Pulled By The Root - Amplifying Adoption Issues

Lissa Warren has worked at several Boston publishing houses including David R. Godine, Houghton Mifflin, and Perseus Publishing. She most recently served as Vice President, Senior Director of Publicity and Acquiring Editor at Da Capo Press, an imprint of the Hachette Book Group. In January of 2019 she established Lissa Warren PR, which focuses on publicity for authors and books. The author of The...

Peter J. Boni credits his disruptive childhood, a state college education from UMass@Amherst, decorated on-the-ground service as a US Army Special Operations Team Leader in Vietnam (coined his “Rice Paddy MBA”), love of his family and friendship circle, plus luck-of-the-draw DNA with making him the person he has become today—an author, advocate, and fun-loving grandfather living on Cape Cod, Massa...

Amy Hansen is a domestic adopted person born in 1969, she was placed for adoption at birth. Amy has been married to a wonderfully supportive husband for 30 years, they have three amazing children and a golden retriever. She has been reunion for almost four years and recently came out of the fog. Amy wants to share her story to spread the message of adoption trauma and offer support to all parties...

Chris Duffy-Wentzel is an adopted person, personal life coach, author of Finding The Missing Peace and speaker living in the Sedona area. Chris is a Results Coach certified through the Neuroleadership Institute and accredited by the International Coaching Federation. Her private practice focuses on wellness and helping individuals manage careers, relationships and life transitions. In this episode...

Jacquelin Taybron in her words is an unapologetic International Adoptee, a cool ex-wife and a highly successful co-parent and grandparent. She was born in Landstuhl,  Germany in February of 1964, and is the youngest of four daughters. Jacquelin was content until she had a family of her own and realized she needed the whole truth. In this episode, Jacquelin shares her lived experience with all of i...

Paige Strickland is an Ohio born Baby Scoop Era Adopted person. She has been in reunion with her biological mothers side for 33 years and 20 years on her fathers side. Paige is married with two daughters, two grandkids. She is also a licensed teacher and the author of two memoir books: AKIN TO THE TRUTH and AFTER THE TRUTH. In this episode Paige discusses reunion and how adoption is the gift that...

Matt Otto is an adopted person based in New York City. He is a sound designer who received his MFA degree from the Yale School of Drama along with his BFA from Boston University. Matt shares the heart wrenching discovery that he was conceived as the result of a sexual assault. This difficult truth was not revealed to him even after he was in reunion with his first mom. The twists and turns of Matt...

Dr. Joyce Maguire Pavao is the founder and CEO of the Center For Family Connections Inc. est. 1995-2012, The Adoption Resource Center est. 1979 and PACT (Pre/Post Adoption Consulting and Training), est. 1982. Dr. Pavao has built comprehensive post adoption services and has done training both nationally and internationally. She is a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and has written t...

Leslie Pate Mackinnon is a therapist who specialized in issues that impact families conceived thought adoption and third party reproduction. For three decades she’s been sharing her expertise on these topics at conferences and events across the country and around the world. Her lived experience is that of a first mother who relinquished two sons for adoption the mid 1960’s and a quarter of a centu...

Jean Provance is an energy packed force of nature! She is a domestic same race adoptee who compeleted her search and reunion in 2004 after discovering letters from her biological mother with the name of the case worker. She went on to reclaim her original name in 2010. Jean holds a Bachelors Degree in visual arts and psychology from Ramapo College and a Masters Degree in social work from New York...

Darryl Nelson is an adopted person who wrote the book A TIME LINE OF THE INJUSTICE OF ADOPTION LAW. Darryl was born in 1964 in Queensland, Australia. His birth certificate was altered by the Government to make it “as if” he was born to his adoptive parents. When he was 14 years old he discovered that he was adopted. It was not until he was 30 years old that laws changed in Australia and he was all...

Darryl Nelson is an adoptee person who wrote the book A TIME LINE OF THE INJUSTICE OF ADOPTION LAW. Darryl was born in 1964 in Queensland, Australia. His birth certificate was altered by the Government to make it “as if” he was born to adoptive parents. When he was 14 years old he discovered he was adopted. It was not until he was 30 years old that laws changed in Australia and he was allowed to a...

