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Adoption: The Making of Me. An Oral History of Adoptee Stories
Two adult adoptees, Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Browne, delve into all things adoption - from their perspectives as adult adoptees.
Each season Sarah and Louise recap a chapter from a book centered on adoption and then interview a guest. Sarah and Louise come out of the 'fog' in real-time through Seasons One and Two and are advocating for change in the adoption industry. They want to give voice to all adoptees. Adoptee stories are needed to reframe the narrative around adoption.
Sarah and Louise, two former business partners who had a successful ice cream truck in Los Angeles, team up again - this time in frank and honest conversations about all things adoption from the adoptee perspective. Both were adopted shortly after birth, but they had very different experiences.
These will be intimate conversations, but also fun - because Sarah and Louise know how to lighten things up and have a good time. They also have an uncanny ability to get to the heart of a subject with anyone who crosses their path - so conversations will take many turns.
Episodes
154 episodes
Rebeccah: From Self-Discovery to Healing.
Rebeccah Carlson is a transracial adoptee born in Georgia and raised in the Midwest. Growing up, she often felt a sense of disenfranchised grief and longed for information about her origins. In her late twenties, Rebeccah began a journey of sel...
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Season 9
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Episode 14
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39:27
Jill: DNA Pushed This Adoptee Out of the Fog
Jill was conceived in Washington and born in Texas, adopted at birth during the Baby Scoop era, in a closed-file adoption through Home of the Holy Infancy to a same-race couple who was infertile. They had adopted a baby boy but he wasn’t as pro...
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Season 9
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Episode 13
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1:00:06
Mike: Finding Strength in Connection
Born in 1970 in Iowa, Mike was adopted at just 10 days old. His adoptive father passed away in 1972, leaving Mike and his family to navigate life without him. From an early age, Mike felt a profound curiosity about his biological roots and has ...
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Season 9
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Episode 12
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53:34
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Ann: Sleuthing and DNA Led to Answers
Ann is a Baby Scoop-era adoptee. Born to teenage parents in the early 1960s, she was adopted when she was not quite two weeks old. She’s always known she was adopted. Her adoptive mother told her against the wishes of her adoptive father when s...
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Season 9
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Episode 11
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1:28:14
Melanie: A Health Scare Spurs a Search
Melanie Green is an infant adoptee from a private domestic adoption in the 1980s. Her adoption was facilitated by a lawyer known for high-dollar adoptions of babies with blonde hair and blue eyes, and for putting financial pressures on birth pa...
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Season 9
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Episode 10
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1:10:02
Andrea: A Journey to Uncover the Truth
Born in 1976, Andrea is a same-race, domestic adoptee with international roots. Andrea's birth mother was from Greece and traveled to Sacramento, California, where she gave birth to and relinquished Andrea before promptly leaving the U.S. Raise...
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Season 9
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Episode 9
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1:06:23
Shawn: Born Without a Race
"Just a quick note - this episode contains language some listeners might find offensive -- regarding experiences involving racism."In 1963, Shawn was placed for adoption because his white mother's family didn't want a bi...
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Season 9
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Episode 8
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1:14:27
Lisa: From Chosen to Belonging
Lisa was born in 1958 and grew up in Franklin, Indiana. She was the youngest of two, both of whom were adopted. As far back as she can remember, she always knew she was “chosen.”With no real information to go on, after submitting h...
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Season 9
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Episode 7
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58:19
Matt: Birth, Adoption, Reunion: The Fog Lifts
In 1983, Matt’s mother delivered him in a metro Detroit hospital. Within a week hewas relinquished to Catholic Social Services, and moved into foster care to spendthe first three months of his life.A married couple, unable to ha...
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Season 9
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Episode 6
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1:13:24
Jennifer: With Pain Came Acceptance
Jennifer is an adoptee born in Orange County, California, in 1963. The first six weeks of her life remain a mystery. Although she was adopted by a loving family, her journey has not been easy. As part of the Baby Scoop Era, she was relinquished...
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Season 9
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Episode 5
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47:32
Adam: The Road Back to Oneself
Adam was adopted from Huentitán el Alto, in Jalisco, Mexico. Ron and Wendy had already adopted a son so they planned on adopting a girl as their second child to be named Amy but she suddenly passed away and out of distraught they told the lawye...
