Mind Your Own Karma - Beyond The Bandage

Monique Pangari was born in Australia in 1972 at the height of the ‘Forced Adoption Era.’ Relinquished at birth and adopted at 6 weeks of age, she grew up in a family with two older adopted siblings. As a result of this complex experience, along with the rollercoaster of FOUR ‘search and reunion’ journeys, early pregnancy and parenting, and now estrangement from multiple family members, she has no...

Jennifer Dyan Ghoston is a same-race domestic adoptee in reunion with both sides of her biological family. After a 27-year career in law enforcement with the Chicago Police Department, she retired in 2014 as a police detective. In 2015, she self-published her memoir, "The Truth So Far...A Detective's Journey to Reunite With Her Birth Family." She credits her spiritual journey that st...

I hope you'll join me for this conversation with Veronique. It's not often that I do interviews with adoptive parents, and maybe it's been my assumption that I know their stories already. Do you have assumptions about their stories, too? Veronique is an adoptive mother of a baby girl through an open adoption in 2021. She is originally from the French Caribbean but was born and grew up...

Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. In her books, essays, and blogs, she explores the topics of finding out who you are, where you belong, and making sense of it. Her award-winning memoir, Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging, was released in May of 2021. Her work has appeared in multiple journals, anthologies, and online sit...

Jessica Pearson was born in Billings MT in 1981. Her bio mother was a teenager who found herself pregnant, and with a family that wasn't interested in raising a baby and decided adoption was the best option for them. Jessica was the first private adoption in the state of Montana. She was raised by a medical doctor and stay-at-home mom, and it all seemed perfectly "normal" and good to...

TRIGGER WARNING! TALK OF SUICIDE. Kevin Berthia is a suicide survivor, advocate, and speaker. Kevin pours his heart into sharing his powerful story of growing up in silence, always feeling the need to hide the unbearable pain he was in. Through high school and into his early twenties, Kevin was known as the life of the party… until his very public suicide attempt at the Golden Gate Bridge changed...

TRIGGER WARNING : Themes of a traumatized adoptee infant discussed. Listen to what happened when I reposted a video I saw on TikTok showing a traumatized infant being handed over to it's new adoptive mother. If you or someone you know would like to tell their adoption story on the podcast (anyone in the adoptee constellation), please send an email to mindyourownkarma@gmail.com, and your story...

TRIGGER WARNING: THEMES OF SUICIDE. Laura was a teenage girl in the '60s when she found out she was pregnant. With no support from the father of the child and feeling the shame of her circumstances from her parents, Laura found herself in a home for unwed mothers, feeling forced to give her baby up for adoption. Laura wrote a book about her experience called You’ll Forget This Ever Happened, a...

TRIGGER WARNING: THEMES OF SUICIDE. Laura was a teenage girl in the '60s when she found out she was pregnant. With no support from the father of the child and feeling the shame of her circumstances from her parents, Laura found herself in a home for unwed mothers, feeling forced to give her baby up for adoption. Laura wrote a book about her experience called You’ll Forget This Ever Happened, a...

Anna Maria DiDio, MSW is an adoptive mother and children’s author whose adoption-themed books encourage open and honest conversation between parents and children. Anna Maria’s L.I.F.E.* Adventures children’s book series feature stories about adoption from the point of view of the child. It all started with her memoir, Love at the Border. Anna Maria holds a BA in Psychology from Villanova Universit...

Jenny is a wife of 28-1/2 years, a mother of 6 and a grandmother of 5. She is a birth mother and adoptive parent. Last year she and her husband adopted a boy who is 17, and her oldest is her 31-year-old ONLY daughter, who she had an open adoption with. Jenny says the open adoption with her daughter included face-to-face visits, and that she was included and welcomed by the adoptive family for the...

Paul Allen Fiscus III, a devoted father, brings a unique perspective to the discussion on adoption, parental rights, and judicial corruption—being the first parent in Kansas history to contest a private adoption to this extent.  His unwavering determination and in-depth understanding of the legal intricacies surrounding adoption highlight the hurdles that natural fathers encounter when their infan...

