At its heart, this episode is about commitment—the kind that says: we will face this together. We will make room. We will grow. Because sometimes family isn’t defined by how it begins, but by how people choose to show up when everything changes. This story is not tidy. It is layered, evolving, and real.

SHOW NOTES

When truth arrives unexpectedly, it rarely unfolds in a straight line. There were hard conversations. There were moments of grief and disorientation. There were questions about loyalty, identity, and what family really means. And alongside all of it, there was intention.

Randi’s strength is not loud, but it is steady—marked by tenacity, empathy, and a willingness to sit inside discomfort without shutting down. Kirk’s willingness to grow in real time, to hold complexity, and to lead with love even when it would be easier to retreat is equally powerful.

Together, they show what it looks like to stay engaged when life gets complicated.

In this episode, Kara, Randi, and Kirk discuss:

• The emotional shock of unexpected parentage
• What it takes to expand a family after trust is shaken
• Navigating loyalty, grief, and new relationships simultaneously
• The courage required to support one another through identity shifts
• Choosing connection over defensiveness

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Diana grew up believing her origins were clear. Raised in a modern Orthodox Jewish home, she built her identity around faith, family, and tradition. Even when she didn’t quite look like her parents, there was always a photograph ready to explain it away. But a slip of the tongue from a family friend changed everything.

SHOW NOTES

What followed was not a simple adoption story. It was a layered, cross-border unraveling. In this powerful and complex conversation, Kara and Diana explore what it means to chase truth when the truth keeps shifting.

• Finding the truth in multiple different birth certificates, each with conflicting information
• The reality of baby brokers and the “baby scoop era”
• How coercion forced Diana to step back from her search and reunion for 15 years
• Wrestling with faith, conversion, and maternal lineage within Judaism
• Living with unanswered questions and choosing peace anyway

Her story reminds us that truth is not always neat. It does not always come with paperwork. And sometimes the unraveling is lifelong. But seeking it anyway? That is courage.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES

In This Episode, Kara and Angie discuss:

• Suppressing shocking DNA results and why even therapists avoid their own pain
• Protecting her mother’s legacy while naming the cost of secrecy
• The complexity of loving a parent and feeling betrayed at the same time
• Searching for her genetic father years after discovery
• Being rejected by DNA matches and finding the courage to keep going
• The various ways we can reach out to new family and when just showing up is an option
• Holding fear and hope in the same breath

Angie speaks with deep compassion for everyone involved: her mother, her sisters, even the family she has yet to meet. As a wellness professional, she understands that emotions aren’t binary. Two things can be true at once. Love and grief. Loyalty and betrayal. Fear and courage. Her story is about finally choosing truth over silence and deciding that uncertainty is still better than never knowing.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES

Linda always knew she was adopted. What she didn’t know was how deeply secrecy, emotional neglect, and unspoken shame would shape her identity—and how fiercely she would one day fight to reclaim it.

At 24 years old, desperate to know her origins, Linda did something few would dare: she broke into the adoption agency to retrieve her own records. That night became a pivot point—a declaration that her story belonged to her. But accessing the truth was only the beginning.

In this powerful and layered conversation, Kara and Linda explore the long arc of identity, trauma, manipulation, and healing. Kara and Linda discuss:

• Growing up in an alcoholic, authoritarian household where adoption was never openly acknowledged
• Being treated as a “blank slate” and expected to erase her history
• The danger of power imbalances in therapy—and surviving a deeply abusive therapeutic relationship
• Isolation, grooming, and the long road back to autonomy
• Rebuilding identity through sobriety, somatic healing, research, and education
• Why “good therapy” matters—and how to protect yourself when seeking help
• The ongoing process of integration and self-trust

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melanie was adopted at birth into a white, religious family in the segregated American South. Raised as a transracial adoptee in a household shaped by silence, fear, and rigid expectations, she learned early that survival often meant obedience—and that questions about identity, race, and origin were not welcome. In this candid and powerful conversation, Kara and Melanie explore how adoption, religion, racial isolation, and secrecy intersected to shape Melanie’s childhood and sense of self. 

SHOW NOTES

Kara and Melanie discuss:

• Growing up transracially adopted in the Jim Crow South
• Religious trauma, saviorism, and adoption as status
• Living in a home where fear replaced safety
• The impact of growing up without genetic mirroring
• Teenage motherhood without protection or guidance
• Experiencing abandonment by systems meant to help
• Finding survival and belonging through the support of other women
• Using DNA testing to search for answers and connection
• Navigating reunion, rejection, and loss
• Reclaiming identity, education, and voice later in life
• 
  

Melanie speaks with honesty and clarity—naming harm without minimizing it and holding complexity without excusing silence. Her story reminds us that unraveling is rarely a single moment of discovery, but a lifelong process of learning to belong to yourself when belonging was never made safe.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cassandra’s story begins on what she calls her “re-birthday”—the night a DNA test revealed the truth about her origins and quietly dismantled everything she thought she knew about herself. What followed wasn’t a single moment of realization, but years of unraveling, re-integration, and learning how to live honestly inside a body that suddenly held a different history.

