Roots and Branches Adoption Stories Podcast

What if the earliest moments of your life—before you even had words—shaped the way you love and trust decades later? In this powerful episode of *Roots and Branches Adoption Stories*, host Janet Munro dives deep into the hidden traumas of adoption with Julie Matye, an adoptee and trauma-informed coach. Julie's personal journey reveals how the shock of discovering her adoption at eight years old ig...

Anna shares her journey of being adopted into a Norwegian-American family, her struggles with identity, and the impact of adoption on her life. She discusses the challenges of growing up adopted, the complexities of family dynamics, and her journey of self-acceptance and exploration of her adoption history. Anna Jinja shares her experiences of traveling, honoring her father's memory, connecting wi...

The conversation explores the themes of intentional parenting and open donor conception, emphasizing the importance of truth, family connections, and the right to know one's origins. It delves into the impact of intentional parenting on family relationships and the common ground between adoption and donor conception in providing access to knowledge about one's origins. Takeaways Intentional parent...

Sarah Hopton-Long was abandoned in a hospital at just two days old and adopted nine months later. At seven, she learned she was adopted—and began a search for her birth family that would take forty years. When Sarah finally found her birth mother, she discovered she was six months too late. In this episode of Roots and Branches: Adoption Stories , Sarah shares her journey through adoption, identit...

Roots & Branches Connect is a special monthly edition of Roots & Branches Adoption Stories , where former guests return to talk honestly about what is happening now in the adoption world. Hosted by birth mother and storyteller Janet Munro, with Joe “Digital Cowboy” Moore supporting the conversation, this first Roots & Branches Connect brings together voices from across the adoption con...

Do we have a right to know where we come from? Daniel Bayen brings a very different story to Roots and Branches: Adoption Stories. He was conceived using a sperm donor and raised in Germany by a single mother who made an important decision from the very beginning—she would not keep the truth of his conception from him. Daniel grew up knowing he was donor-conceived. His mother explained that she ha...

Should siblings ever be separated in adoption? When Terisse Walker learned about three sisters in foster care who needed a family, she and her husband wanted to adopt all of them. Instead, the system decided the girls should be separated because they had different fathers—even though they had always been raised together. Terisse was allowed to adopt only the middle sister. A year later, after anot...

The process explained

Zoë Hansen-DiBello, PhD, was adopted at just 11 days old and raised by two moms in a family that made history in Rhode Island. Growing up, adoption was simply part of her story—but becoming a mother herself changed the way she understood it. Seeing herself genetically reflected in her daughter for the first time awakened questions about identity, belonging, loss and the parts of herself she had ne...

Born in Moscow in 1990, Ivan Gastanaga spent the first 13 months of his life in an orphanage before becoming the first Soviet-Russian child adopted by Spanish parents. Raised in Spain in a loving family, Ivan still carried questions about where he came from and who he resembled. At 18, he began searching for his roots, eventually finding and meeting his biological mother in Moscow. The reunion was...

At 50 years old, after raising three sons, Genelle Ellis thought she knew what her family would look like. Then an unexpected opportunity changed everything. Genelle had already begun exploring foster care and adoption in Arizona when a friend introduced her to a young pregnant woman. Just one month after they met, Genelle was in the hospital room when baby Esther was born. In this episode of Root...

For many years, adoption stories have focused on adoptees, birth mothers, and adoptive families. But what happens when a birth father wants to stay in his child's life and feels powerless to do so? In this emotional episode of Roots and Branches Adoption Stories , Shane Laufman shares his deeply personal journey as a birth father who never stopped loving his son. Raised in a childhood marked by po...

Can one person's pain become the reason thousands of others find healing? In this unforgettable episode of Roots and Branches Adoption Stories , Janet Munro sits down with adoptee, former foster youth, therapist, author, educator, and Celia Center founder Jeanette Yoffe to explore a story that is both deeply personal and profoundly inspiring. At just 15 months old, Jeanette entered New York's fost...

