Adoption: The Making of Me. An Oral History of Adoptee Stories | Podcast Guru

Details

Two adult adoptees, Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Browne, delve into all things adoption - from their perspectives as adult adoptees. Each season Sarah and Louise recap a chapter from a book centered on adoption and then interview a guest. Sarah and Louise come out of the 'fog' in real-time through Seasons One and Two and are advocating for change in the adoption industry. They want to give voice to all adoptees. Adoptee stories are needed to reframe the narrative around adoption.Sarah and Louise, two former business partners who had a successful ice cream truck in Los Angeles, team up again - this time in frank and honest conversations about all things adoption from the adoptee perspective. Both were adopted shortly after birth, but they had very different experiences. These will be intimate conversations, but also fun - because Sarah and Louise know how to lighten things up and have a good time. They also have an uncanny ability to get to the heart of a subject with anyone who crosses their path - so conversations will take many turns.

Recent Episodes

Live Episode from Minneapolis: Candi

Candi, born in the Baby Scoop Era and adopted at five days old in a closed adoption, spent much of her life understanding adoption through the lens of being “chosen,” until her adoptive mother’s death and a 2017 DNA test opened the door to deeper questions about her identity and biological family. In recent years, discovering adoptee-centered language and healing has transformed her understanding of her experiences, inspiring her to build community, advocate for adoptee rights, and create an in-person peer support group, while embracing her favorite role of all: mom to her three children.

56 MIN

Samantha: The Art of Becoming Whole

Samantha Verrone is an interdisciplinary artist and Baby Scoop Era adoptee whose work explores identity, belonging, loss, connection, and integration through found materials, natural dyes, hand stitchwork, and foraged objects. Her journey out of the fog of adoption, along with caring for her mother with dementia, has shaped her belief in art, craft, and connection as powerful forms of healing, care, and preserving identity.

89 MIN

Jean: The Adoption Paradox: Putting Adoption in Perspective

Jean Kelly Widner, author of The Adoption Paradox, brings an adoptee’s lived experience and a compassionate, honest perspective to the complex realities of adoption. In our Season 12 finale, Jean explores the paradoxes of love and loss, belonging and separation, inviting us to see adoption as the layered human experience it truly is.

66 MIN

Pushpa: The Courage to Belong

Pushpa Devi is an author and creative director whose work explores identity, belonging, courage, and finding home, drawing from her own experience of being adopted from India to rural America at age six. Through her memoir The Lucky Lotus and Blue Bear children’s book series, she uses storytelling to help readers understand adoption through a child’s eyes and celebrate resilience, kindness, and love.

53 MIN

Janice: Adopted, Adored, and Afraid

Adopted in 1947, Janice Jones grew up as a lonely, privileged only child in a family where adoption was known but never discussed, inspiring her lifelong search for truth and connection. A freelance writer and editor, dog-obedience instructor, children’s book buyer, and puzzle inventor, Jones is the author of Dr. Beare’s Daughter: Growing Up Adopted, Adored, and Afraid, her fourth published book.

66 MIN