Unraveling Me

S1 E23 - Unraveling Donna - In this powerful conversation, Kara and Donna explore what it means to survive a traumatic upbringing, uncover a hidden genetic story, and rebuild a life rooted in truth. Donna speaks with honesty, grit, and hard-won clarity. She does not soften the truth of what she lived through, but she also makes space for joy, connection, and healing. Her story is a reminder that t...

S1 E22 - Unraveling Kirk and Randi - In this episode, Randi and Kirk share their deeply human, nonlinear journey of welcoming Kirk’s newly discovered daughter, Athena, into their family. What began as a destabilizing revelation became an ongoing process of reckoning, repair, growth, and choice. At its heart, this episode is about commitment—the kind that says: we will face this together. We will m...

S1 E21 - Unraveling Diana - Diana speaks candidly about identity, secrecy, and the emotional toll of discovering that official records cannot always be trusted. Her journey spans continents, generations, and legal gray zones. And yet, through genealogy work, writing her book Connected: Finding My Truth , and helping others uncover hidden histories, Diana has transformed her pain into purpose. Dian...

S1 E20 - Unraveling Angie - In this candid and emotionally layered conversation, Kara and Angie explore what it means to live between bravery and fear, loyalty and longing, compassion and grief. Angie was a seasoned mental health therapist, international wellness presenter, and expert in stress management when she did the very thing she tells her clients not to do—she ignored the truth. After taki...

S1 E 19 - Unraveling Linda Linda speaks candidly about fear, obligation, guilt, and the slow unraveling required to rebuild a life rooted in truth. Her story is about reclaiming agency after manipulation, breaking generational silence, and choosing to breathe again after everything falls apart. This episode is a testament to resilience, discernment, and the courage it takes to say: My story belong...

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 lea...

1E17 – Unraveling Melanie - This episode is a powerful reflection on identity, race, motherhood, and resilience—and on what it takes to keep going, even when the road home is one you have to build yourself. 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...

S1 E16 – Unraveling Cassandra - This episode is a powerful meditation on truth, belonging, and the slow work of integration. She reminds us that identity isn’t rebuilt overnight—and that learning who you are is often a lifelong process, especially when the truth arrives after everything else is already in motion. Cassandra’s story begins on what she calls her “re-birthday”—the night a DNA test rev...

S1E15 Unraveling Athena - This is a story about identity, patience, accountability, and what can happen when honesty finally replaces silence. Athena’s journey is a reminder that rejection doesn’t always get the final word—and that healing can unfold slowly, imperfectly, and still be real. Athena grew up without a father, raised by a single mother who told her the truth early on: she didn’t know w...

UM Special Edition – When Adoption Is Framed as a Solution - This conversation is not about debating politics. It is about lived experience, accuracy, and accountability. It centers the voices of those most affected by adoption—and asks what the public deserves to understand when adoption is elevated during moments of national influence. SHOW NOTES:  A Super Bowl commercial titled  Adopt...

S1 E14 Bryan - This episode is a deep dive into the science of stress, identity, and connection—and a compassionate challenge to rethink how we parent, partner, and relate. Bryan grew up adopted in Oklahoma, raised in a home shaped by love, trauma, and silence—where no one yet had the language to understand how early separation, in-utero experiences, and generational stress shape a child’s nervous...

S1E13 Unraveling Jennifer - This is a story about identity, betrayal, resilience, and the hard-earned strength it takes to break cycles—especially when the people who caused the harm refuse to own it. Jennifer’s honesty is fierce, her humor is sharp, and her perspective is a lifeline for anyone who’s had a long-held secret kept from them. Jennifer thought she was taking a DNA test “for fun”—a simp...

S1E12 Unraveling Brenna - Brenna’s story shows that unraveling doesn’t always begin with discovery. Sometimes it begins years earlier, in care, conflict, and quiet endurance, so that when the truth finally arrives, you’re prepared to hold it. Brenna was 54 years old, married, and raising two children when her mother, who had been living with dementia and in Brenna’s care for years, revealed a life...

