Unraveling Me

S1 E48 Unraveling Tom J Tom Junod has spent much of his career investigating other people’s lives. His profile of Fred Rogers inspired the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood , and his essay The Falling Man became one of the most recognized pieces of writing about 9/11. But in his memoir, In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man , Tom turns that investigative lens on his o...

S1E47 Unraveling MP MP grew up feeling like the odd person out. He looked different from his brothers, struggled to connect with the man he believed was his father, and was repeatedly reminded that his interests, personality, and appearance did not fit the rest of his family. At 13, he unexpectedly learned that his parents had married after he was born. That first crack in the family story left hi...

S1 E46 – Unraveling Sheridan By 40, Sheridan believed she had already done the difficult work of understanding her childhood. The man named as her father on her birth certificate died by suicide when she was six, leaving her to grow up beneath the weight of grief, religious shame, unanswered questions, and the childhood belief that perhaps she had not been enough to make him stay.   In her la...

S1 E45 - Unraveling Mathew Mathew grew up without a consistent father in his life. In 2013, he took a DNA test simply hoping to learn more about his ancestry. Eight years later, a Facebook message asking whether he was related to someone led him back to those results. His mother refused to tell him the truth. As Mathew built relationships with his new paternal family, his mother and much of his ma...

S1 E44 – Unraveling Susan & Marci This episode is about living between worlds and eventually discovering that identity does not have to fit neatly into a single category. We can be fully connected to more than one culture, build families through both genetics and choice, and create a sense of home around the people who truly see us. Susan and Marci both grew up in white adoptive families, visi...

S1 E 43 – Unraveling Ashley  Ashley grew up in what she describes as a hurricane—an unpredictable childhood shaped by physical and emotional abuse, fear, and the constant need to stay small and safe. As an adult, therapy helped her recognize just how unhealthy the family system had been, and she eventually made the difficult decision to cut contact and build a life that felt completely differ...

S1 E 42 – Unraveling  Mary - Mary always knew she was adopted. She grew up with loving parents, an adopted brother, and a younger sister, and while she was curious about where she came from, searching for her genetic family was something she could put off—until a comment from her young daughter made her see that the unanswered questions did not belong to her alone. That moment eventually set Mar...

S1 E41– Unraveling Ona, Nina, Christine, and Sarah This episode is a powerful reminder that family truth rarely lands evenly. One sibling may feel immediate joy while another needs distance. A parent may have been loving and present for one child while remaining absent, or causing profound harm, in another child’s life. A discovery can validate feelings carried since childhood while also creating...

S1 E40 –  Unraveling Dee - At 23, while grieving the death of the mother who raised her, Dee learned another life-changing truth: she was adopted. For her entire childhood and young adulthood, Dee had believed the story she was given. She never questioned whether she belonged to her family and had no reason to investigate what her parents told her. Suddenly, she was mourning her mother while...

S1E39 – Unraveling Bill & Priscilla - This episode is a testament to persistence. Sometimes the truth takes decades, thousands of names, and one final piece of evidence to uncover—but being able to say “I know” instead of “I wonder” can bring a profound sense of peace. Bill was one of the earliest people to take a Y-DNA test, but for more than 20 years, one question remained unanswered: why di...

S1 E38 – Unraveling Lynne - Lynne’s story exposes what can happen when fertility practices operate through secrecy, misinformation, and little accountability. Her parents were told to treat their children as genetically their own and never speak of the circumstances surrounding their conception. But silence did not erase the truth. It left Lynne without an accurate medical history, a coherent unde...

S1 E37 Unraveling Shelli - Shelli’s story is about surviving childhood without the care every child deserves, doing the hard work to become healthy, and learning that patience is sometimes part of protection. Shelli spent much of her childhood raising herself. She grew up with a mother who could be magnetic and beautiful to the outside world, but emotionally unavailable and rejecting at home. Her...

S1 E36 Unraveling Steve & Becky - Steve and Becky’s story is raw, funny, painful, and almost unbelievable—except it is true and documented. Their book, DNA Did Not Anticipate , takes readers even deeper into the twists, losses, discoveries, and moments of healing that followed Steve’s DNA surprise. It is part memoir, part mystery, and part roadmap for anyone trying to make sense of a truth the...

