, Oregon native, Bryan moved to the Bay area to go to California State University, East Bay, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and became a performance analyst in the investment banking field. But after she took an autosomal DNA test in 2014, she found herself on a new career trajectory. She learned about the science of DNA, applied it to her own family tree, and began using her newfound skills to help others solve the puzzle of their parentage or better understand their ancestry. It quickly became apparent it wasn’t merely a hobby; it was a calling, as the nickname her clients have given her suggests—Super Sleuth.

In 2016, she began taking on complex cases for high profile clients and performing international and historical research. She’s in demand not only for her persistence but also for her intuition, which has helped her solve cases for attorneys and law enforcement personnel. She’s also co-host, with Jodi Klugman-Rabb, of Sex, Lies & the Truth, an entertaining and informative podcast about DNA surprises.

Bryan knows her job doesn’t begin and end with solving a case. She’s likely to encounter clients experiencing stress, trauma, identity confusion, and intense emotions related to their change of status within their family and she offers comfort, humor, and emotional support. Here she talks with us about her work.

Do you call yourself an investigator or a genetic genealogist?

I’ve toyed with the title several times and am currently settled on genetic and family investigator. I also do general investigative work that’s completely unrelated to DNA and family research, so I’ve removed genealogist completely from my title.

What do most clients want when they come to you?

Everyone wants answers and a deeper and honest understanding of their story. Who wouldn’t? Clients who’ve been adopted or are NPEs (not parent expected) frequently know very little about their biological truth. If a client is looking for a relationship, I think that’s great. When someone comes with an open heart and mind, I’m profoundly impressed. We know that the other side—the biological family being sought—may look at things very differently, and that’s what we ultimately prepare for. For example, those on the other side may not feel as though they’ve lost anything or maybe don’t want to be found just yet. They may not have an open heart or mind and they may reject you for reasons that would never have occurred to you. Some want a relationship, but not necessarily a parent/child relationship. Maybe they are wondering about siblings or cousins their own age. Finding someone for the client to connect with is important for me, regardless of who it is.

Do you ever have clients who don’t want to make contact but just want the information?

Many of those I’ve worked with over the years start out just wanting some information. It feels safer for them to learn in bits and pieces and not come out swinging. But as you can imagine, it becomes hard to do nothing when the details begin to appear. You see familiar faces or hear details that interest you and you need a next step.

Is it true that you almost always find what you’re seeking?

I do have two outstanding paternity cases that are my most difficult and remain unsolved. There are even two close DNA matches, but the family is covered in NPEs at every turn. I’ve been able to discern quite a bit about the circumstances, but just need one more match on each that turns the tide our way.

In those rare cases when you’re not successful, are there typical reasons?

I never close a case, so an unsolved case will always remain open and on my radar. The most common reason for a brick wall is multiple NPEs within a family. Sometimes I need to solve another NPE case within the same family before I can move forward. This is particularly difficult when you encounter a relative who doesn’t even know they have the NPE in their family. It’s not my place to share information with someone when they are not even looking (unless it clearly impacts the case). If they are researching Grandmas’s side, I wouldn’t volunteer “Guess what, Grandpa’s not really your Grandpa.” It’s hard to sit on my hands in those situations, but, with rare exceptions, I need to do only what I was hired to do.

One client—I’ll call her Jane—was looking to find out who her biological father was. One man who was a candidate had two sisters who were happy to provide DNA for comparison to Jane. While looking at the sisters, I noticed the DNA measurement was not consistent with them being full sisters. One was an NPE and didn’t know it. I did not share the information with them.

What’s been your most challenging case?

My most challenging case turned out to be one of my most rewarding in the end. The client and siblings were raised in a few different orphanages in London during the 1950s, where they endured extreme physical and sexual abuse, which has since been uncovered as widespread. The case also involved a cult, parents that didn’t want to be found, a cover-up at every turn, and quite a bit of pain and sorrow. Regardless, they’ve learned their story, and they needed to know it.

How do you advise clients to go about contacting any biological relatives you find?

I recommend sending a snail mail letter sent via FED-EX with a signature required—the direct adult signature required option. If you choose the FED-Ex indirect signature option, it may go to a neighbor if the addressee is not home. There’s just too much uncertainty with email and connecting through social media. Those are last-ditch efforts, as is sending a message to an individual’s workplace. And I always recommend not showing up to someone’s work or home.

Making contact through other people can sometimes be a critical mistake. Here’s an example. You find cousin Susie as a match on a DNA site. You directly ask cousin Susie if she’s heard any rumors about your birth mother, then proceed to share you are the long lost and possibly secret daughter or son. What if Susie tells the whole family before you’ve had a chance to contact your birth mother? It may feel like a violation of your birth mother’s privacy. I think giving the birth mother a chance to respond first is the respectful thing to do.

Now, if you’ve given the birth mother a chance to respond and, say, she declines, then you are free to speak to whomever you want. Every human is entitled to know and share their truth, period. I tend to recommend a one-month time limit for birth parents to respond before sending a follow-up message. Otherwise, it can just drag on and on.

What fears do people have about searching?

Rejection! Imagine after you’ve made the decision to search and you get the door slammed in your face. You’ve really got to be ready for that to happen.

Clients also relying on other people’s stories or outcomes as possibilities for them. For example, if they’ve heard a nightmare scenario from someone else who’s searched, they assume they will find the same. Many worry the biological mother had been raped or there was an affair or some other turbulent event. Though we know the reason can be much simpler than that, it’s hard to fathom a mother giving up a child or concealing the identity of the biological father for any other reason.

Rejection is a realistic fear. Attempted reunions don’t always turn out well and can, in fact, be heartbreaking. How do you help clients manage expectations and prepare for the possibility of rejection?

I play a little game called “what would you do/how would you feel.” It’s actually more like a game of interrogation, because it needs to be. I ask tough and uncomfortable questions that one might never have considered. Here are some examples from real cases.

For adoptees searching for their birthparents: how would you feel or what would you do if:

• your birth parents were married with a few children when they gave you up?
• they were married and went on to have more children after you were adopted?
• after finding your birth parents, they both wanted you to call them “Mom and Dad”?
• you contacted a birth parent and they completely denied you and insisted they never gave a child up for adoption?
• you learned you had a twin sibling that your birth parents kept?
• your adoptive parents were closely related to your biological parents?
• your biological parents were a different race than you were told?
• your parents were not the religion you’d been told they were?
•  if both of your birth parents were deceased?

Also, how would you feel about your adoptive parents, and would you be open to sharing the journey with them?

For NPEs searching for a biological father or paternal relatives, how would you feel or what would you do if:

• your biological father turned out to be your dad’s best friend?
• your mother had been sexually assaulted?
• your biological father was a prolific sperm donor who may have fathered dozens of children?

For all searchers, how would you feel or what would you do if:

• your biological family members thought they were too good for you and showed zero interest?
• you were lied to right to your face?
• you were mistreated by the people you’d been looking for?
• you found a biological parent who asked you not to tell your biological siblings anything?
• You found a biological family who pretends you don’t exist?
• you finally found your biological family and they wanted you to take care of them financially?
• you felt no connection at all to your biological family?

If you’re not prepared for any of these scenarios or responses, you may not be ready to reach out. You really need to be prepared for anything.

Do you continue to work with clients after you’ve found their family member/s? Do you work with them on next steps or on managing their emotions?

After spending a lot of time on a case, I’m pretty emotionally connected myself, as I should be. I’m always thankful and honored to have been part of someone’s search, regardless of the outcome. It can be such an emotional experience, and one of the biggest of their lives, and they are putting a lot of trust in me.

The reality is, the DNA part of the case can be a cinch. Nowadays, most people can log into a commercial DNA site and help someone find the answers they are looking for. There are thousands of search angels who can do just that. This is where I differentiate myself from some of the volunteer searchers. My real work is navigating the emotional pieces of the case and ensuring the search is tailor-made to each specific person. I call it crisis management, and I’m confident it’s where I do my best work.

Can you talk about some of those emotional pieces experienced by clients during this journey?

Fear: what are they going to find?

Rejection: what if their biological relatives don’t want them?

Sadness/sorrow: if their bio parents are deceased.

Shock/surprise: finding something they never expected.

Anger: at having missed out on something they needed.

Happiness/elation: finding exactly what they needed.

Settled/at peace: finally finding the answers, regardless of what they are.

Connection: making an instant bond

Disappointment: if they thought they would feel different

How can potential clients find you?

I don’t advertise or poach potential clients who are vulnerable from Facebook groups. I rely exclusively on word of mouth and referrals from past clients and family and friends. Generally, I receive an inquiry email or a call/text from potential clients. Anyone who needs help can find me at at my website, send a message to me at christina@dnasleuth.com, or call me at (415) 378-1993. And if you’d like to share your story on the Sex, Lies & the Truth podcast, I’d love to hear from you. You can even participate anonymously if you like.

COMING SOON, A NEW COLUMN

Check back soon for a new column, Dear Christina, in which Christina Bryan answers your questions about all aspects of search and reunion. “I’m a neutral party, so I look at these situations from both sides. That’s the best way to make a cohesive and successful process for the searchers,” she says. You can ask her anything from advice about searching to how to fix an outreach that didn’t go well. Or you could tell your story so Christina can advise you about how to proceed or validate your choices and make suggestions for readers.