In this deeply reflective conversation, Kara and Cassandra explore how donor conception, secrecy, and late discovery reshape identity—not just intellectually, but emotionally, relationally, and culturally.

SHOW NOTES 

Kara and Cassandra discuss:

• The shock of realizing the story of her conception was never disclosed
• Navigating parental secrecy and the emotional aftermath of planned silence
• Meeting her genetic father and donor-conceived siblings
• The life changing impact of learning she is half Ashkenazi Jewish
• Grief for a cultural inheritance hidden from your childhood—and the pull to reclaim it
• Rebuilding identity after truth arrives late

Cassandra speaks with care for everyone involved, even as she names the cost of secrecy and delayed truth.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After years of unanswered questions, rejected paternity tests, and the exhausting search for truth, a DNA test finally provided a name and opened the door to a family that didn’t know she existed. What followed was a complicated journey marked by secrecy, fear, courage, and, ultimately, connection.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Kara and Athena talk about:

• Growing up without a father and being told “we don’t know who he is”
• Searching for genetic truth through paternity tests and DNA
• Being asked to remain a secret and the toll that silence takes
• The emotional weight of carrying shame that doesn’t belong to you
• Meeting siblings and extended family while navigating secrecy
• The profound role a supportive spouse can play in healing
• Learning to belong without erasing the pain that came before

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES: 

A Super Bowl commercial titled Adoption Is an Option ignited strong reactions among people connected to adoption. Positioned as a “third choice” in the abortion debate, the ad presents adoption as moral workaround to the question of abortion. But for many, the message felt incomplete—and deeply unsettling.

In this special edition of Unraveling Me, Kara convenes birth parents, adoptees, therapists, and advocates to examine what happens when adoption is framed as a solution rather than a lifelong reality. Together, they unpack the distinction often overlooked in public messaging: abortion is a decision made early in pregnancy; adoption is a permanent legal outcome to an often temporary problem—a choice that should only occur after carrying a child to term and giving birth.

Kara sits down with a powerful group of birth parents, adoptees, therapists, and advocates:

• Leslie Pate Mackinnon: birth mom, therapist with decades of experience, and board member of Concerned United Birthparents
• Dr. Abby Hasberry: birth mom, adoptee, therapist, and author of Adopting Privilege
• Jennifer Fahlsing: adoptee, birth mom, and co-founder of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents
• Renee Gelin: birth mom and founder of Saving Our Sisters

Together they discuss:

• Why adoption and abortion are not answers to the same question
• What gets erased when adoption is reduced to a “third option”
• The lifelong realities of relinquishment for birth parents and adoptees
• How public messaging shapes cultural understanding of adoption
• Who benefits when adoption is framed as a solution—and who is left out
• What support, resources, and family preservation conversations are missing

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Kara speaks with Bryan Post, a trauma-responsive parenting educator with over 30 years of experience working with adopted, fostered, and trauma-impacted children and families. Together, they unpack why so many well-intentioned parenting approaches fail—and what actually helps when identity, attachment, and regulation are disrupted.

SHOW NOTES

In this episode, Kara and Bryan talk about:

• Being adopted as an infant and growing up in a home shaped by unresolved trauma
• How in-utero experiences influence regulation, attachment, and later behavior
• Why siblings raised in the same home can have radically different outcomes
• The difference between trauma-informed and trauma-responsive parenting
• How stress—not “bad behavior”—drives emotional reactivity in children and adults
• Why attachment cannot form without regulation and co-regulation
• How early relational trauma becomes woven into identity and personality
• The role of grief, breath, and nervous-system awareness in healing

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jennifer thought she was taking a DNA test “for fun”—a simple curiosity sparked by a school project and a desire to learn more about the man listed on her birth certificate, the single dad who raised her. But when her results came back, she knew instantly something was wrong.

Zero Italian.

In one click, Jennifer lost the cultural identity and family narrative she’d carried her whole life and gained a truth her mother had kept buried for decades, even while living in Jennifer’s backyard for 15 years. What follows is a raw, deeply relatable conversation about secrecy, addiction, family rupture, and the long road back to safety after everything you thought you knew becomes uncertain.