S1 E 35 Unraveling Micelle S - Michelle’s story is layered, funny, honest, and full of hard-earned wisdom. She shows us that adoption is not a single event, but something that shapes a person across a lifetime—in identity, relationships, parenting, advocacy, and healing. Michelle grew up knowing she was adopted, and by many measures, she had what people often call a “good adoption.” She was loved,...

S1 E34 Unraveling Jennie - Jennie’s story is about more than a DNA test. It is about secrecy, loyalty, medical truth, sibling connection, and the complicated grief of realizing that the people who loved you also kept something essential from you. Jennie took a DNA test because she wanted to know more about her father’s side of the family. Her dad had died of cancer when she was 23, and with her mo...

S1E33 Unraveling Joseph & Charity - Charity spent most of her life believing a painful story about her origins. Raised by her maternal grandparents after the death of her mother, she endured a childhood marked by abuse, silence, and the belief that searching for her father would only uncover more pain. For years, she was told she was conceived through violence and taught not to ask questions....

S1 E32 Melody: Melody took a DNA test for one reason: to search for the younger brother she had not seen since childhood who’d been relinquished to adoption. Instead, her results revealed a truth she never expected. Raised African American, Melody opened her DNA results and found close white relatives, no close matches on her mother’s side, and an ethnicity estimate that made no sense with the fa...

S1E31 Unraveling Dr. Syb : Dr. Syb spent 42 years feeling like something didn’t fit. Then, at a family funeral, a cousin confirmed what her body, spirit, and intuition had long known: she had been adopted. Born during the Baby Scoop Era and raised in a same-race domestic adoption, Dr. Syb grew up in a loving family—but one built around a secret she was expected to carry quietly once the truth came...

S1 E 30 Unraveling Nick Nick was supposed to receive a DNA test for his birthday, but his parents asked that the gift be delayed. The next day, they sat him down and told him the results might reveal something unexpected. What followed led Nick to a truth he never imagined.  Through both his book Inconceivably Connected and the "Inconceivably Connected Podcast", Nick has transformed his own d...

S1 E 29 Unraveling Monica H Monica was adopted as an infant and raised in Alaska rough-and-tumble 1970s oil boom in a home where much was left unbroken. From early on, she learned to navigate instability, dysfunction, and sexual, emotional, and physical abuse – without the language or support to make sense of it. At 15 after experiencing a sexual assault, Monica became pregnant and was pressured t...

S1 E28 Unraveling Maria In this wide-ranging and deeply insightful conversation, Kara and Maria explore what happens when personal discovery intersects with law, ethics, culture, and belonging. Maria was 53 years old, standing in her kitchen, when a DNA test result upended everything she thought she knew about her identity. Raised in a deeply Catholic family, with a Filipino immigrant mother and a...

S1 E27 Unraveling Aaron & Jess In this thoughtful and often funny conversation, Kara, Aaron, and Jess explore what happened when a long-abstract donor relationship became real—and how that reality slowly reshaped all of their lives. What begins as a donor-conception story becomes something much more unexpected: a conversation about the many ways family can take shape. Years after choosing an u...

S1 E25 - Unraveling Amanda - Amanda speaks with honesty, perspective, and compassion—for herself, her parents, and the complexity of the choices made long before she had a voice in them. In this thoughtful and deeply reflective conversation, Kara and Amanda explore what it means to carry a truth for years, sometimes quietly, sometimes in pieces, and what it takes to finally live openly inside it....

S1 E25 - Unraveling Lisa - Lisa took a DNA test out of curiosity: something light, something fun. But when her results came back, they didn’t just surprise her. They unraveled everything she thought she knew about who she was. In this conversation, Lisa shares how a single test led her to uncover donor conception, connect with a half-brother, and rethink the meaning of family, culture, and self. R...

S1 E24 Unraveling Monica B - In this powerful and deeply human conversation, Kara and Monica explore how meaning can emerge even from the most chaotic beginnings. Monica’s story begins with a series of events so unlikely they almost feel fictional—until they lead to a life-altering truth. After her father’s sudden death, Monica found herself entangled in an unbelievable web with the FBI, her famil...