BEFORE YOU GO…

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It was a movement waiting to happen. It only needed a catalyst. Enter Dr. Laura Schlessinger, an unapologetic bully and “infotainment” therapist masquerading as a helping professional. Host of the Dr. Laura program, heard daily on SiriusXM Radio, Schlessinger bills herself as a “talk radio and podcast host offering no-nonsense advice infused with a strong sense of ethics, accountability and personal responsibility.” A Los Angeles marriage and family therapist, she’s no stranger to controversy. For example, there was criticism when it became known that in the early days of her television program her staff posed as guests, and outrage when two decades ago she declared that homosexuality was “a biological error” and made racist comments that temporarily derailed her radio career. Now, her SiriusXM program, with an audience of eight million listeners, doesn’t shy away from the sensationalism that ratchets up the ratings.

Recently, she directed her venom at NPEs (not parent expected.)

In the program’s July 7 Call of the Day, “My Mom Never Told Me the Truth,” Torri, the caller seeking Dr. Laura’s help, stated she wasn’t sure how to continue on in her relationship with her mother after recently learning her dad wasn’t her biological father. Schlessinger asked if the man who raised her was nice. After Torri responded that he was, Schlessinger launched into an assumption-filled toxic diatribe. She berated Torri, asking “What in the hell is wrong with you?” When Torri tried to explain she was upset by her mother’s lying, Schlessinger responded by saying, “So what? So what? Who gives a shit?” She continued to defend Torri’s mother while dismissing and disparaging the vulnerable caller, leaving Torri barely able to speak. “I seriously would rather smack you across the head than anything else right now, you ungrateful little twit. You insensitive, ungrateful twit.” When Torri, after a stunned silence, tried to respond, Schlessinger interrupted. “You’re a twit for saying that. You’re a twit for repeating it.” She continued for several excruciating minutes to bully and berate her caller.

Word of the episode spread quickly among adoptees, donor-conceived people, NPEs, and others affected by separation from biological family. As more and more people listened to the podcast, outrage surged from one Facebook group to another like jolts of electricity. Soon, members responded to Schlessinger on her website and on social media, many demanding an apology, some clamoring for a boycott of her program, and others calling for the radio host to be stripped of her license to practice psychotherapy. The complaints appeared to fall on deaf ears as the complainers were quickly blocked from Schlessinger’s social media accounts. A post on her Facebook page overrun with comments about the episode, however, was quickly shut down.

Therapists soon weighed in as well. Jodi Klugman-Rabb, LMFT, wrote an article about Schlessinger’s breach of provider ethics, and Eve Sturges, LMFT and host of a podcast, “Everything’s Relative,” released an “emergency” episode to bring awareness to the issue.

I grew angrier by the day, says DNAngels’ search angel Ashley Frazier, “and on July 1, I put out a call in all the groups I’m in that it was time to speak up and let our voices be heard. Torri’s call was a rallying cry for members of our communities, who are often faced with rejection and the judgment of people in their lives who share the views of Dr. Laura, simply for wanting to know the truth about their genetic identity.”

When a friend shared with her a link to the show, Erin Cosentino, of the Facebook group NPE Only: After the Discovery, couldn’t bring herself to listen at first. “It took me a few hours to work up the courage,” she says. Reading the comments first inspired her to move ahead. “So many people were in support of Dr. Laura’s comments, and I was sickened by that, so I listened.” She and her friends spent days discussing the podcast and debating about what to do and how to educate the people who supported Dr. Laura. Then she saw the post written by Ashley Frazier. “It was so in line with everything my friends and I had been discussing that I asked permission to share it. I was meant to see it. It was meant to be. Within minutes we were planning.”

“We spent the evening messaging about strategy,” says Frazier. “Our plans quickly evolved into the two of us starting a group together, and by morning we had a group chat with more than 30 people discussing bigger plans than we could ever have imagined. Within 24 hours, we had our own private group formed with nearly 100 members brainstorming and offering to help achieve our mission.”

What they created that evening is the Coalition for Genetic Truth, which has united 27 NPE, adoptee, late discovery adoptee (LDA), search angel, and donor/surrogacy conceived support groups with combined memberships totaling more than 105,000 people.

The coalition now has both a public and a private group on Facebook whose 400 members include individuals from the various communities as well as their allies. Frazier and Cosentino quickly assembled a team of friends and fellow advocates to moderate the groups and represent all of the various communities with a stake in issues related to genetic identity—Laura Leslie, Emily Ripper, Kayla Branch, Annie Persico, Cindy Olson McQuay, Cassandra Adams, and Kathleen Shea Kirstein.

“The initial goal of the coalition was to raise our voices to speak out against Schlessinger’s abusive treatment of Torri,” says Frazier. “But we very quickly realized there were more effective ways to spread our mission in a positive manner,” adds Cosentino.

At first they focused on sending email messages, making phone calls, issuing a press release, and creating a petition that’s now been signed by more than 1,300 people calling for an apology from Schlessinger. “Realistically, we know we’re not going to get an apology. This step was simply a springboard to get to our greater mission, which is to be a united voice that gets the community and the public talking and recognizing that there’s a need for education about the importance of knowing one’s genetic identity,” she adds. It’s important, she says, for the burgeoning population of identity-disenfranchised people to be able to find their way to these communities “and know that there are tens of thousands of people in our support groups who can truly understand what they’re going through, give advice based on experience, and support them without judgment. As hard as our friends and families try to be supportive, they can’t put themselves in our shoes and often make hurtful and dismissive comments, such as ‘This doesn’t change anything,’ or ‘Your dad’s still your dad.”

Equally important as connecting community members to resources, says Frazier, “is to educate our known and newfound family members and friends about how they can better support us during this difficult time. There’s also a huge need to educate mental health professionals about this important issue and enable them to provide resources to their clients.”

Join the public or private Facebook group and follow the coalition on Twitter @GeneticTruth and on Instagram at #coalitionforgenetictruth.Among the members of the Coalition for Genetic Truth are the following.*

ADVOCACY

Right To Know On Twitter and Instagram @righttoknowus and on Facebook 

COUNSELING/THERAPY

Eve Sturges, LMFT: a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles. On Twitter and Instagram: @evesturges

NPE Counseling Collective: group of therapists specializing in best therapeutic practices for the NPE community.

Jodi Klugman-Rabb, LMFT: a licensed marriage and family therapist and creator of Parental Identity Discovery (see NPE Counseling Training below). On Twitter @JodiRabb, Instagram @jkrabbmft, and Facebook

FACEBOOK GROUPS

Note: Not all groups are open to everyone. Check the “About” section of each group for restrictions and to determine whether you are eligible to become a member.

Adoptees, NPEs, Donor Conceived & Other Genetic Identity Seekers

Adoptees Only: Found/Reunion The Next Chapter On Instagram @adopteesonly

Adoption Search & Support by DNAngels — Adoptee/LDA

DNAngels Search & Support — NPE/DC

DNA Surprises

Donor Conceived People

Donor Conceived People in/Around NY

Friends of Donor Conceived Individuals

Hiraeth Only: Longing for Home

The Mindful NPE On Twitter and Instagram @TheMindfulNPE

MPE Cross Cultural Connections

MPE Jewish Identity Surprise

NPE Counseling Collective

NPE Only: After the Discovery On Twitter @NPEsOnly1

Pacific NW MPE Life

GENETIC GENEALOGISTS/SEARCH ANGELS

DNAngels On Twitter @DNAngels4 and Instagram @DNAngelsorg

Enlighten DNA: Email: Truth@enlightenDNA.org

MEDIA

Severance Magazine On Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag and Facebook

NPE COUNSELING TRAINING

Parental Identity Discovery

PODCASTS

NPE Stories, hosted by Lily Wood

Everything’s Relative with Eve Sturges

Sex, Lies & the Truth, hosted by Jodi Klugman-Rabb and Christina Bryan Fitzgibbons

Find more resources about adoptees, NPEs, donor-conceived people, and others with genetic identity concerns in the “Resources” tab top right here.BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page for more articles about NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message to bkjax@icloud.com.
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines. 
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group.
• Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag.

Tell me a little bit about your background, how you came to be interested in creating DNAngels, and how you educated yourself about genetic genealogy?

18 years ago, my aunt researched our Tippa family roots back to 1804, when these ancestors first sailed to America from Germany. My father surprised me with a beautiful bound book of this research as a gift, along with the story of how our last name was Americanized to Tippy. I loved sharing this history with my brothers, nieces, and nephews, relishing the sense of identity and family unity it brought me. I guess this is where my interest in genealogy really began.

In the Fall of 2017, I decided to create a similar keepsake of family history for my grandchildren as a Christmas gift. I already had an account with Ancestry and became familiar with using their data to access all types of records, such as birth, death, census, military, and marriage. It occurred to me the Ancestry DNA tests would include specific information regarding the actual regions of one’s ancestors, so I thought this would be a nice addition to include in their family tree book.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

Six weeks later, my test results arrived. As someone who loves family research, it was exciting to see so many relatives listed from first to fourth cousins! Searching for familiar names on my father’s side, I was confused as not one could be found. I decided to call a few Tippy family members who I knew for certain had also tested. They logged into their Ancestry account but did not see my results either.

In the back of my mind, the distant memory of a comment made by my uncle surfaced. He once told me my daddy could not father children, so none of his kids were biologically his. I brushed the comment off at the time, as my brown eyes were certainly the same as my father’s, making me confident I was his. Suddenly, my world turned upside down as I feared there may be some truth to what my uncle said.