S1E11 - Unraveling Laura & DNAngels - This is a story about identity, truth, secrecy, grief, and grit. It’s about what happens when one woman refuses to stay in the dark—and builds an entire movement to help thousands of others step into the light. Laura never set out to shake up the world of DNA surprises. In 2017, she just wanted to build a legacy tree for her grandchildren. As a longti...

S1 E10 Unraveling Renee - This episode is about truth-telling, family preservation, and what happens when we finally look critically at systems built on silence. Renee speaks candidly about the emotional toll of relinquishment, the lifelong consequences of secrecy, and the uncomfortable truths many would rather avoid. Her story challenges the dominant narrative of adoption as a simple good and ask...

S1E9 Unraveling Lorenzo: Lorenzo’s story highlights how DNA discoveries are rarely a single moment—they unfold over time, intersecting with grief, loss, and major life transitions. His experience speaks to the complexity of identity when ethnicity, culture, genetics, and family narrative collide. Lorenzo’s journey began with concern for his father’s rapidly declining health. Dementia, neurological...

Unraveling Lauren: This is a story about identity, truth-telling, and what happens when the missing piece of your story finally comes into focus. Lauren brings humor, honesty, and hard-won clarity to a journey many donor-conceived people will recognize—but everyone can relate to. Lauren LoGiudice grew up in a loud, loving Italian-American family: tall, lanky, pale, and unexplainably not Italian-lo...

S1E7 – Unraveling Marcie - This episode is a profound look at identity, secrecy, reunion, and the lifelong impact of being denied your own information. Marcie’s story shows that unraveling can happen at any age, and that even those who’ve spent a lifetime helping others make sense of their origins can still be blindsided by their own. Her journey is a reminder that identity is not a fixed thing—it...

S1 E6 - Unraveling Lauren C - Lauren’s story is a reminder that family trees aren’t just diagrams—they’re living, shifting truths. And sometimes the truth has been whispering to us for years before we finally hear it. Lauren had been building her family tree since 1977. Cemeteries, phone calls, interviews, handwritten charts, decades of work, 68,000 names, and the belief that she knew exactly wher...

S1 E5 – Mark Hansen - Mark’s story sits at the intersection of fertility fraud, misattributed parentage, and the long-term trauma caused by secrecy. It is raw, candid, and deeply human. This episode is about truth-telling, consent, identity, and the lifelong impact of what happens when people in power make choices without it. And how you can turn your pain into power. Mark was 47 years old, sittin...

S1E4 - Unraveling Oliver: This episode is about adoption, silence, identity, and the long interior journey many adoptees walk before saying their questions out loud. Oliver’s story is gentle, thoughtful, and profoundly human—a reminder that even truths revealed late in life still deserve space, compassion, and voice. Oliver grew up in a Dutch Indonesian family, surrounded by people who looked just...

S1E3 – Unraveling Bruce: Bruce’s story is raw, honest, and deeply human. It reveals the long shadow that secrecy casts—and the resilience required to rebuild identity at any age. This episode is about race, truth-telling, and the quiet survival strategies a child learns when the world insists he is something he cannot understand. And it is a testament to what can happen when, even late in life, we...

S1E2 Unraveling Jodi - Kara’s first guest is Jodi, her “opposite twin” in the DNA surprise world. Raised in a tiny Midwestern farm town as the only person of color in her community, Jodi spent her childhood trying to be perfect so no one would notice how different she looked. At 45, a half-price DNA test confirmed what her mirror had been whispering for decades—and upended everything she thought s...

THE BLURB: Kara grew up believing she was half Black but learned she was actually half Jewish instead. Jodi, by contrast, grew up believing she was 100% Black only to learn she was 50% Black and 50% Ashkenazi Jew. How does one wrap one's mind around a radical re-imagining of who one is and where one came from? And why is it such a legal struggle to learn these truths about ourselves? SHOW NOTES Ev...

Join host Kara Rubinstein Deyerin as she speaks with people who, like her, are impacted by NPE's (non-parental events), DNA surprises, adoption, assisted reproduction, or other unexpected information bombs that reveal the truth about who they are and their family relationships and secrets. As anyone who's ever experienced such an event can tell you, it separates you from you. From knowing your own...