Adoption Unfiltered™

This episode finds Adoption Unfiltered™ on the road for its "Ethics in Adoption" tour. Our first stop on this three-city tour could be none other than Salt Lake City, Utah. As attorney and panelist Wes Hutchins said, "Utah has legalized fraud in the context of adoption." Calling out exploitative practices and calling for better policies is of utmost importance. Joining the auth...

“There’s so much out there about the people who are ‘successful’ at adopting, but there’s nothing about people who have walked away from the process.” —  Jess Tennant , a woman who decided NOT to adopt, due, in part, to predatory adoption agency practices, in ep 31. Jess, is an ally in unfiltering adoption. In 2017 after waiting to adopt for many years, Jess and her husband decided to halt their e...

“Let’s start talking about mothers in crisis.” — Patrice Martin, DBA, on the many failures of baby boxes, in ep 30. Patrice Martin is uniquely qualified to speak on the topic of baby boxes, which is a phenomenon that takes existing Safe Haven laws an unnecessary step too far. Patrice herself was abandoned as a newborn. Hear why, in spite of — because of! — her own history as a “foundling,” Patrice...

“Our decision and application to adopt literally caused what happened to the very child we wanted to help.”  —Jessica Davis , Founder and Executive Director of Kugatta, in ep 29. What if you discovered that the child you adopted was not actually an orphan, but someone who had been trafficked away from her family and placed in an orphanage on your behalf? This is the situation faced by activist  Je...

“So many parents are showing up and listening. I’m going to keep showing up with them.” — April Dinwoodie , episode 28. After decades in this space as a transracial adoptee, activist, executive director, podcaster, mentor, and many other roles, what still surprises April? How might people do this work in a healthy way? What can be the personal costs of advocacy? We talk about this and so much more...

“You’re dealing with a lot of external politics, but there are a lot of internal politics, too.”  —Betsie Norris , Founder and Executive Director of Adoption Network, in ep 27. How did original birth certificates become available to adult adoptees in Ohio? What were the arguments of the those opposed? What can be the effect of activism on our loved ones, like Betsie’s adoptive father? Betsie also...

“When I found out the name of my birth mother, it was the first time I felt tethered to the earth … in many respects, I was then able to walk on the earth.”  —Greg Luce , Executive Director of Adoptees United and Attorney and Founder, Adoptee Rights Law Center Why does Greg work so passionately to open original birth records to adult adoptees in remaining closed states? Which are the states to wat...

“One of the most surprising things is the feedback I’ve gotten from people who find Adoptees On: ‘OMG, I literally thought I was the only who had these internal, tumultuous feelings.’ ” — Haley Radke , host and creator of the podcast  Adoptees On . Is there such a thing as an ethical adoption? What are the implications of upstream vs downstream efforts to prevent mother-child separation? What woul...

“Looking at adoption in all its many facets is extremely difficult for any of us. The narrative is rainbows and butterflies and we all learn too late. It tells each of us what we want to hear.” —  Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy , “information purveyor and data hoarder,” in ep 24. What do two birth mother activists talk about when comparing notes from back-in-the-day to current day? What progress has been...

“When we shared our stories, found our voices, started to speak and connect, there was so much in common, regardless of our birth countries.” —  Lynelle Long  in Ep 23. Lynelle Long founded  InterCountry Adoptee Voices  in 1998 to educate, support, connect, collaborate, galvanise and give voice to intercountry adoptees from around the world. In 2023, she spoke at the  United Nations about a Joint...

This season we are shining a light on the work done by Adoption Advocates and Activists! “If I was allowed to grieve from the minute I found out I was adopted, my whole life trajectory would have been different. If only I had been allowed to feel sad.” —  Pamela Karanova  in ep22 Pamela is a beacon of light in the adoption community. Her own difficult circumstances led her to launch Adoptees Conne...

“What is the hard part about adoption? ADOPTION is the hard part of adoption.” —A guest in Episode 21 Several adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, and allies gather around the table to suss out the question, “What is hard about adoption?” Is it relinquishment vs adoption? Abandonment vs assimilation? Is it severance of family and cultural ties? Is it having to forage for information? Is it i...