What happens when hearing your birth mother's story changes everything? Donna V. Werner shares her remarkable adoption journey, the meaning behind the "V" in her name, and why she's now changing lives around the world. Donna V. Werner always knew she was adopted. Raised by loving adoptive parents, she grew up believing she understood why her birth mother had placed her for adoption. Her adoptive f...

Infertility wasn't the end of Kim Patton's story—it was the beginning of a journey that led to adoption, foster care, open adoption, and a deeper understanding of trauma, healing, and hope. In this heartfelt conversation, Kim shares how difficult seasons strengthened her faith, her marriage, and her family, while offering encouragement to anyone facing life's unexpected challenges. #AdoptionStorie...

Welcome to the very first episode of Roots and Branches – The Branches ! What happens when a man discovers through DNA that he has a 40-year-old son? How does he process the joy, anger, grief, and acceptance that follow? And why are men's emotions so often hidden from view? In this powerful conversation, Jim Pehkonen shares the emotional journey of discovering he was a father decades after the fac...

What does it mean to belong? For Bonnie Butler, that question has been at the heart of her life's journey. In this episode of Roots and Branches: Adoption Stories , Bonnie shares a remarkable story that spans nearly every corner of the adoption constellation. She is the biological mother of four children, welcomed seventeen foster children into her home, adopted a sibling group of six, and later s...

What happens when an adoptee spends a lifetime trying to understand the impact of adoption—not only on herself, but on everyone involved? Today on Roots and Branches: Adoption Stories , Janet Munro welcomes author, researcher, and adoptee Jean Widner. Adopted in 1965, Jean grew up in what appeared to be the ideal family. Her father was a school psychologist, her mother a registered nurse, and from...

At fifty-two years old, Al Isaacs accidentally learned a life-changing truth: he was adopted. The discovery came during a conversation with his mother’s oncologist, who assumed Al already knew. But he didn’t. Everyone else in the family had known for decades — except him. Suddenly, the story Al believed about himself unraveled. Worse still, by the time the truth surfaced, both of his adoptive pare...

At seven years old, Charmaine Carey heard words that would shape the rest of her life. The day her adoptive parents brought home their biological son from the hospital, Charmaine sat excitedly waiting to meet her new baby brother. Instead, her adoptive father sat her down and told her she had not grown in her mother’s tummy, that the new baby was their “real” child, and that adoption would never b...

Today on Roots and Branches Adoption Stories , Janet Munro speaks with Rachel Fulginiti — foster-to-adopt mother, podcast host, voice actor, and award-winning audiobook narrator — about her deeply emotional journey to motherhood after years of infertility, miscarriage, heartbreak, and uncertainty. Rachel spent more than a decade trying to become a mother. As someone used to working hard and achiev...

The conversation delves into the concept of surrogacy, exploring the process, emotional aspects, and post-birth relationships. It provides insights into the altruistic surrogacy model in Canada and the unique emotional experiences of surrogate mothers. The conversation delves into the altruistic nature of surrogacy in Canada, the challenges and considerations of surrogacy, the process of finding a...

In this emotional and deeply complex episode of Roots and Branches Adoption Stories , Janet Munro speaks with Susan Skalicky, a birth mother whose story is still unfolding. Raised in a strict Christian environment with strong beliefs surrounding family and motherhood, Susan became pregnant at 27 after her first serious relationship. Feeling overwhelmed, unsupported, and believing adoption was her...

In Part 2 of Sam Moore’s story, we move beyond survival… and into what comes after. After enduring abuse, foster care, adoption trauma, and time in juvenile detention—including months in solitary confinement—Sam shares the harsh realities of reentry into the world. From incarceration to halfway houses, homelessness, and struggling to find employment with a felony record, her journey reveals just h...

Sam’s childhood was shaped by abuse, poverty, and instability. From foster care to returning home, her story reveals the deep layers of trauma, survival, and the realities many children face behind closed doors.