Once Upon A Time...In Adopteeland

Original air date: 02/01/2022 Pekitta Tynes is a published author of the book "Thank God I was Adopted 'Cause DNA is No Joke!" Based on her memoirs and journey to how she found her biological family through DNA testing. Her reunion can be seen on a YouTube video, "Pekitta's Journey". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFhUFNkqpPU Music by Corey Quinn

Original air date: July 27, 2021 "Raise your hand and self validate yourself." -Marc Borne Music by Corey Quinn

Elizabeth (EM) Blake has a recently released graphic memoir called  Connecting Threads: Five Siblings Lost and Found . She is one of five children who were removed from their first family over time and placed in foster care, and most were adopted when young. She didn't know until decades later that she had lived with her first mother for weeks or months.  Because of c...

Nancy McCaughey is a returning guest. Nancy identifies herself by her most treasured life roles; wife, mother, daughter, sister, newly-retired midlife transition coach and late discovery adoptee (LDA).   She is in the process of completing her memoir, Reunion.  It is about her own midlife ‘identity quake’ that took place at her 20th high school reunion when her best friend from childhood...

ADOPTION LOSS: WHEN GRIEF IS SUFFOCATED By Kate Murphy, LCSW Kate Murphy is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a psychotherapy practice in Atlanta, GA. She specializes in working with members of the adoption constellation with a focus on adoptees. She knows that processing the loss and grief caused by relinquishment is challenging to do alone. Kate believes it's possible to understan...

Simon Benn is a returning guest. Simon was adopted at 5 weeks old and told so young he doesn’t ever remember not knowing. He didn't experience any conscious adoption trauma until 40 when he found out his childhood teddy bear was a gift from his birth mother. This caused an eruption of anger, feeling rejected and unloved. That kickstarted a healing journey exploring trauma, my roots...

Marcie J. Keithley is a returning guest. Marcie  is an author, speaker, master storyteller and CoFounder of the National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP)  She retired as Vice President of Retail Bank Management and Merrill Lynch after serving the financial industry for over 32 years. A first/birth mom in reunion since 2008, she co founded  Indiana Adoptee Network  and...

Dr. Katherin Elizabeth (K E) Garland is an award-winning creative nonfiction writer, blogger, and author based in Florida. She uses personal essays and memoir to de-marginalize women’s experiences with an intent to highlight and humanize contemporary issues, such as reproductive rights, intergenerational trauma, adoption, and mental health issues. Her work has appeared in several online magazines...

Lisa K Bouler is a returning guest. She was born and adopted in Chicago. From an early age her adoptive parents shared her adoption story and encouraged her to search for her biological family. With their support, she eventually found out she was not only a big sister to her parent’s biological child, but a big sister to her own four biological siblings. Lisa is the mother of two phenomenal young...

Dr. Stephen Rowley became a psychotherapist after a rich and varied career in K-12 and higher education. He earned his B.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a major in English and Psychology. He also earned a Ph. D. in Administration and Policy Analysis from the Graduate School of Education of Stanford University and an M.A. in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in S...

Rebecca Autumn is a returning guest to the podcast. Rebecca Autumn Sansom is a documentary filmmaker, event planner, and non-profit director. Her films, including Reckoning with the Primal Wound (2023) and Trainsforming America (2012), have screened at film festivals and public and private events throughout the United States. She is the founder and director of the non-profit, the WAVYS, that hosts...

Mee Ok Icaro  (pronounced “Mee Oak Ee-car-oh”), is a unique and powerful voice in the world of visionary medicine and personal growth. As a Writer, Book Doula, Sacred Medicine Advisor and Integration Specialist, Life Purpose Coach and Guide, Mee Ok is dedicated to helping individuals heal and find their path in life. Skilled in Gabor Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry approach, a method she has per...

Shelise Keum Mee Gieseke (s/hers) is the head of operations at Adoption Mosaic. She has worked in the adoption community as an editor, educator, and administrator for over 10 years, including editing and curating the blog Land of Gazillion Adoptees and the online magazine Gazillion Voices. Shelise is also an intercountry Korean, interracial adoptee who was adopted as an infant by a white family an...

Becca Flatt is a Mixed Race, Black and white, closed, domestic infant, interracial adoptee. Becca’s biological family and adoptive family mirror each other; however, Becca, being mixed race, does not share the racial identity of either set of her parents. Becca Graduated from The University of Southern California with her Master’s in social work and a concentration in mental health...

Rebecca Wellington currently teaches in the School of Education at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.  She holds a doctorate in education history from the University of Washington.  Rebecca’s career in education started 26 years ago on the ocean, sailing around the world on a traditionally rigged tall ship. Through this two-year global circumnavigation Rebecca trained f...

Louise Browne is a baby scoop-era adoptee from the United States living in California. She Co-Hosts a podcast, Adoption: The Making of Me, that helps to get adoptees' stories out in the world to help change the narrative around adoption.  Hosting Adoption: the Making of Me has brought questions and past feelings to the surface about why she had always felt the way she did. Sharing this journe...

Jennifer Poole was adopted as an infant in a closed adoption. She holds a Masters Degree in Interfaith Pastoral Counseling, where she wrote her thesis on “Openness in Adoption as an Opportunity for Spiritual Growth”. It was during this time, in 2001, that she initiated her reunion with her birth mother and later with her birth father.  Passionate about supporting families, she is certified in...

Edward Di Gangi is a returning guest. 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 70th 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 B...

Heather G. Marshall is an adoptee, author, speaker, teacher, and traveler. Her short fiction has been published in a variety of journals, including Black Middens: New Writing Scotland, and Quarried, an anthology of the best of three decades of Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel. Her first novel,  The Thorn Tree , released in 2014 (MP Publishing).  When the Ocean Flies,  Heather’s second...

Michael Knox is a returning guest, and after four years of listening to podcasts and interacting with his biological family, he has a different view on adoption. Coming out of the fog, he thinks is a real thing. Nobody can really define it, but there are things that he discovered that might help explain it for some people. The fact that after 25 years of sobriety, his way of handling it was g...

Valerie Naiman is a returning guest and the author of the newly released book Mystic Masquerade: An Adoptee's Search for Truth. Her memoir was compiled from decades of diaries and journals she wrote during her biological & spiritual search. Valerie is also a singer, story-song writer and is working on an album of her adoptee story songs. Besides that, she's a founder of the first permacul...

Eva Asprakis was raised in South London by her American mother and Cypriot stepfather, who subsequently adopted her. She now lives in Nicosia with her partner, and is the author of two contemporary fiction novels. https://www.eva-asprakis.com https://www.instagram.com/eva.asprakis Music by Corey Quinn

Leslie Pate Mackinnon, L.C.S.W. resides in North Carolina and presents nationally and internationally on issues that impact families conceived through adoption and third party reproduction. She trains therapists, agencies, and universities across the U.S. on the complex issues that accompany adoption and ART. She offers individual consultation and supervision groups for therapists and provides mor...

Monica Hall was born in Canada, adopted by American parents, and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. Growing up in a house filled with dysfunction, Monica rebelled against her strict Catholic parents in a downward spiral of delinquency. After being raped and finding out she was pregnant, her parents pushed her to up give her daughter–her only known blood relative– for adoption. Her experiences as an adop...

Marilyn Mendenhall Waugh is the Director of Adoption Concerns Triangle of Topeka, a search and support group serving those in Northeastern Kansas, and past president of the American Adoption Congress. She is a frequent conference presenter on ethical search and reunion techniques. For the past 28 years, Marilyn has volunteered in the Post Adoption Services of the Kansas Division for Children and F...