What are the deeper layers of the connection between attachment and food? This is a fascinating conversation with Deborah MacNamara, PhD, author of  Nourished: Connection, Food, and Caring for Our Kids (and everyone else we love) , for anyone dealing with digestive or attachment issues—which is, likely, all of us. “If food is not served in the context of togetherness, then it serves emotional dist...

What would it be like to live in a community that protects you from pain, grief, loss, and other difficult feelings? How would it be to have so much sameness among community members that envy was eradicated? What if individuals were prevented from making bad choices? What would happen in a community that completely downplays genetic connections, a community in which everyone is an adoptee? Newbery...

Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao has been living adoption for more than 75 years as an adoptee—and professionally connected to adoption for 55 years in various roles, including as a psychologist and lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is the author of The Family of Adoption, and we three authors are incredibly fortunate that Dr. Joyce has written the foreword to our book, Adoption Unfilte...

“Adoption seems simple from the outside. But when you’re in the thick of it, you see things in ways you never expected.” Author Melissa Guida-Richards (What White Parents Should Know About Transracial Adoption) joins us to talk about discovering at age 19 that she had been adopted, and that her ethnicity didn’t match her parents. What was it like to experience such a shifting in fundamental truths...

Adoption tropes make for blockbuster films and viral news stories, but, as we do here on Adoption Unfiltered, let's dive deeper. Why do such tropes exist and perpetuate? Why do we harbor cultural biases such as: adoptive parents being unquestioningly unselfish and amazing; birth parents being undeserving of raising their kids; adoptees being ungrateful if they speak up and share a fuller story...

There’s a difference between listening to and taking from. People enjoy being heard but not being depleted. What are the unspoken rules of engagement in adoption spaces? On the one hand, it’s great to have our safe spaces for adoptees only, birth parents only, adoptive parents only. Yet we also benefit from having cross-triad conversations, too. Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard...

It’s November, which means National Adoption Awareness Month. Adoption talk, adoption talk, everywhere you go! We’ve described it as overwhelming, emotional laboring, and metamorphosing. What was the original intent of NAAM? In what ways has the original intent expanded and shifted? Who has benefitted from NAAM, and who hasn’t? Who has historically owned the narrative, and how is that shifting? Ad...

Sara Easterly  (adoptee),  Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard  (birth mom) and  Lori Holden  (adoptive mom) kick of Season 2 with a special Adoption Constellation Round Table, for which we invited adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, and others who have something to say about adoption to talk together around this question:  What is the biggest ah-ha you’ve had about adoption? We also make a special...

What will happen when the Supreme Court officially rules on Roe v Wade?  Sara Easterly  (adoptee),  Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard  (birth mom) and  Lori Holden  (adoptive mom) talk about the overlap between abortion and adoption. Not an easy conversation! Adoption and abortion are so often pitted against each other as opposite sides of coin when it comes to pregnancy decisions. But as Sara points ou...

Gordon Neufeld, Ph. D.  joins  Sara  (adoptee),  Kelsey (birth mom), and  Lori  (adoptive mom) to talk about attachment and healing that can come—or not—after trauma. He provides validation for adoptees that separation is, in fact, a wound that needs tending. He provides wisdom for birth parents on how to incorporate the melancholy thread that becomes part of a life’s tapestry once you place a chi...

As the companion discussion to  Problematic Behaviors of Adoptive Parents , Adoptee  Tony Hynes of C.A.S.E. (the Center for Adoption Support and Education) joins Adoptee  Sara Easterly , Birth Mom  Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard , and Adoptive Mom  Lori Holden  to cover some of the problematic behaviors of birth parents. Tony has quite a story. He is a transracial adoptee raised in an open adoption b...

What happens when tragedy strikes and children need help? Where is that very fine line between helping via adoption and hurting via trafficking? How can we best avoid crossing it? Kathryn Joyce , who researched and wrote  Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption , joins  Sara  (adoptee),  Kelsey  (birth mom) and  Lori  (adoptive mom) offer their perspectives on this comp...

Sara (adoptee), Kelsey (birth mom) and Lori (adoptive mom) offer their perspectives on various words people in the triad are called, like “ungrateful adoptee,” “first mom,” and “adoptoraptor.” Plus, other phrases like “put up” vs “placed for” adoption, “Real Mom,” “Gotcha Day,” “Tummy Mummy,” “adoption triad” vs “adoption constellation,” and more. Adoption Unfiltered  is presented by adoptee Sara...