The barrage of emotions I felt is still indescribable. As my entire identity was now in question, my world imploded. If I was not a Tippy, then who was I? Who is my biological father? What about my medical history? Does he know I exist? The questions were endless.

Luckily, due to my decades of interest in genealogy, I quickly located a genealogy group that taught me the science side of DNA. I learned to read centimorgans, interpreting the probable relationship between matches. They taught me to create mirror trees, linking matches to find grandparents. Since then, I’ve learned through doing and also networking with other genealogists for new ways to approach the more complex cases. The personal story of my being an NPE (not parent expected) was unknowingly grooming me to help others.

After the initial shock over my NPE status, the frustrations began. My mother refused to admit the truth to me or answer questions about my biological father. I now know this is an all too common occurrence within the NPE community for a variety of reasons.

Ultimately, through my genealogical skills, I was successfully able to determine who my biological father was. However, he passed when I was only 13 years old. Thankfully, my biological father’s widow welcomed me with open arms, paving the way to meet my six new-found brothers and answering many questions about him as a person and my new medical history. My relationship with these six men is still forming as we get to know one another. Even though we biologically share a father, we are still strangers in a way.

You began DNAngels fairly recently. How many people have you helped thus far?

We have accepted more than 1,000 cases and solved more than 900, so our ratio is a solid 9 out of 10 cases solved. Included in those numbers are our current year totals. We have accepted 400 this year and solved 333 year to date.  Our goal is to find an answer for every client. However, there are times when someone may not have very many high matches, meaning we hit a brick wall. We must have at least a baseline in matches to even begin researching. We do ask many of our clients to upload their existing Ancestry DNA to three other “free” sites to maximize their matches. This often brings us a few new matches to consider. Other companies such as 23andMe can provide valuable insight but can also be cost prohibitive for some individuals. DNAngels hopes to eventually stock additional tests for our clients who may be financially struggling.

How do you describe the services you offer and what tools you use to help clients?

First, we provide a safe haven for those struggling with their NPE or adopted status. Once someone has been screened, we place them into our Facebook Client Room which is 100% closed to anyone other than our clients, angels, and support staff. Here, we encourage everyone to share their stories, offer support, and ask questions. It truly is a safe haven community where we all genuinely care for one another.

We are in the process of building a smaller, more intimate group for those who are truly hurting or have specific issues they are dealing with. DNAngels feels a strong sense of supporting our community and is ever evolving to meet those needs. We have a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW)—Mary McIntosh—on our team who can guide us should a client have an intense need. On occasion, we have found a client in urgent need of mental health services and she has intervened.

For tools, we use Ancestry as our foundation to begin our research. From there, we have a multitude of subscriptions to maximize our searches and provide contact information for potential family members to help clients prepare to contact biological families.

Do you help everyone who asks or do you have criteria?

We do have baseline requirements. Our requirements include the following: the  presumption the parents reside in the United States; that the client has tested with Ancestry; that the client is willing to take an active role in the research process; and that the generally client must have matches that meet a certain number of centimorgan matches—three matches of at least 200 centimorgans with at least one tree—our starting point for research. Unfortunately, if someone only has very distant matches, it doesn’t offer us much to research. However, we do advise them of ways to help increase their odds and return if they discover new matches.

How many are you able to help relative to demand?

We turn very few away from DNAngels. I think the majority that don’t qualify are from another country or have yet to test with Ancestry.

How do you work with clients? Your website notes that it’s an interactive process. Can you describe that—what do you expect from clients?

Our search angels are volunteers. Many have full time careers and families, so we ask our clients to respond in a reasonable, timely manner or let our angels know if they need a temporary pause for a variety of reasons. Our team is spread out all over the US, allowing us to be respectful of various time zones and work schedules. We try to match angels up relative to client schedules and share information as we verify facts. In certain cases, some angels may have special interests or talents in specific cases.

While not required, nothing makes us happier for clients to check in once they’ve contacted their biological family. We genuinely want to remain a part of their journey as they bond with new relatives. We’re also mindful that not every ending is happy and we welcome all clients to continue being a part of our NPE and adoption community.

What kind of questions do clients typically ask when they’re interested in your services?

The first question is typically how much our services cost. DNAngels is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and we work entirely on a donation basis. We truly believe everyone deserves answers, regardless of their ability to pay. They also ask why we do what we do. Every member of the DNAngels team has been affected by DNA test results in some way, and we believe everyone deserves to have answers about their biological origins, regardless of their ability to pay. The work we do is so rewarding and also helps us all heal from what we’ve been through ourselves, and that’s what motivates us on a daily basis.

Are there reasons other than a lack of close matches that make some cases difficult to solve?

Definitely! The most common typical obstacle is when the biological mother is either deceased, forgets details, or refuses to divulge information and when there is more than one man who may be the potential father within a family. An example would be if a family had four sons relatively close in age and proximity to the mother during the time of conception and only 1-2 cousin matches are showing. Sometimes you need additional tests to confirm the biological father or siblings. We also commonly find a biological father may turn out to be an NPE as well, making the matches even more difficult to read. It is not uncommon for a cold case to have either multi-generational NPEs or the biological parent is a first-degree immigrant and records are slim and matches are few.

Are you ever able to find parents based on 4^th cousin matches or more distant?

Yes, we can. If there are really good trees and multiple matches at the 4^th cousin level, with excellent trees. We have special angels that can solve those. Laura is one. She is our lead angel and solves more than 50% of all cases at DNAngels.

In what ways do you provide support to your clients?

We understand that this is often a difficult time, and we never let our clients walk this journey alone. Our angel team is with the clients every step of the way, and providing an answer is just the beginning. We have a private client group on Facebook that is exclusive to our clients, where they can share their experience and support one another. We also offer 2 private support groups for our clients or anyone searching or in need of support. Our groups are DNAngels Search & Support, and Adoption Search & Support by DNAngels.

In what ways do they most need support? What are the most common issues you see?

Every client is different. Some are elated to finally find answers, while many have just had the shock of their lives and are devastated by this news. While family and friends often try their best to be supportive, they’re not able to understand how this discovery affects so many aspects of their lives. Just knowing that they’re not alone, and that every one of their feelings are valid, is so important during this difficult time. In addition, the LCSW on our angel team offers private sessions with our clients at no cost. We also have a pastor who is available for clients who need spiritual support.

Many of our adopted clients have grown up knowing they were adopted, so I would have to say the NPE community’s most common emotional need is overcoming the shock of finding out their identity isn’t really what they thought. This affects each person differently. Some people take it in stride; others it shakes to their very core. Many feel anger over being lied to, while others discover hurtful secrets and must work through this. Again, this is why we stress staying active within our community. Every person has something in common with another, and we don’t ever want our clients to feel alone.

Do the angels ever act as intermediaries?

We strongly encourage our clients to make contact with their biological family, but we review this on a case by case basis and will support the individual to the best of our ability.

Do you advise clients about how to make contact?

Absolutely! Making that first phone call or writing that first letter can be a daunting task. We offer support and guidance every step of the way and are there for the client regardless of the outcome.

What’s the rough breakdown of your clients by adoptees, NPEs, and donor-conceived people, and has that changed over time?

The majority of our clients are NPE, I’d say roughly 60%. Adoptees account for the majority of the remaining 40%, with only a handful of donor-conceived individuals needing ours services this year.

Are you looking for additional volunteers? If so, what criteria are there to be a DNAngel?

As we grow, we do look for additional volunteers. We are very selective with our angels and accept new volunteers on an as needed basis, and, occasionally, if someone really wows us with their passion and commitment. Not only do we require certain genealogical skills, we also have a set methodology we use for consistency. Angels also must work well with our team, and if they have a unique skill or passion, we try to incorporate it into our research.

Our team also consists of individuals who do screening, fundraising, web development, graphics, content writing, research, and provide emotional support, as well as several other functions. We value the many talents of our volunteers to help our vast community and meet a multitude of needs.

What else would you want readers to know or understand about DNAngels?

The overwhelming necessity for NPEs and adoptees to know where their biological roots originate is deeper than most can ever understand. We are committed to helping these individuals find their answers and offer dedicated support throughout their journey. We never require payment to accept a case, as we feel this is a basic human right for each person to know their biological roots. However, the resources required to sustain these efforts cost thousands of dollars each year. Eventually, as demand increases, we hope to support a very small staff for continuity in addition to meeting the cost of our yearly subscriptions, software, additional DNA tests, training opportunities for our volunteers, website maintenance, and office supplies.

Providing Additional Support

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

DNAngels

5920 Giant City Road, Unit A, Carbondale, IL 62902

Info@dnangels.org

Follow on Twitter @DNAngels4, on Instagram @DNAngelsorg, and on Facebook. BEFORE YOU GO…

Look on our home page https://severancemag.comfor more articles about the search and reunion, NPEs, adoptees, and genetic genealogy.

• Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
• Let us know what you want to see in Severance. Send a message tobkjax@icloud.com
• Tell us your stories. See guidelines athttps://severancemag.com/submission-guidelines/
• If you’re an NPE, adoptee, or donor conceived person; a sibling of someone in one of these groups; or a helping professional (for example, a therapist or genetic genealogist) you’re welcome to join our private Facebook group athttps://www.facebook.com/groups/402792990448461
• And like us on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/severancemag and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Severancemag

Tell us little about yourself apart from your adoption journey and your podcast/genetic genealogy work?