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Season 9
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Episode 4
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1:05:02
Melissa: A Long Road for Answers
Melissa was adopted at birth in 1965 in Little Rock, AR. Her adoptive parents were able to take her home at five days old straight from the hospital since it was a private adoption facilitated by the doctors and lawyer. Understanding the signs ...
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Season 9
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Episode 3
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1:17:29
Michelle: A Mohawk Adoptee Advocates for All
Michelle Rice-Gauvreau is a native Mohawk woman born in 1969 in Canada and raised in Connecticut via an illegal adoption, which was commonplace for many Indian babies throughout many years across North America. She is the author of
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Season 9
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Episode 2
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57:21
Rebecca: Who Is a Worthy Mother?
Rebecca is an adoptee, mother, teacher, historian, and award-winning author of the recently published ‘Who Is a Worthy Mother'? An Intimate History of Adoption.’ R...
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Season 9
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Episode 1
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1:01:36
Ann Fessler: The Girls Who Went Away. S8, Finale.
Ann Fessler is an author, filmmaker, and installation artist. Her work addresses the gap between the authoritative history one learns in history books, and that same history as understood by those who lived it. She has spent more than thirty ye...
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Season 8
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Episode 20
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1:11:07
Julie: For this Adoptee, Belonging Comes from Within
Julie Brumley is a trauma-informed adoptee coach who has been coaching men and women for more than 15 years to overcome addictive behaviors and heal the primal trauma of abandonment. She is also the CEO of Coming Home to Self, a company dedicat...
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Season 8
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Episode 19
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1:06:09
Ann: For This Adoptee, A Long Wait for Answers
Ann Haralambie is an award-winning author and a trial and appellate attorney (a Certified Family Law Specialist and a Certified Child Welfare Law Specialist). She has a BA in Creative Writing, an MA ...
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Season 8
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Episode 18
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1:39:16
Lena: For This Adoptee, Reunion is Complicated
Lena Rosenbloom is a domestic, closed-adopted person from New Jersey. She was adopted in the 80s and raised as an only child in an adoptive family that could not have children. She entered reunion in 2002 with her paternal biological family. Le...
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Season 8
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Episode 17
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52:28
Stephen: For This Adoptee, Reunion Led to Surprises
Stephen Grochol is a Financial Planner in San Mateo, CA. He and his wifejust celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary and they have two daughters.He is a post-Baby Scoop and post-Roe v. Wade adoptee. Born in Oakland,CA in 1974 he i...
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Season 8
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Episode 16
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1:03:59
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Jennifer: An Adoptee Investigator Turns to Herself
Jennifer Dyan Ghoston is a same-race domestic foster alum and adoptee in reunion with both sides of her biological family. After a 27-year career in law enforcement with the Chicago Police Department, she retired in 2014 as a police detective. ...
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Season 8
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Episode 15
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1:06:04
Kelly: A Late Discovery Adoptee Digs for the Truth
Kelly was born in 1970 and grew up in Wichita, Kansas. Her parents divorced before she could remember and she had no contact with her dad. Second oldest of five children, she blended in well enough but noticed some differences. She had reason t...
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Season 8
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Episode 14
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1:04:35
Liz: Migrating Toward Wholeness
Dr. Liz DeBetta, creator of Migrating Toward Wholeness© is an adoptee and independent scholar-artist-activist committed to changing systems and helping people navigate trauma through creative processes. She believes that stories are powerful ch...
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Season 8
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Episode 13
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1:17:01
Michael: Beckett's Children: A Literary Memoir - Live Episode from Kansas City 9.7.24
Born at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village on Nov. 11, 1954, Michael was adopted five weeks later by John and Eleanor Coffey, a corrections officer and an RN, respectively. The adoption was handled by the New York Fou...
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Season 8
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Episode 12
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1:02:43
Lea: Late Reunion Brings Love and Connection
Lea is an adoptee born at the end of the Baby Scoop era, 1970. She was born and raised in the city where she currently lives with her family. She knew from a young age that she was an adopted, a "chosen baby". She was always proud t...
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Season 8
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Episode 11
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54:33
Patti: The Girl With Three Birthdays
Patti Eddington is a newspaper and magazine journalist whose favorite job ever was interviewing famous authors who came through town on book tours. She never dreamed of writing about her life because she was too busy helping build her husband’s...
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Season 8
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Episode 10
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1:02:36
