Conversations About Adoption

An activist, comedian, director, and middle school theatre teacher, CJ Miller aspires to do everything he can to change the world for the better. A holder of degrees in both Theatre and Aerospace Technology, CJ is also a military veteran, an actor, and an outstanding dramaturg (even though no one knows what that is).  CJ can be found on Tiktok as @childlessparent speaking out against the legalized...

Today I am reading this article. Families and adoption: the pediatrician's role in supporting communication. ABSTRACT: Each year, more children join families through adoption. Pediatricians have an important role in assisting adoptive families in the various challenges they may face with respect to adoption. The acceptance of the differences between families formed through birth and those form...

Because Mother's day is complex when you are affected by adoption, and people in my groups had started talking about mother's day feels in various groups and other platforms, I decided to open up a zoom room and have a Mother's day chat. I invited people in from all the platforms that I remembered while spontaneously putting this together yesterday. (TikTok, FB groups, Instagram, and t...

Just an update from Louisville Kentucky where I've been attending the untangling our Roots summit

Just an update to let everyone know I'll be attending the summit in Louisville KY March 30th- April 1st. And reminder on how to contact me.

I spoke with Isabel a transracial adoptee who has been in reunion with her mother since she was 17. She is an example of another adoptee who acted out due to trauma, and was sent away. She talks about reunion, her siblings, her adoptive family, and how being racially ambiguous while growing up with a lack of genetic mirroring has affected her sense of identity. Hope you give it a listen! You can f...

In this conversation I am talking to Chelle, and our conversation hits many different points. She told me how her open started out as open, but her adopters closed it within the first few months of her life, how she was thrust into reunion when she was a teen because of issues at home, and eventually became a pert of the trouble teen industry when her adoptive parents decided they couldn't deal an...

This is a conversation I had with Suzanna, she tells me about her adoption, and the subsequent court battle that happened when her first mom tried to regain custody of her after her revocation period. We also discuss her search and reunion. We have something in common in that we are both Pennsylvania adoptees, and had to go through the same court system to access information about our families. We...

** TRIGGER WARNING** Vin talks briefly about sexual assault in this episode. This is a conversation with my very good friend Vin who is an international transracial adoptee who was born in India and raised on Australia. We have been friends for several years and we have a conversation up on my YouTube channel that is MUCH more in-depth, but I decided I wanted to include him here in podcast format...

Sarah is a baby scoop era adoptee who recently started making tiktoks about her experiences as an adoptee. In this episode she discussed how she felt finding out the only knowledge she had about her first parents was incorrect, including her nationality. Her username on Tiktok is @higher7771 please give her a follow. If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child to adoption and would like...

In this special series for National Adoption/Adoptee Awareness month (November) I asked adoptees to call in and leave a message answering the question,  "What is the best advice you could give to an adoptee just learning about the primal wound, and just venturing out of the fog?" I obviously didn't do a good job with this... I need to start preparing before November.. also I was in s...

In this conversation I talk with the film maker of "Reckoning with the Primal Wound" Rebecca Autumn Samson! Join us on the Struggle-bus and check out our conversation!  She is a reunited adoptee who was inspired to make a film about her story incorporating the book called "The Primal Wound" by Nancy Verrier .  This book has helped many adoptees recognize how adoption has affected them, h...

Thanks for joining us today!  In this episode I talk with Marc who is an adoptee with quite a few labels.  He is an international adoptee being born in Colombia. He is a transracial adoptee as his adopters (as he calls them) are mid-western white Americans. And Marc is also transgender.  I came across Marc on Tiktok not long after he joined it, and began making videos about adoption...

This is a special bonus episode where I have a quick chat with Paul Brian Tovey who is a UK adoptee and artist. He is active on some social media and has been working on collecting data about adoption via a survey project.  Please be sure to participate in his adoptee survey! He has a blog on Medium.   You also can find him on Facebook and Twitter. If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child...

In this episode originally posted on YouTube on October 7, 2020, Carrie tells us her story of how she lost her child to adoption. It is another story of a woman in a vulnerable situation being coerced into relinquishing her child.  If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child to adoption and would like to be on the podcast, please email me at info@conversationsaboutadoption.com I also hav...

This was a totally spontaneous Conversation had with DezaRay who is a transracial adoptee. I have followed her for years on Instagram, but recently she has joined Adopteetok which is to say the adoption community on Tiktok of adoptees, foster care survivors, first parents, and other advocates who spend their time and energy to bring awareness to all the complexities and ethical issues of infant ad...

This is a bonus episode originally posted on April 19, 2018 on Youtube.   I asked adoptees and first parents to call in an answer the question, "How has adoption affected your intimate relationships?" If you like the idea of contributing, please subscribe so you can receive notifications about questions you can contribute answers too. 

Hi!  This is the VERY first episode I ever tried to make, so please bear with the editing job. (This is why I don't edit anymore. I am not an editor.) This was originally published in 2016.  This is a conversation with my friend Joey who is also a baby scoop adoptee. He made a documentary film about obtaining his original birth certificate when Ohio made them available to adoptees in 201...

**Trigger warning she talks about how babies and children were abused, and her brother's abuse.** This conversation is long but so important as the survivors of Georgia Tann are aging & it is so important that they tell their stories. If you are unfamiliar with Georgia Tann, she ran the Tennessee Children's home in Memphis (Which was very corrupt at the time.) from the 20s till 1950 when she d...

This episode is a conversation with Renee Lynn Gellin lost her son through a perfect storm of financial struggles, and adoption coercion. This experience inspired her to want to prevent other mothers from losing their babies to adoption. She is a cofounder of Saving our sisters adoption. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are a family preservation organization. They and their many volunteers ar...

Posted August 2, 2022 This is a conversation I had with Shyanne. She is the first mom featured in the Time magazine article called "The baby Brokers" .  This is an audio only version, now video on my YouTube channel due to technical difficulties.  Shyanne's linktree which includes a link to the article.  This conversation was recorded via zoom, which caused a slight delay and occasi...

Originally published 4/29/2018 This is the conversation I had with Janet a Canadian first mother of the baby-scoop era. She has searched and found her daughter but there is very little contact between them at the time this was recorded.  She has a great story to tell and we talk about a whole variety of adoption issues. This one is very long, but I think very worthwhile. Halfway through my do...

Originally published 4/21/2018 This episode was originally uploaded to YouTube in video format. Damon is a fellow adoptee and host of the podcast Who am I really? He shares his amazing story, and we talk about adoption, podcasting, life, and more.  I apologize for the audio quality. If you would like to be a guest on a future episode, click here.