David is a 62-year-old retired Teamster that has been married for 37 years.  He has three children and one grandson.  David was a baby scoop era adoptee, born in 1961 and placed with his adopted parents when he was one month old.  Talking about his adoption was totally off limits, and this created a lot of confusion about his roots.  He began searching when he was 34 years old.  It turned out his...

Adopted at birth, Edward Di Gangi was born and raised in New York City. Although he knew for most of his life that he was adopted, it wasn’t until he approached his 69th birthday that he began to search for the identity of his birth mother. His journey and the many surprising discoveries he made as he searched are recounted in his memoir, The Gift Best Given. Edward and his wife now live in Hillsb...

Adoptee Lisa Ann is the engaging host of Wandering Tree Podcast connecting with her guests on thought-provoking discussions focused on the adoption journey; and spoken with each person’s unique perspectives. Guests show their resilience, personal growth, and the power of positivity. Known for her empathetic interview style, insightful questions, and the ability to authentically connect with her gu...

Gina Vance is a hypnotherapist, mind-body coach, and the developer of the powerful protocol of Somatic Mindful Guided Imagery®. She guides individuals and groups on inner journeys of self exploration, discovery She’s trained with medical doctors, shamans, and many healers—some grounded in scientific research, others profoundly intuitive. Gina created SMGI®, or Somatic Mindful Guided Imagery®, from...

SEASON 3 IS HERE! Linguistics can be important to adoptees for several reasons, especially when it comes to understanding and navigating issues related to identity, culture, and communication. But what about how we speak affects us on the inside, how it feels in our bodies, and how it can either empower us or deflate us? In this episode, I talk about how making a simple switch in how we talk to ou...

*** To watch on your PC , click on the episode then click on the 'full screen' icon at the bottom right of you screen. If you listened to the audio version of this episode and wondered which one of my guests was talking or what episode it was from, watch this video (available on mobile). There are many adoptees who struggle this time of year for many different reasons and that was the purp...

Wow! It has been another whole year, you guys! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining me here and giving voice to the experiences on all sides of adoption. Next season I'm going to continue educating the world about the realities of adoption, but first, GIVE THIS EPISODE A MOMENT OF YOUR DAY. You won't regret it. I asked almost all my interviewees this question: What do you want...

Join me in this powerful episode as I delve into the often- overlooked, profound impact of stress on a fetus during the birthmother's journey in adoption. This episode reflects the topic of my latest blog. With a lack of support for birth mothers, and at a critical time in her life when stress is at a high point, what kinds of chemicals are making their way through her body and into the bloods...

Katie was adopted by extended family, but it was kept a secret until life in a small town caught up with them, and when the secret was out, it was dropped in her lap. Katie is a project manager by day and an author by night. That is, when she’s also not being a full-time mom and wife. She considers herself lucky to have so many people in her life that care about her, both adoptive and biological....

When birthmother Barbara found herself pregnant, she gave her daughter Vicky up for adoption and tried to forget it ever happened. Despite having loving adoptive parents, Vicky struggled to bury the shame and rejection she felt as an adoptee; she was not good enough for her first mother’s love. Thirty years later, Barbara found Vicky and their reunion experience began. Through this difficult journ...

Jacky Harner is a transnational, transgender adoptee. He was adopted from Chisinau, Moldova at 2 years of age to USA. He enjoys ice hockey and skateboarding as hobbies and loves drawing and music as well. Thank you, Jacky, for sharing your life with us at Mind Your Own Karma! If you or someone you know would like to tell their adoption story on the podcast (anyone in the adoptee constellation), pl...

Meet Jacquelin Taybron, who is an adoptee 30 years post reunion with her biological mother and her siblings. She was born in Landstuhl, Germany, and her adoptive family was handpicked within the military community by her birth mom. At 15 months old, her adoption was finalized, and the very next day she relocated to the States with her adoptive family. Follow along with all the twists and turns of...

Elizabeth was born in the ‘60s in Washington, DC and relinquished to social services immediately thereafter. Her first family was Japanese, and she stayed with them as a foster baby for three and a half months. Her adopted family welcomed her, along with their adopted son, into the family. The few details told to her parents and then to Elizabeth were that her mother was Greek, and so was her fath...