I am a wife and mother of two. I’m currently on my fifth career. I made my living as an actress/singer for most of my life. That slowed down in my forties, so, needing a creative outlet, I went to beauty school and got a cosmetology license. I’d always been a genealogy hobbyist, but the advent of direct-to-consumer DNA testing changed my world and heralded a whole new skill set.

And the impossible question: Can you summarize your own adoption journey? 

I always knew I was adopted and was always implicitly aware of the general mismatch between me and my adoptive family. To be clear, that doesn’t mean I didn’t love and appreciate them. It means I spent my life feeling like I was “other” than those around me, and it was emphasized by the general consensus that I should try harder to blend in and not be my own person. I found my biological mother in my early twenties and it was quite uneventful and stress free. My parents were supportive of this effort and even reached out to my biological mother in solidarity.

Years later, after having my own children, I realized I needed to complete my search and began an arduous and often shocking journey into identifying my paternal family. It became an obsession. As has always been my way, if those around me told me that something was impossible, I leaned in to prove otherwise. Being hypervigilant is a common thread among adoptees and it has pretty much dominated my motivations in life. (For the full story, please listen to the first 20 or so episodes of my podcast “CutOff Genes.” Caveat: Genetic genealogy is relatively new and always evolving, and the testing sites update their platforms regularly. That said, some of the earlier episodes may contain content that’s no longer relevant.)

Can you describe your services as a genetic genealogist?

I work mostly with adoptees, donor-conceived individuals, and NPEs (not parent expected). They must take a DNA test first, and I usually insist on Ancestry.com because of the size of its database and the superior tree building and research capabilities. If/when I identify who they are looking for, I will usually ask them to write a letter to said family member that I then send. I almost always ask the client to write a letter briefly summarizing their life and their reason for reaching out.

Because of my personal experience I feel that I add an extra level of insight and understanding for all parties involved in the adoption triad.

How did your own experience influence your desire to help people find their families?

My experience taught me that the treatment of adoptees is (mostly) cruel, archaic, and exclusive. My desire is to help as many people as I can and fight for equality for all humans.

When you became interested, how did you go about training yourself to be able to use DNA to find families?

I learned in the trenches, if you will. In my own case, circumstances arose that established that the only way I was going to find my own truth was through DNA. There were so many resources online, as well as search angels willing to help and talk me through it. By the time I had my answer, I had a solid foundation in the technique. From there I spent a couple of years as a search angel, volunteering my time to find answers for other adoptees. Interestingly, my first few cases were for distant DNA cousins to me. In every case, I was able to solve the mystery, sometimes confirming how they are connected to me.  About a year and a half ago, I reached out to a Los Angeles-based private investigator, Jay Rosenzweig, whose company Birthparentfinder.com specializes in finding birth family. He’d used DNA, but not to the full extent and with the capabilities I have. He brought me on and I was soon able to prove that genetic genealogy was vital to the success of a search company. I’ve solved more than 70 cases for that company as well as more than 100 independently in the four years since starting this work.

To what extent, if any, do you advise or counsel clients or potential clients about the process, perhaps to manage expectations or prepare them for any emotional repercussions?

This is so important to me. As I said before, I think my insight is what sets me apart from a lot of other searchers. My experience has taught me to reserve judgment for biological families who have a tendency toward rejection. It’s important to remember that trauma was involved for the parent in addition to the trauma that’s inherent in being an adoptee. Much of the time, biological mothers experienced something that they thought must be unique to them. I often counsel by recommending reading material (such as The Girls Who Went Away) to begin the healing and help them understand they don’t need to feel the shame that was instilled in them so many years ago.

I also counsel my clients to expect the worst but hope for the best. Every case is its own entity. Often, time is needed for individuals to process this revelation—weeks, months, or years. It’s not for me to force reunion or “out” anyone. At the same time, I believe that the other children of biological parents (if adults) are not off limits as a last resort. They deserve to know that they have unknown family as well.

What are some of the most common issues clients voice and how do you help them?

I often hear “I just want them to love me.” That’s not a healthy attitude, though understandable. It’s important to realize that it’s out of the ordinary for a stranger to love another stranger simply because there’s a genetic connection. Love is certainly something that can develop, but should never be expected. Clients need to establish exactly what their expectations are and keep them low. Anything beyond that is a bonus. For me, the most important thing is for everyone to know their origins and gain knowledge of why they exist.

Do you advise them about how to make contact? What strategies do you recommend?

My PI boss has a different strategy than I do. He believes that no adoptee should reach out personally without an intermediary. He also tends to cold call people. He’s very successful at this technique, but I’m generally not comfortable doing it myself. If that’s what the client wants, I usually have Jay do it. The first time I was hung up on by a biological mother, I really took it personally and it took the wind out of my sails. I realized that sometimes you only get one chance to reach out, and if it doesn’t go well the door may be closed for good. I recommend snail mail (especially when reaching out to older biological family). As I said before, I ask clients to write a heartfelt letter introducing themselves, providing some info about their lives and what their goals are in this endeavor. It’s important that they express that they are no threat to any family and are willing to allow the contact to call the shots. Including a photo is often a good idea as it puts a face to this human that you are related to. I usually write a cover letter introducing myself and giving a brief explanation of how I arrived at my conclusion. I always offer to elaborate by phone if further explanation is required.

Under what circumstances do you act as an intermediary? 

If that is what the client requires, I will always do so. It’s part of the service. Sometimes people (on both sides) are not comfortable with a stranger being involved. I always present arguments for both sides and let the client determine what is best. Sometimes I learn facts about the biological family that inform me as to what may be the best way to proceed. Incidentally, that earlier case where the mother hung up on me was salvaged. I called her back immediately and left a voice mail telling her that her daughter had just wanted to thank her. She called back the next day and apologized. I acted as an intermediary for several months in that case. That particular mother was terrified of the rest of her family finding out, and her husband did not want their adult kids to know. Yes, I feel that that is an outrageous expectation for any man to put on his wife, but I digress. Anyway, a few months later, the mother was still sending messages through me and I had to tell her that I simply couldn’t work for them for the rest of my life. I explained to her that her behavior was probably making her daughter experience a second rejection, and the daughter was well aware of how to contact her directly if she so desired.  She understood and they began talking directly.

In cases in which you’re not able to locate birthparent, are there similar challenges that block success? Are there issues other than a lack of close matches?

Yes!  The biggest challenge—and the most difficult to explain to clients when I’m at a roadblock—is that if there is pedigree collapse, endogamy, or simply an NPE within a family, my job becomes exponentially more difficult. I take cases based upon the level of the matches, but it’s not uncommon to find out that those higher matches are also adopted or have a misattributed parentage event in their family that they themselves were not aware of. I can usually build a tree based on a match tree with just a couple of names in it, but if I build a substantial tree by using traditional genealogy methods and I am unable to connect that tree to any of the other matches, that match is no longer helpful.

Are most clients for whom you’ve found family ultimately glad they searched or are there some who have regrets? 

As far as I know, no one has had regrets. I think this has to do with managing your expectations. Most people realize that just knowing the facts makes it worthwhile. I know, for me, I feel more connected to the earth as a result of knowing.

Do clients follow up with you—that is, do they tell you about their reunions?

Yes! Some of them have been interviewed on my podcast.

Do you work independently in addition to with an agency? 

I work independently if that’s how someone has reached out to me. I actually prefer to work with the agency because I don’t enjoy the sales aspect of a business. But if someone is a listener or a reader and they reach out directly I can work directly with them.

What advice do you have for people who are unable to avail themselves of professional services? What tools or resources might they find most helpful? 

There are several Facebook groups (DNA Detectives, Search Squad) that have members who are search angels. That’s where I learned everything I know now. Blaine Bettinger has some great books and, of course, my podcast is a great, if I do say so myself, especially for newbies.

What mistakes, if any, do people often make when searching for family on their own?

In my opinion, the biggest mistake (and I made it myself) is to lead with the fact that you are adopted, NPE, or donor conceived. This often sends up red flags for people who don’t want to throw a relative under the bus, even if they have no idea how they are related to you. Also, asking matches if they know someone who gave up a baby is rarely effective. These are usually deep secrets within families, and anyone beyond a parent or sibling would likely not be privy to such information. I think the best approach is to mention that you’re trying to understand your DNA and build your family tree. Asking them to share the names of all four of their grandparents and their birth dates and locations is the most effective way to build a tree for them.

When and why did you decide to start the “Cutoff Genes” podcast?

Oh boy. Here we go. Four years ago there was an event within my adoptive family that was traumatic and resulted in even more trauma for me and my immediate family. This event brought to the forefront the narrative of “the ungrateful adoptee” and how that lie can be used to manipulate a situation to benefit those who use it against an adoptee. For legal reasons I can’t really go into any more detail. Suffice it to say that I was traumatized to a level that some days I didn’t think I would be able to go on. I knew I had to do something to take me out of my thoughts and provide a service for others like me. A podcast was the most obvious choice for me. I had wanted to do it for a while, but the thought of taking on something so time consuming was overwhelming, and I have terrible attention deficit disorder. Anyway, when all of this was eating at my life, I realized that I had nothing to lose by putting something out there, at the same time using my background as a performer to satiate my creativity and feel like something positive could come from the trauma. I connected with my old friend Richard Castle and, originally, my friend Renee Colvert, who has her own successful podcast (“Can I Pet Your Dog?”). The result was this thing that people come for the info, but stay for the relationships and rapport. We’ve just released our 102^nd episode.