SHOW NOTES

In this episode, Kara and Jennifer talk about:

• Being raised by a single father in the 1980s and what that meant culturally and emotionally
• “Weekend/holiday mom” parenting, and the grief of never getting the mother you needed
• The moment her DNA results confirmed she wasn’t Italian, and why she’ll never forget the exact time and date
• Why she searched for answers before confronting her mother
• How family secrets intersect with addiction, shame, and generational silence
• The ripple effects of discovery: siblings who welcome you, siblings who can’t
• Losing connection with parts of her raised family, and choosing to set boundaries anyway
• Why reunion (and healing) requires going slow and leading with grace

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

That long, difficult season forced Brenna to confront grief, anger, compassion, and exhaustion all at once. It also quietly expanded her emotional capacity long before she knew why she would need it. So when her mother finally revealed the truth, the disclosure didn’t shatter her. It freed her. Brenna explores how caregiving through a fraught relationship became the unexpected groundwork that allowed her to receive a life-changing truth without collapsing—and how unraveling and rebuilding is often a slow process, not a single moment.

SHOW NOTES:

In this conversation, Kara and Brenna discuss:

• How a strained parent–child relationship shaped her response to the truth
• Growing up without genetic mirroring and being labeled a “fluke”
• Discovering her sister shared the same truth—and navigating that revelation carefully
• Family secrecy, silence, and the long-term cost of “don’t ask, don’t tell”
• Accessing original birth certificates within an uneven legal landscape
• Using DNA testing to search for answers
• Meeting genetic family as “intimate strangers” who quickly felt familiar
• Relief, grief, freedom, and the slow rebuilding of identity after truth

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What followed was a cascade of realizations—family rumors resurfacing, memories unlocking, grief for the dad she adored, and the dawning truth about her and her siblings she grew up with. That discovery sent Laura into the “fetal-position phase,” three days in bed, a crash course in centimorgans, and then the decision that would change everything: to get up, get answers, and pick up the phone.

That phone call led her to the man who might be her genetic father…or her uncle—her “uncle-daddy.” It also led her to a widow who had known about Laura her entire life, a family she never knew she had, deep medical implications, and a new understanding of what secrecy costs a child across decades. From that unraveling came her mission: help others find the truth. And with that mission came DNAngels, a non-profit organization that has now helped identify more than 8,000 genetic parents.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Kara and Laura talk about:

• Why she took a DNA test, and the moment it all fell apart
• How centimorgans actually work (explained the way real people understand it)
• The “uncle-daddy” phone call that changed everything
• Grieving her raising dad twice—once when he died, and again when she learned the truth
• The emotional fallout with her four siblings 
• How secrecy, ownership, and family mythology shape identity
• The medical consequences of not knowing your genetic parentage
• How all of this led to founding DNAngels, and what she wishes every MP parent understood

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Renee’s unraveling didn’t begin with a DNA test. It began with an unplanned pregnancy, a vulnerable moment in a new relationship, and a series of pressures that led to the unnecessary adoption of her child. What followed wasn’t closure—it was awakening. As Renee began to understand what had happened to her, she found her purpose: questioning an industry that too often operates behind rose-colored narratives and without critical scrutiny.

In this episode, Kara and Renee unpack the realities of infant adoption in the United States and the ways crisis, misinformation, and power imbalances shape irreversible outcomes for mothers, fathers, and children alike.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Kara and Renee discuss:

• How a crisis pregnancy can rapidly spiral into adoption without informed consent
• The differences between foster adoption and infant adoption, and why that distinction matters
• The pressure tactics used by adoption entities during moments of vulnerability
• Why maternal separation is a trauma for both mother and child
• The commodification of infants and the supply-and-demand reality of adoption
• How unmarried fathers can lose parental rights without ever knowing
• The myth of “saving a baby” and what families actually need instead
• Open adoption myths versus lived realities
• Sealed birth certificates, identity loss, and the long-term impact on adoptees
• Why DNA, identity, and family connection cannot be erased by paperwork

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Instead of confirming family history, Lorenzo learned he was Ashkenazi Jewish—something completely absent from the story he’d been told about himself. Raised as a Black man, his results set off months of disbelief, denial, testing, and a painful confirmation.

SHOW NOTES

In this episode, Kara and Lorenzo talk about:

• Taking a DNA test for health reasons—and getting answers he never asked for
• Discovering Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry that didn’t fit his lived identity
• Navigating disbelief, anger, and the instinct to prove the results wrong
• Losing his father while still searching for the truth
• What it means when family folklore and genetics don’t align
• How a DNA test fractures your sense of identity when your ethnicity shifts
• Grief, secrecy, and the psychological toll of prolonged uncertainty
• Finding support and connection in NPE spaces

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lauren LoGiudice grew up in a loud, loving Italian-American family: tall, lanky, pale, and unexplainably not Italian-looking. For decades, she fielded questions, invented explanations, and tried to make sense of the genealogical bewilderment she couldn’t name. My favorite: she was descended from Vikings.