Molly Washington is a split feather/ lost bird (Native American adopted person/ foster child) She is also an attorney who serves as the Chief Operating Officer for the Oregon Chapter of National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC-OR is a non-profit organization that supports and advocates for the inclusion of BIPOC contractors on construction projects, with the goal of achieving economic ju...

Megan is a writer and a visual artist. She runs The Dollhouse. She is also an adopted person. Her debut hybrid memoir-in-essays, The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child’s Memory Book, was published in May 2021. She was born in a charity hospital in Hell's Kitchen four years before Governor Rockefeller legalized abortion in New York. Her natural mother was sent away to The Guild of t...

Dirk is a transracial adopted person who was adopted by white parents in 1960 during the Baby Scoop Era. He was raised is a small town in Central Illinois where he was the only person of color. Dirk has an older adopted brother and two sisters who were naturally born by his parents. His racial identity was a question mark for the first 50 years of his life. Dirk thought he was one race until it wa...

Joe Soll is the author of “Adoption Healing…a path to recovery”, co-author of “Evil Exchange” and “Fatal Flight”. He is a Psychotherapist and lecturer recognized internationally as an expert in adoption related issues. He is the director and co-founder of Adoption Crossroads, an international, non-profit organization consisting of over 470 adoption agencies, mental health institutions and adoption...

Jennifer’s journey at Ancestry® began more than 20 years ago with a love of editing, writing, and publishing—and a strong desire to remain close to her Utah roots. Today, her passion for storytelling remains at an all-time high, thanks in part to the technological innovations she’s witnessed throughout her career. Stories that once took days to research now unfold in minutes. It’s Jennifer’s job t...

For our 50th Episode and the grand finale of our "Gifted"series we are thrilled to share our behind the scenes/song release episode. As fate would have it, Heidi Frederick flew from California to where I live in Washington State to say goodbye to her father who passed a few days ago. The song "Looking for Me" represents the ache of grappling with the complex feelings of discove...

For our “ Gifted Series”, we would like to reintroduce Heidi Frederick, she is an incredible author, speaker and poet. During our first episode almost a year ago Heidi read her poem “Looking For Me”, our music master, singer/songwriter Sean Farley suggested we turn her words into a song and we are happy to say that has happened. This week we are proudly re-releasing the wonderful conversation that...

The electric Myles Redfern has returned for our " Gifted" series to share another slam poem. We break down the poem line by line getting into the emotions adopted people feel. Myles encourages all of us to say,"I AM AMAZING" and to avoid negative self talk. This episode is full of good energy and truth telling. Click here to send us a text. Also, our book “Pulled By The Root” i...

Ross John Martin plays beautiful acoustic music. He is an adopted person who as a teenager battled an illness called ME which left him temporarily in a wheelchair. He found refuge and a love for the guitar. Ross overcame the odds, his awakening of the soul is a theme in his songs. Ross recently found his biological family, most of his songs and blogs are about what it means to be adopted. In this...

Dave Brown is a domestic adopted person, his adoption was closed, his identity erased when his adoption was finalized. Dave’s identity remained a state secret until he took an Ancestry DNA test in 2019. Within a few days of receiving his test results he found the identity of his birth father. The following month the identity of his birth mother was confirmed. Dave waited until late in life to find...

Monica and John were separately adopted, and never knew their sibling existed for decades. When they finally met, both said it was like they already knew each other. Monica was adopted as a little girl in NYC she had no idea that John was born to the same mother seven years later and adopted by a different family. After 27 years both received letters that said they had a sibling. The long-lost sib...

Destini is a former foster youth and adoptee but most of all she is a Christian, wife of 18 years and mother to three wonderful children. She is passionate about using her story to help others find healing and learn more about foster care and adoption.   Destini’s most recent endeavor is the publication of her memoir, Set Free in May of 2020. Set Free is Destini’s personal childhood memoir that be...

Abby Forero Hilty is a transracial Intercountry adopted person. She was born in Bogota', Colombia and brought as an infant to a suburb of NYC by way of adoption by a white, Jewish couple. Abby is a fierce believer in family preservation as well as the need to confront the issues that uphold plenary adoption practices. In 2017, Abby published the first Colombian adoptee anthology with the voic...