What do you love most about doing the podcast?

I love having a gab fest with Richard (my producer and co-host). Rich is a musician and songwriter, so he gets to be the voice of the listener. He asks me questions that probably a lot of the listeners are thinking as well. Also, I adore our listeners!  We have a Facebook group that’s very active and lots of friendships have formed there. We very much have a conversation with our listeners, and they often provide content and insight for the show.

What’s surprised you as you’ve done these shows? 

Rich and I tend to go off on tangents. Sometimes it’s a classic television or musical theater riff—we met doing a production of “My Fair Lady” almost 35 years ago—and other times we get into a “pun-fest.” We crack ourselves up and, what was surprising to us both, was that our listeners seem to love that part of the show as well. This is somewhat serious subject matter, and we often talk about unimaginable pain. We do our best to balance the mood. I’m very much a fan of alternative comedy and I wanted to model the feel of “CutOff Genes” on of some of my favorite comedy podcasts. I always say “I’ll have to laugh or I’ll cry.”

What kind of feedback do you get? 

All kinds!  When I first started the podcast, I was clear that I am not a scientist and it’s entirely possible that I may misspeak. I sometimes cringe when people describe me as an expert, because there are people within the science community and the science behind DNA that probably take exception to that. The fact is, I am not a scientist, but I’m proud to say I am very good at what I do. I always encourage listeners to reach out with corrections or clarifications, and they do not disappoint!

Follow the podcast on Twitter @cutoffgenespod, and join its private Facebook group.

Our fellow adoptees are in need. The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted many aspects of life across the world. Many people are struggling to obtain basic necessities while countless others are hurting due to lack of job security. During these hard times, we want to recognize and support our community members who are without citizenship, and thus have limited/no access to unemployment benefits, healthcare, housing, food, COVID-19 testing/treatment and will not receive a stimulus check. 

Cindy’s story: Cindy is an adoptee, and like many of us, she is struggling because of COVID-19. She doesn’t have support from her adoptive family, and as a single mom, she has to take care of her young daughter while still working to pay for basic necessities like food and utilities. Because of Cindy’s current situation, she can’t receive any type of benefits. 

Cindy: “As a single mother, working minimum wage 7 days a week is difficult, but you have to survive.”

But Cindy is one out of what is estimated to be thousands of adoptees without citizenship. Many who would most likely be excluded from relief packages like the CARES Act even though she would otherwise be eligible. In response, Adoptees For Justice has established the A4J COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund to provide financial assistance to adoptees without citizenship.

Will you join us and help support adoptees like Cindy? Support fellow adoptees. Donate to the A4J COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund now.

Are you an adoptee without citizenship who needs financial assistance? Apply NOW

**100% of donations given to the A4J COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund will go to adoptees without citizenship

By B.K. Jackson

Libby Copeland

Just over a decade ago, when autosomal DNA tests first hit the market, offering consumers a new tool for advancing genealogical research and a way to discover genetic cousins, few imagined how popular these tests would become. In this short span, more than 30 million Americans have traded a hundred bucks and a spit or swab sample of DNA for a backward glimpse into their ancestry.

The majority of testers get precisely what they pay for—a pie chart indicating their ancestral heritage and a list of DNA cousin matches. They learn from whence and from whom they came—information that makes them feel better connected to their forebears and more knowledgeable about themselves in some essential way. Countless others, however, get much more than they bargain for and—sometimes—more than they can handle. For these consumers, DNA testing leads to a genetic disconnect from their families and the erasure of an entire swath of their self-knowledge. They discover that they’re genetically unrelated to one or more of their parents.

Even more shocking than the existence of these genetic disconnects is their sheer numbers. Although no one knows exactly how many testers have discovered misattributed parentage—and estimates within the general population are likely overstated—headline after headline and the swelling ranks of secret Facebook groups devoted to supporting those disenfranchised from their families suggest the numbers are significant.

These genetic seismic events are only part of the reason many view direct-to-consumer DNA testing as a Pandora’s box. Just as no one could have guessed how many genetic identity crises might arise in the wake of testing, the depth and breadth of the potential repercussions were unimaginable, as were the contours of the ethical and moral dimensions.

More than anything, the widespread availability of DNA tests has created a nation of what Libby Copeland, in her extraordinary new book, calls seekers. Although rigorously researched and dense with information, “The Lost Family: How DNA Testing is Upending Who We Are,” is a page-turner. The author, an award-winning journalist, crisscrossed the country talking to industry leaders, educators, and influencers. She immersed herself in the wide world of DNA testing, followed debates on social media, and attended conferences, and yet she wondered whether the velocity of change in the industry was so great that even she couldn’t keep up. And at the same time, she worried that the media saturation about DNA testing was so thorough that what she’d learned was already old news. “But then I would remember that I was in a bubble,” she writes. “The people who were getting DNA kits for Christmas had no idea what was coming for them. And the ramifications of what they might find would not be short-lived; rather they amounted to a fundamental reshaping of the American family. It was something they would deal with for the rest of their lives and pass on to the generations that follow.”

I thought I knew a great deal about DNA testing and had a reasonable grasp of its myriad ramifications until I read “The Lost Family,” in which Copeland expertly drives home how much bigger the subject is than most of us—even those of us deeply affected—realize. She takes readers through the history of genetics and all of its promise, then explores equally its dark side—eugenics and the dangers of genetic essentialism—and considers the broad range of ethical minefields planted by present day DNA testing. “One of the central conundrums of spitting into a tube is the way one person’s rights so often collide with another’s after the tube is sealed and sent in,” Copeland observes. And so many rights are at stake—from the right to privacy with respect to genetic data to the right of offspring to know who their parents were and what their health risks might be.

As she delved deep into her research, Copeland came to believe “we are embarking on a vast social experiment, the full implications of which we can’t yet know.” But what follows suggests that the boat left the dock some time ago and is churning in choppy waters. While the full implications are beyond imagining, the author does a stellar job of exploring the implications that have become apparent. She dissects DNA testing and explores it from every aspect, mapping the perspectives of all involved—the test makers and takers, the lawyers, the genetic and forensic genealogists, the ethicists who ponder the ramifications, and the people who are on the receiving end of contact from test takers—and shows what the stakes are for each.

As intriguing as all that is, Copeland is nowhere more captivating than when she’s telling the stories of the seekers—the “people obsessed with figuring out just what’s in their genes”—and follows them down the rabbit holes that swallow them as they try to figure out where they come from. She categorizes seekers into three groups: avid genealogists for whom DNA testing is just an extension of their research; those propelled by suspicions that something is off-kilter in their families or who know they have biological family to find, such as adoptees, donor-conceived people, and other NPEs; and the hapless folks who tested for “recreational” purposes and were rocked by a finding they never saw coming.

Copeland spoke to more than 400 such seekers during the course of her research, and she braids many of their stories throughout the text to illustrate why and how people seek and the ways their lives are changed by the pursuit of truth. There’s the geneticist who found that the man she believed was her father was not genetically related. There’s the foundling who had been placed in a basket and left in front of the home of a pastor. There are the seekers who search and are shut out by their biological relatives. There’s the woman in her fifties who developed symptoms that might have been related to ovarian cancer. She’d recently been given information suggesting she was half Ashkenazi Jewish, which meant she might have a BRCA1 or 2 variant, increasing her risk of breast and ovarian cancers. A medical grade DNA test didn’t suggest that she had the variants, but her doctors thought a radical hysterectomy was still warranted by her Ashkenazi heritage. She took a DNA test to learn more about that heritage, and the results showed she had no Ashkenazi ancestry. She discovered she’d been adopted. The worst part, perhaps, was that others in her family knew and didn’t stop her from having the surgery.

But the anchor of the book is the story of Alice Collins Plebuch, a super tech nerd who used her exceptional skills in a two-decades’ long quest to learn more about her family history only to stumble on a spectacularly thorny family mystery. “It is a strange thing to look in the mirror at the face you’ve grown old with and find you don’t quite recognize it,” she told Copeland.

And through Alice’s efforts to understand her unexpected DNA test results, Copeland, weaving her story throughout the book, traces the genesis of a seeker. “Even if you didn’t mean to ask the question, once it’s asked, it will be answered. And once it’s answered—well, for many people, there’s something pretty compelling about knowing there’s a mystery man out there who gave you half your genetic material. How do you not open that box? How do you not want to see your face in his, or to hear the timbre of is voice? How do you not wonder: Would he like you? Would he be glad you came into his life? This is how seekers are made: One question lead to another.” But, she’s quick to observe, there’s no telling how the objects of one’s quest will respond to those questions—an uncertainty that drives an enormous amount of anxiety and, potentially, trauma, for which, she adds, there’s a dearth of supportive services.

These stories involving DNA testing, Copeland says, reveal “how it can delight—and how it can disappoint.” And through them she’s able to pose the big questions:

Is it better to know the truth a test reveals?

Who owns a secret?

What does it feel like to have been lied to?

What is it that forms identity? Is it cultural or biological?

What is it that makes family? Is it blood or care?

Oddly, one of the book’s numerous strengths is that it raises many questions Copeland can’t answer but that provoke thought and debate. “The rise of consumer genomics poses questions about the emphasis we put on genetic identity and what we do when DNA test results come into conflict with the narratives we’ve long believed about ourselves,” she says. “How much of your sense of yourself should scientists and algorithms be allowed to dictate?” And further, “Who decides what story we get to tell?”