At 45, a DNA test finally revealed the truth—she was donor-conceived. And overnight, her entire life—her family stories, her jokes, her career, even her face—suddenly made sense.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Lauren and Kara talk about:

• Growing up as “the odd one out” in a tight-knit cultural community

• The stories families invent to explain a child who looks different

• How genealogical bewilderment shaped her comedy and her characters

• The cognitive dissonance that kept her from interpreting her DNA results

• The moment she learned she had 15+ donor-conceived siblings

• Meeting her parents’ donor “Jim” and finally seeing herself reflected

• Why secrecy, shame, and silence still surround donor conception

• How owning her story transformed her comedy and her voice

• Why she created a community of “misfits” for people who never quite fit a category

For more information about Lauren - and where to enjoy her work - please visit https://www.laurenlogiudice.com/.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marcie’s story is unlike any other in this season because it spans every side of the adoption and misattributed parentage world. Marcie co-founded the National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP), fought for nine years to change Indiana law, helped open adoption records, and eventually helped create the Untangling Our Roots conference with Kara.

And then, at 68, everything she thought she knew about herself shattered. A DNA test, one she took reluctantly for her brother, revealed a family secret. Suddenly, Marcie found herself on the very path she’d guided countless through. Socked, disoriented, ashamed, grieving, and desperate to understand where she came from.

SHOW NOTES:

In this conversation, Kara and Marcie talk about:

· Surrendering a child in the closed-adoption era

· The trauma of reunion and the beauty of connection

· How denial becomes a survival skill

· The night a shoebox of memories forced her to face her past

· The emotional freefall of discovering your genetic father isn’t who you believed

· Why even experts are unprepared when their foundation cracks

· What it feels like to belong to no one—and everyone—at once

· What adoptees, birth parents, and MP individuals share—and where their experiences differ

· How community and compassion carried her through the darkest days

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this conversation, Lauren and Kara talk about:

• How a high-school genealogy project sparked a lifelong search for family truth
• The obsessive dedication many NPEs feel to family history and how it shifts after a discovery
•  How her mother’s coded shorthand diaries revealed an affair and a tangled web of secrecy
• The moment her top or her DNA surprise
• Realizing her birth certificate father had always known she wasn’t genetically his and why mumps really were a big deal
• The complicated grief of understanding her parents' marriage and the emotional toll on everyone involved
• What it feels like to discover first cousins, siblings, and relatives hiding in plain sight
• Rebuilding identity after the foundations of your origin story fall away

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES:

In this episode, Kara and Mark talk about:

· The exact moment his raising father disclosed the truth

· What insemination practices looked like in the 1960s—and what doctors were actually doing

· How he confirmed the truth with DNA testing

· Seeing his genetic father’s face for the first time—and seeing his own staring back

· The moral obligation he felt to notify four half-sisters living just miles away

· Why secrecy, shame, and fear keep families silent for decades

· How misattributed parentage can unravel sibling relationships

· What it means to “lose” your dad twice—once in death, and once in truth

· The ripple effects on extended family, medical history, and identity

· How he rebuilt stability and self-understanding in the aftermath

 Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES

At 18, right before leaving for the military, Oliver's parents told him he was adopted. The revelation landed just as he was entering an institution designed to strip away identity and rebuild it from the ground up. For years, Oliver held the truth quietly inside himself, unsure how to search without hurting the parents who raised him. It wasn’t until he became a father himself that the questions he’d buried began to surface. And it wasn’t until decades later, after his mother died and his father developed dementia, that Oliver finally allowed himself to search.

In this conversation, Kara, Oliver, and Melissa talk about:

• Growing up looking like you “fit,” even when the story doesn’t fit you at all
• The shock of discovering adoption at 18
• How the military intensifies questions of identity and belonging
• Why many adoptees delay searching until their raising parents are gone
• The emotional and ethical landmines of reunion
• The fear of hurting the people who raised you
• Using DNA and genealogy to trace a genetic mother
• Navigating this journey as a couple—support, differences, boundaries
• What it means to build identity when the truth arrives decades late
• What supportive partnership looks like when one person is unraveling their identity

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Kara and Bruce talk about:

• Growing up “the only one” in a large white family
• Experiencing racism as a child with no understanding of why
• The lifelong impact of secrecy, misattributed parentage, and identity confusion
• Using DNA testing to unravel ethnicity, parentage, and scientific truth
• Waiting four years for DNAngels to identify his genetic father
• Navigating complicated new genetic relatives
• Living as a biracial man raised as white and the emotional toll of never belonging fully anywhere
• How identity formation is shaped by context, environment, and who tells us who we are

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Kara and Jodi talk about:

• Growing up as “the only one” in an all-white town
• Perfectionism, people-pleasing, and staying silent to survive
• The moment a DNA test revealed she is a different ethnicity
• Grieving a beloved dad while learning he wasn’t her genetic father
• Meeting her genetic siblings and navigating a new culture at midlife
• What it takes to rebuild belonging after misattributed parentage

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SHOW NOTES

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For more information please visit righttokknow.us.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.