Legions of test takers will nod in recognition when Copeland acknowledges the fundamental pain many seekers experience. “Secrets, we are all discovering, have a propulsive power all their own, and time and complicity only make them more powerful.” She manages to look at the toxicity of secrets from all sides. “DNA testing has brought the past forward to the present, forcing us to grapple with decisions made long ago in different, often desperate, circumstances. If forces us to think about the people whose truths have been hushed up for decades—the teenager consigned to a home for unwed mothers, the medical student who contributed his sperm, never dreaming that sperm would become a person knocking on his inbox five decades later.”

Copeland has managed to unravel the enormous knot of a deeply complex subject—the “profound and disruptive power of DNA testing.” She’s broken it into comprehensible parts and parsed their meaning and import. “The Lost Family” is essential reading for everyone who has taken or is considering taking a DNA test, and it will be illuminating to anyone with a stake in genetic identity issues. But because Copeland’s analysis is so thorough and deeply thoughtful, and because it will humanize and contextualize genetic identity issues for those who haven’t yet been touched by them, the book should be read by everyone. No one is immune to the reach of DNA testing. Ultimately, everyone will be affected in one way or another by this phenomenon. The information contained in this excellent book will help readers make informed decisions about testing and, equally, once they’ve tested, will prepare them for the fallout when “the roulette wheel of some unexpected revelation” stops at their families.

Look for more reviews here, and return to the home page for more articles about genetic identity.

Blake Gibbins

In only a year, Blake Gibbins’ YouTube channel “Not Your Orphan” has garnered an enthusiast base of subscribers who tune in for the host’s thoughtful, engaging, and provocative videos about a range of adoption issues from adoptee infantilization to genetic sexual attraction. Gibbins, a queer domestic adoptee and adoptee rights advocate, lives in Colorado and is deep into a self-designed graduate program in child welfare history and contemporary adoptee rights from Vermont’s Goddard College.

“Not Your Orphan,” Gibbins explains, is for “adoptees and allies and all who wish to understand.” And unlike so many conversations about adoption in which adoptee voices are nowhere to be found, “Not Your Orphan” is a place, they say, “where we talk everything adoption from the perspective of those who actually live it.”

Whether focused on how to be a better ally, cognitive dissonance and its place in the discourse on adoption, the gross inequities in the adoption system, or the trauma of family separation, the videos are informative, illuminating, and even—despite the seriousness of the subject matter—amusing. With an easy conversational style and a guileless gaze that connects with the viewer, Gibbins add a surprising intimacy and even the illusion of interactivity to these videos. This disarming presence, combined with deft editing and creative effects, glides viewers through what Gibbins acknowledges are sometimes uncomfortable conversations.

As host, Gibbins is both entertainer and the best kind of teacher, sharing deep knowledge of the history, workings, and abuses of the foster and adoption industry along with welcome dashes of humor and irony and a heap of social justice perspective. These videos, however, are informed not only by historical perspective but, and equally important, also by lived experience. They’re clear and direct, and variously raw, vulnerable, angry, whimsical, and passionate.

When not studying, advocating, or working for the local school district, Gibbins says, “I enjoy such activities as breathing, sleeping, and sometimes eating food.” Despite the crushing schedule, they took time to talk with Severance about a range of issues pertinent to adoptees because, they say, “I love being able to connect with other thought leaders and game-changers in the adoptee community, but also anyone having experienced child separation.” Here, they tell us about their path as an advocate and share their views on the importance of adoptee voices and the forces that tend to silence those voices.Gosh, no problem! Let’s see…I was a pre-arranged adoption from Houston, Texas, meaning my adoptive parents met my first mother some months before I was born and agreed to an adoption at birth. Growing up we didn’t really talk about it. I found out when I was about 6. Mom says I went really quiet and then asked if everyone I loved was going to die. I knew I was having struggles from separation trauma way before that though. Like, I can remember nightmares from age 3 about people kidnapping me, plus the social anxiety, obsessive perfectionism, depression, incessant crying, ya know. But I think having the verifying information started to connect more dots for me. I was also lucky enough to have found my papers when I was 8 or so; that gave me two names I could carry with me. But yeah, we didn’t discuss it. When I was 16 my first mother sent me a manila envelope with two letters and some photos (the first photos I’d ever seen of someone genetically related to me). I also found out that I had an older half-sibling who was two when I was born. No one had ever told me that before. I was elated at the time, but later that part really hurt me. And the way my adoptive mother reacted to the letter—oof. I swore to never talk about it again with her. But that’s changed in adulthood, now that I study what I study. Ha, I don’t really give her the option not to talk about it. I guess I’m “reclaiming my time,” so to speak. As far as reunion, I haven’t met my first mother’s family. And my first father and I didn’t really hit it off when we met. But anyone who goes to my channel can find out why.It’s really because of my own “coming out of the fog” experience [see more below about the meaning of coming out of the fog] and just not wanting to be silent about what I was learning. When I was finishing my undergraduate degree in peace studies at Naropa University, I attended a symposium on trauma by Dr. Gabor Maté. I was there to better understand the PTSD of the veterans I was working for. But I ended up learning far more about myself that day than anything and even became the focus of the event’s conversation at one point. Before that day, I hadn’t ever thought of adoption as trauma (though I had a crap-ton of symptoms of trauma), but I certainly left that event with some huge questions. So when we were having to come up with topics for our undergrad theses, that was what I chose—adoption. I wanted to know why I cried so much during that event and why I’d never considered my own pain as worthy of being connected to that piece of my story before. When I started doing research about adoption and child welfare history, that’s really when light bulbs started to go off. Why the heck had nobody heard of any of these shady figures or corrupt events in history? Why is nobody talking about the trauma or the ties to eugenics? I carried that line of study into my graduate work and in my first semester started the channel as a companion to what I was learning. I didn’t want to hold in all that information. I felt like the world should know. Although it’s safe to say being in grad school meant I wasn’t making enough videos to keep up with all I was learning. That’s changing now that I’m entering my final semester.Yeah…I’m not sure if it’s really about controlling the narrative so much as trying to bring justice to it. What would truly be just, in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of many others, would be to center the most impacted. You wouldn’t, for example, ask the cis-gendered boss of a trans person to speak as an expert on the trans experience in America. But the hardest question with centering adoptees is, “How do we get people to care about our perspective?” Because many really don’t understand that there’s anything worth discussing. Sometimes, just to make a bold point about bodily violation, consent, and toxic conditioning, I draw comparisons between infant adoption and assault, or kidnapping. But that’s never gone over well with others. Oh gosh, I’m remembering now…so I’m actually a survivor of a very complicated sexual assault experience (that’s not what I’m remembering), and am also an adoptee. My memory is over being so upset when I was workshopping with this group of speakers on my five-minute script about adoption—to be presented in front of 900 people at a storyteller event—and this leader stopped me when I made a statement about how, as a survivor of sexual assault, I think it’s important to believe survivors first and so was asking that we believe adoptees when they say adoption has harmed them, instead of leading with scrutiny. This person was gobsmacked that I’d drawn any kind of comparison, ignored that I mentioned I’d been a survivor, and asked that if I wasn’t going to elaborate further I probably shouldn’t include anything about assault because “it can be a very triggering subject for some.” I just stared. People hear what they want to hear. They consider trauma, assault, and violation of rights to be what they’ve been taught it is. It doesn’t matter how many facts you’re bringing to someone, they just aren’t as powerful as beliefs.Sure. I mean, to piggyback on your previous question, sometimes the narrative doesn’t progress because there are also adoptees who support our child welfare and fertility industries and actually help in the silencing of dissenters. But I’m hesitant to call them “in the fog” because I think there can be this risk of elitism inherent to all that. I think there’s just coming out, and you are where you are, and you find what you find, or you stay put. That said, I’m not cool with the shaming by those who choose to support the system toward those who don’t. Anyway, “coming out of the fog” has become a part of the phraseology of the adoptee rights community. And I actually think it’s a great description of what happens. The way I describe it is as “an organic and non-linear process by which an adult adoptee begins to unlearn and deconstruct the mythologies taught to them about adoption by the adoptive family and mainstream society at large. It is a process of personal reclamation and authority of one’s own story.” That process can be catalyzed by any manner of things, at any age, or not at all. And that makes it really difficult when we say “listen to adoptees.” To every marginalized community there is nuance, and not one voice will speak for all. But consistently I hear others say, and agree from personal experience, that there are adoptees who defend adoption in ways that many of us used to before whatever happened that catalyzed our own “awakening” process. But because these institutions favor supportive voices, any objectors are often scrapped, and even abused. And there might be adoptees who protect adoption till their dying day, and I support their right to their own stories. But this is why so much of my work tries to get people out of their heads about who had a “good” or “bad” experience and instead focuses on justice, truth, and history. Because adoptees can evolve and change in regard to how they relate to their own adoption and to the industry as a whole, but some facts don’tchange, like that these institutions didn’t begin with pure intent, are not creating pathways to prevention, and that separation of a young human from their genetic mother hurts them.I’m not shy about comparing young adoptee psyches with symptoms of Stockholm syndrome. You have to love thy captor to survive and adapt. Like I can remember having very early dreams that my [adoptive] mother was trying to kill me or possess me, and they just slowly faded because I began to see her as not a threat as I got older. For those adopted as older children, their position regarding consent and receptivity toward the process becomes trickier. I’d say it still has Stockholm-like qualities, because you need to make yourself believe that you’re going to have some permanency with these people, some security. And because removal often comes with this sense that you’ve been wronged or abandoned for something that you did, or just for existing, then you really try your hardest to keep favor with those who take you in. That or you fight like heck to resist them; there have been many young children out of home, or in this or that placement, who have been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder. We’re already navigating so many things just to attach and feel secure as young survivors of separation, and so to even fathom also bringing up the trauma of separation itself with our caregivers—while we’re actively trying to attach—would be frightening. It risks the whole operation. Because you don’t want the people who took you in to feel like the monsters in the room, because it feels like, “Well then what cause do we have to keep you [safe] if you’re just going to be ungrateful?” And so when you’ve been conditioned this way as a young person, it’s just a pattern that can stay with you: protect the parents/don’t talk about adoption = don’t risk being abandoned again. The power structure of adoption, too, just inherently makes adoptive parents out to be the biggest voice with the most power and praise. In one of my “Medium” articles I added how one Texas Democratic congressman recently encouraged that anyone adopting an older child in foster care deserves a holiday and saintly status.Umm…that’s a hard one. I think what helped me the most was finding other adoptees who felt similarly—reading their voices or watching their talks. But there can also be a lot of anger and high intensity in our advocacy community, and while it does encourage validation, I don’t know that there’s a clear handbook on the care of self while in the work. I think radical honesty and self-reflection has helped me a lot. Like, I try to name aloud my trauma patterns and triggers when they’re happening so I can recognize them and not let my system go haywire. Like I might humorously say to my roommate, “I feel like if I don’t do X, or because I did X, you’ll abandon me or kick me out.” And therapy, oh my gosh therapy—if your insurance or state helps you have access to it. And if your therapist isn’t safe or healthy when discussing this, then shop around. I’m not trying to convert anyone either, but for traumatized bodies, it’s super important that you’re really careful about what you put in them (especially substances that affect control and because the damaged chemical reward system can be really hungry for quick fixes), also that you get active, however is possible for you, and get intimate with nature as often as you can to help reset the nervous system.Hmm…I might recommend people read my article “Becoming Ungrateful” on “Medium.” I go into how dangerous single stories can be when it comes to systems or institutions of oppression. It’s a lot to go into here. One of the biggest sources of silencing adoptee voices I also talk about in the infantilization video—the intersection of trauma and privilege in an individual’s life. Many Irish (and others) did this in the 19th century after coming to this country. First, they were maliciously, violently harmed in their own countries and then here in the U.S. After a while though, whiteness was offered as a protection, and so as long as they too became offenders of violence toward newcomers, there was a relief from trauma. Some of the greatest adversaries, I think, of dissenters in this conversation tend to be those who’ve struggled with infertility, white and affluent lesbians and gays, and the evangelical Christian community, because each of these communities has been promised something to alleviate their own suffering by possession of a child in separation. Like, I’ve been called worse things by my fellow queer community about critiquing child separation than I have by just the average non-adopted person. And that hurts. Because I’ve always struggled to feel belonging in a community that’s being led to believe that access to a child is an equal right. We’re being promised that relief, resources, happiness, and security will come from the nuclear family model, and it’s just not true. Ha, all of my future dates are going to have to end with, “No I don’t want a child, and here’s why.” And then it’s like, good luck seeing that person again. It gets exhausting.Oh, I think it’s so many things working together. Adoption is a trauma-identity, and so what binds us isn’t a culture, or sexual preference, or a faith system—it’s trauma. That can be really exhausting to continue to engage all of the time. Believe me, making a degree out of it is no party. And I think all the reasons you listed do happen and are valid.I think you have to feel safe that you won’t crumble into a pile of dust. And that you won’t lose everyone you ever cared about. I actually don’t know why the queer community isn’t a better ally toward dissenting adoptees. Because it’s a similar fear when you’re coming out of the closet that you could lose your loved ones (except there’s often been a developmental privilege). But there are a couple differences in that comparison. Like, the way the queer community is right now, visibility is more accepted in society as a whole (though not in every singular place), and there are national and local organizations that help people with their identity and access to resources. And unlike coming out, where you’re saying to your loved ones, “This is who I am,” with opening up about the pain and struggles of separation there’s an unspoken inflection of “You hurt me.” And that can be more difficult to talk about. Especially when one is trying to safeguard the caregiver. I hope we [the adults] continue to make spaces where adoptees can come and just experience others owning their truth, justice, and resilience.I’m still trying this out. I really don’t have a solid answer yet, and I’m not sure we ever will. Movements are so organic, really. You just accumulate more and more voices agitating more and more of the toxic singular story, and suddenly people start paying attention. But we won’t be made privy as to when that day of critical mass will be. In regard to the quote, I do think it helps if we make sure we are building adoptee-centric community spaces first.Anonymity is the biggest thing, I think. That offer of anonymity with platforms like Dear Adoption, or with many influencers who take commentary that others have privately asked them to offer, and do so by posting with the tag “anonymous,” is so important. Because if you’re terrified to speak your truth publicly, then you need that safety and protection. Also there are just not a lot of physical, in-person spaces one can visit and hang out, read books, access resources, or form groups and meetings with other adoptees which also afford privacy from the gaze of their families. The online community has been a lifesaver. Plus with that piece about how getting together to advocate with a trauma community can be tiring, it’s important that people have the option to tune in and tune out as much as they need from the privacy and safety of their homes. That’s just a mental wellness thing. But I do hope for more in-person spaces focused on healing and justice. All of that being said, online does also come with trolls and pretty harsh pushback sometimes. So take care of you first. Don’t give it all to the cause.Well, when early separation has occurred, there’s no consent from the newborn, infant, or young child in that trauma. And they most certainly have no clue what the heck is going on, or that it means they’ll never see (or maybe even know) their caregiver again. So the more I speak my own truth, the more I’m gathering all these stolen parts of me back and becoming a sovereign body once again. Then I get to play gatekeeper, get to say, “No you may not [cross this or that boundary].” Adoption taught my limbic brain that I was nothing more than a commodity to be given away. So I became really good at giving all of me away. But yeah, not anymore. Reclaiming your story is rough, but so worth it in the end; for those moments you get to say “no” and nobody is going to violate that no. I mean, that last sentence alone is why I’m not ashamed about drawing connections between adoption and assault. I would wish the same freedom felt in the moment of a respected “no” to any survivor.That’s an easy one. There are not only so many kinds of adoptees, but also many kinds of adoptions. It’s definitely not a monolith, and so nuance and context (in juxtaposition with consistent fact) will always be required. I watch myself struggle with it sometimes on my channel. Like I might say “adoptees…X,” or something universal, and I try not to. That’s why I’ll add words like several, or many, or even clarify with infant, or newborn. Part of why I’m fundraising right now for the channel is so that I can go and meet those whose voices and experiences can fill those gaps I can’t speak to. But even with the most well-constructed article or video, you still get people who say, “I’m sorry you had a bad experience, but I didn’t. Don’t speak for me.” And you just want to shake them and say, “Did you listen to any of what I just said?” Haha, because I do really try and press the issue that there are different situations. But, like I said, there’s also biological or historical fact, and this isn’t about who had a good or bad experience. It’s about justice.I would say that the framework developed at Barnard College by Dr. Lee Anne Bell around storytelling for social justice really helped me think about stories of oppression as multiple stories, and then to begin hunting for what those “other” stories were. People can Google and read more about The Storytelling Project, which they use exclusively to talk about racism, but I think it helps to use that breaking down of story structure with any movement or issue. As far as liberating oneself? I mean if your life experience does not feel like “adoption is beautiful and painless or faultless,” then you’re already living the work. It’s just about beginning to talk about it.Oh no…I feel too seen, haha! It’s a great question, and one I try not to be scared about. The truth is, I really don’t know. There have been times where I sort of depressingly stare into space and ask, “Is social work really the only path for someone who made an entire degree out of studying child welfare history and child rights issues?” I can’t bring myself to ever even consider working within the agencies and institutions that exist in order to slowly reform them. I don’t have the patience. And I can’t place a child; I won’t do it. I’d probably be awake and haunted for days. My best friend wants me to get a PhD so I can work in higher education, and for the credibility, but I’m not sure. Truth is, I wish there was some wonderful position that someone would seek me out for. Someone who sees me as a passionate, creative teacher and advocate who wants to spark national conversations about reforming child welfare through storytelling, journalism, and research. And then they hire me because they love what I do and believe I’ll be a great contribution. Sadly, there just aren’t a lot of jobs out there for “those who want to build a future to end adoption, foster care, and big fertility.” But I hold hope that I’ll either be sought by “the right fit” that I just didn’t know existed or that I can be funded to do more of what I do. If not, there’s always working at a bookstore by day and acting as rogue adoption educator by night while I work on my novel—so long as I can pay my loans.I love this question. So, when I was in my undergraduate degree program, one of the most important books I read was Barbara Bisantz Raymond’s “The Baby Thief.” I had already been gathering a lot of information about these different parts of history and making my own connection, and then I found her book and it was like the perfect 101 synthesis of everything I’d begun studying for my thesis. It’s primarily about the life and work of Georgia Tann, but touches on a lot of other historical points that interlace with our current system of child welfare. Let’s see. The documentary “The Eugenics Crusade,” the books “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race,” and “White Trash” are all really important foundational reads for how eugenics philosophies set up what would become western child welfare as we know it. For those who can stomach old fashioned writing (I struggle), it’s worth looking into written works by Charles Loring Brace, the founder of the Orphan Train Movement. To a critical reader, he’s not shy about exposing his own beliefs toward immigrants in support of why he wanted to remove their children. Understanding poverty law in 19th-century America in general really gives you a framework for the case of adoption today. “Abandoned: Foundlings in Nineteenth-Century New York City” was also a well-researched piece with a lot more detailed information on the development of welfare at the time. Great for anyone who needs a clear, step by step unfolding with bits of storyline to back up research. I would also say “Dawnland” or “Blood Memory,” which speak well about the Native scoop era and those ramifications. There’s just a ton. And once you start, more resources always open up.That’s actually so difficult to answer, haha! There are so many excellent resources, and they all serve different functions. I’d feel badly for leaving anyone out! There are podcasts like AdopteesOn, multi-perspective platforms like Dear Adoption, and resources from orgs like Family Preservation 365, InterCountry Adoptee Voices, Adoptees Connect, and Saving our Sisters. People who want to stay up to date with more domestic OBC (original birth certificate) legislation can follow Adoptees United  (which then connects to many other domestic orgs working on the legal front). And I would highly encourage people to stay abreast of the work Adoptees for Justice is doing with the Adoptee Citizenship Act of 2019. There are way too many adoptees facing deportation in the US, and way too many who have been [deported] already—by that I mean that any is too many. There are also a ton of social influencers, and that number is growing. Ha, I don’t want to stop and list them all or this will be so long. Oh, and I presented at KAAN (Korean Adoptee and Adoptive Families Network) this year and was really pleased with the way they run their conference—lots of engaging dialogue and emphasis on centering adoptee voices.I think I answered a lot of this in a previous question, so maybe I’ll just end with a “words of wisdom” sort of thing if that’s okay. I would want those reading to know that if separation is a part of your early life story, then you’ve earned your suffering. You don’t need to work hard to prove it to anyone who doesn’t understand. We believe you. I believe you. There is an international community of us who believe you and will not judge your story when you choose to talk about it. Trauma is a bitch, but also an amazing educator if you let it be. So, write it out of you; talk it out of you; whirl, spin, and kick it out of you. But let it move. Don’t hold it in. That’s not good for you, or for anyone, in the end. What I’ve come to learn is that I had no idea how impactful sharing my own story could be toward giving someone else permission to share theirs. We all tend to wait for permission from time to time. So I gift that to you and hope that when you’re ready you’ll come find us. Because we are a growing movement. You are not alone.Look for Gibbins and “Not Your Orphan” on Facebook, on Twitter@notyourorphan, on Instagram and, of course, on YouTube. And learn more about their fundraiser to support their videos and broaden their advocacy work and find out how you can help. 

And check out one of Gibbins’ videos on in the sidebar on our homepage.

Facebook groups and virtual support groups can be lifesavers, but nothing beats face-to-face time with people who know how you feel and have been where you’ve been. That’s why Erin Cosentino and Cindy McQuay have begun organizing retreats for adoptees, late discovery adoptees, donor conceived (DC) people, and NPEs (not parent expected) at which participants can get to know each other and share their experiences in a relaxed setting while learning from experts about the issues that challenge them. It’s not therapy, but it may be equally healing, and undoubtedly more fun.

Since the day that Cosentino, 44, discovered at 42 that her father was not the man who raised her, her mantra has been “Nothing has changed, yet everything has changed.” McQuay, 56, has known her entire life she had been adopted. Both married with children and busy schedules, each devotes considerable time to advocating for people with concerns related to genetic identity and helping searchers look for biological family. And each runs a private Facebook group, Cosentino’s NPE Only: After the Discovery, and McQuay’s Adoptees Only: Found/Reunion The Next Chapter.

Among her advocacy efforts, McQuay, who describes herself as a jack of all trades, helps adoptees locate the forms necessary to obtain original birth certificates (OBCs). A strong voice for adoptee rights, she strives to enlighten non-adoptees about the often unrecognized harsh realities of adoption, helping them understand that “not all adoptions are rainbows and unicorns.” Countering the dominant narrative, she’s quick to point out that adoptees “were not chosen, we were just next in line.”

Cosentino and McQuay first encountered each other when they were among 30 participants at an afternoon meet-up in Philadelphia last March. “It was an awesome experience to be able to see and hug these people with whom we’d formed deep bonds over the Internet,” says Cosentino. “We loved that we were able to meet up with others, but felt that there simply wasn’t enough time to share with each other.” Further, she says, McQuay felt slightly out of place because she was the only adoptee in attendance and the agenda was geared more toward NPEs.

After the meeting, a group of attendees went out to dinner and Cosentino and McQuay began to talk about the possibility of creating a retreat. As a special educator, Cosentino says her go-to is always to teach, so planning a retreat where people affected by separation from biological family could gather and “learn and grow while healing” seemed like a great idea. Over the course of the dinner conversation, they’d decided to plan something longer and more inclusive, and, thus, says Cosentino, “the idea for the New Jersey Shore Round Table Retreat was born.”

They designed a program that would include all people facing identity loss and address their issues. It was important to McQuay, for example, to “make sure NPEs, LDAs, and DC people knew what adoptees have been living their entire lives”—how they’ve spent their lifetimes searching for familiarity in strangers’ faces, about the frustrations associated with the laws pertaining to OBCs, and the trauma and loss they’ve experienced.

Their inaugural retreat was held in Brigantine, New Jersey in October 2019 and was attended by 18 women and one man. “We initially and quite simply wanted more time together. We felt we wanted to provide a space where we could all—NPEs, DCs, adoptees, and LDAs—be together and share our experiences,” says Cosentino. The lone man attending felt fortunate to take part but wishes more men would take the opportunity to attend. According to McQuay, “Men may be hesitant to open up, but would be surprised to learn that the retreats are not women-specific. They contain activities that benefit everyone.

At the same time, they wanted to delve deeper into the trauma often experienced in the wake of the revelation of family secrets and so invited Susannah Spanton—a Reiki master and Bio-Energy practitioner as well as a trauma trainer at Lakeside Global Institute, which provides trauma-informed training—to speak about how the body responds and adapts to trauma. According to Cosentino, “Trauma changes a person, but we all respond differently to trauma. It’s a very individual experience. So we focused on asking thought-provoking questions and sharing meals, lots of laughs, and some tears as well. We just wanted to be around people who get it.” In addition, they broke up into smaller groups where they explored hard questions and also enjoyed time for meditation and reflection.Now they’re branching out and planning additional retreats—for starters, a spring 2020 gathering in Brigantine (with half the 30 spots already booked by previous attendees) and an autumn 2020 retreat, tentatively scheduled to take place in Pennsylvania’s Poconos, where participants can enjoy the mountains and the fall foliage. “We can’t help but think of the quote (from an unknown source)—‘Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go,’—and it really is the perfect backdrop to heal, grow, and maybe not let go, but move forward,” says Cosentino. She and McQuay are open to the possibility of hosting retreats virtually anywhere if there’s a desire from people in other areas. Because Cosentino sits on the board of a cancer nonprofit organization for which she plans events in states remotely, it’s a seamless task for her.

The first gathering, says Cosentino, was their ‘guinea pig.’ “We learned from that first retreat what people liked and didn’t like, what they need, and even what they are not ready to experience. The second retreat will take a more therapeutic approach. “Our trauma specialist is returning, but we’ve enlisted the expertise of art and writing therapists as well—Elissa Arbeitman, MA ATR-BC and Chelsea Palermo, MFA—and a licensed social worker, Gina Daniel, DSW, LCSW, will be there as well to educate us on therapies that work for NPEs, adoptees, LDAs, and DC individuals.The most significant benefit to attendees, say McQuay and Cosentino, is togetherness. “We heal simply by being together in a safe place where we already know what the others are experiencing. But of equal importance and value is the opportunity to have trained professionals guide us through different therapies and approaches and provide strategies and opportunities to feel whole,” says Cosentino.

“The best thing was knowing you are not alone and being able to share and talk about your own personal story without judgment or someone saying ‘don’t worry, nothing has changed,’” says one attendee, Da Rhonda Roberts, a 56-year NPE and a human resources coordinator from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. “For me it changed a whole hell of a lot.” The trauma lecture was also informative and helpful for her not only for its relevance to genetic identity, but also because she’s a survivor of domestic violence. Many people with genetic identity loss have experienced other types of trauma, which may be amplified by the distress they experience after making difficult family discoveries, so strategies for addressing trauma are essential.

Not feeling alone was also a key takeaway for Heather Resto. A 39-year-old NPE from Connecticut whose older brother is also an NPE, she also credits the retreat with reassuring her that “it’s okay to feel everything I feel as a result of this discovery—anger, grief, shock, sadness, and joy connecting with new family.” The lecture on trauma, she says, validated her emotions. “There was something cathartic about sitting in a room with 17 other people going through the same thing. While our stories are all different and we’re all at different points in our journey to discovery, we are all connected as NPEs. We all get ‘it,’ while many people in our daily lives just don’t see how a discovery like this is traumatic and life changing,” Resto says.Learn more about the retreats at Hiraeth Hope & Healing, and join pertinent communities on Facebook: Cosentino’s group for NPEs, McQuay’s group for adoptees, and Severance’s group for anyone experiencing genetic identity issues.

Check back soon for more on how to start a retreat or symposium in your area.