Unraveling Me

S1 E38 – Unraveling Lynne - Lynne’s story exposes what can happen when fertility practices operate through secrecy, misinformation, and little accountability. Her parents were told to treat their children as genetically their own and never speak of the circumstances surrounding their conception. But silence did not erase the truth. It left Lynne without an accurate medical history, a coherent understanding of herself, or the information she needed to make sense of why she sometimes felt different within her own family.

Lynne grew up knowing her parents had sought help from a fertility specialist. But shortly after her father died, her mother revealed that donor sperm had been used—and that the doctor had mixed the donor’s sample with her father’s, leaving them uncertain about who had genetically fathered Lynne and her sister. This was long before consumer DNA testing and online records.

But Lynne needed to know who she was. She began a search that would take more than 20 years. What she eventually uncovered was far larger than one hidden identity: a donor who had helped conceive children over three decades and a sibling group that has now grown to 86 known members—with potentially hundreds more.

(Content warning: This episode contains discussion of suicide)

SHOW NOTES
In this conversation, Kara and Lynne discuss:
· Learning she was donor-conceived immediately after losing her father
· The emotional responsibility of welcoming newly discovered siblings into an ever-growing family
· Genetic mental health and substance-use histories—and the grief of losing siblings
· Why donor conception can create a lifelong process of grief, identity disruption, and integration
· Fertility fraud that extends beyond doctors secretly using their own sperm
· The medical consequences of growing up with an inaccurate family health history
· Lynne’s early research into the shared experiences of donor-conceived people
· The importance of bringing donor-conceived people, donors, and parents together to listen and learn from one another

After decades of searching, supporting newly discovered siblings, studying donor conception, and advocating for fertility-fraud legislation, Lynne has become one of the pioneers of the donor-conceived community. Her story is a powerful reminder that creating a child is not simply about producing a baby—it carries lifelong responsibilities for everyone involved.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1 E37 Unraveling Shelli - Shelli’s story is about surviving childhood without the care every child deserves, doing the hard work to become healthy, and learning that patience is sometimes part of protection. Shelli spent much of her childhood raising herself. She grew up with a mother who could be magnetic and beautiful to the outside world, but emotionally unavailable and rejecting at home. Her brothers were much older, her raising father was largely absent, and Shelli learned early that comfort, affection, and safety were not things she could count on from the adults around her. Throughout her life, people repeatedly asked Shelli if she was part of an ethnicity she did not believe she was so she took an Ancestry test expecting only ethnicity answers. Instead, she opened her matches and saw her mother—and a man she had never met before.

(Content warning: This episode contains discussion of childhood neglect, emotional abuse, abandonment, attempted self-abortion, and sexual harassment/exposure)

SHOW NOTES
In this deeply honest and layered conversation, Kara and Shelli discuss:

Growing up with emotional neglect and “quiet abuse”
The lifelong impact of being unwanted, unseen, and left to raise yourself
Being a fatherless daughter and growing up without a stable parental bond
How painful truths can sometimes bring validation and clarity
Why slowing down before first contact can matter
The brutality of waiting for a response from genetic family
The emotional complexity of joining a family system already in motion when you’ve never really had a family system of your own
Boundaries, patience, therapy, and refusing to accept less than she deserve

Her reunion is still new, but it has already given her something she once could not imagine: emotionally available people who are kind, curious, and willing to make room. This episode is a powerful reminder that truth can hurt and heal at the same time. And sometimes the right people finally show up and say: you belong here.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1 E36 Unraveling Steve & Becky - Steve and Becky’s story is raw, funny, painful, and almost unbelievable—except it is true and documented. Their book, DNA Did Not Anticipate, takes readers even deeper into the twists, losses, discoveries, and moments of healing that followed Steve’s DNA surprise. It is part memoir, part mystery, and part roadmap for anyone trying to make sense of a truth they never saw coming. Steve thought he was taking a DNA test to explore the Native American ancestry he had always been told was part of his story. Instead, his results revealed a first cousin in Prince Edward Island, Canada, a match that made no sense with his Kentucky-based family history.

What followed was a life-is-stranger-than-fiction unraveling. With the help of his wife Becky, a part-time genealogist, Steve began uncovering hidden family secrets, a father he never knew, and pieces of his mother’s past that completely changed how he understood his own story.

SHOW NOTES
In this conversation, Kara, Steve, and Becky discuss:
Taking a DNA test to search for Native American ancestry
Discovering people who did not fit in your known family tree
The moment we realize we’re not who we thought we were
How a spouse’s support can be key in processing a DNA surprise
Seeing himself reflected in a picture of your father for the first time
The shock, grief, anger, shame, and eventual peace from an NPE
How DNA surprises ripple through spouses, children, siblings, and extended family
Rewriting how you look at family
Writing their book, DNA Did Not Anticipate

This episode is about family, marriage, loss, humor, identity, and the kind of truth that leaves people saying, “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1 E 35 Unraveling Micelle S - Michelle’s story is layered, funny, honest, and full of hard-earned wisdom. She shows us that adoption is not a single event, but something that shapes a person across a lifetime—in identity, relationships, parenting, advocacy, and healing. Michelle grew up knowing she was adopted, and by many measures, she had what people often call a “good adoption.” She was loved, cared for, and raised by parents who told her the truth from the beginning. But as Michelle’s story reminds us, even a good adoption does not erase the trauma of separation, the ache of missing genetic mirrors, or the lifelong work of figuring out where you belong.

A Baby Scoop Era adoptee, Michelle was five days old when she was brought home by her raising parents. Adoption was known in her family, but not always easy to talk about. Beneath the surface, Michelle carried a deep fear of hurting or disappointing the parents who raised her, especially her mother, whose own unresolved grief shaped much of Michelle’s experience.

SHOW NOTES
In this conversation, Kara and Michelle discuss:
Growing up adopted while sensing there were still emotional limits around the topic
What it means to have a “good adoption” and still be deeply affected by adoption
Feeling othered in childhood, even in small everyday moments
The pressure to protect a raising parent’s feelings
Meeting her husband, who was also adopted, and building a family together
The experience of genetic mirroring when their first child was born
Holding relationships with genetic family while managing fear, obligation, and guilt
Advocating for adoptee rights and helping change law around original birth certificates
Child welfare reform, Safe Haven baby boxes, and the need for child-centered policy

This episode is about reunion, boundaries, genetic identity, and the courage it takes to stop carrying emotions that were never yours to manage. It is also a reminder that love and loss can exist in the same story, and that truth becomes easier to hold when we finally make room for all of it.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1 E34 Unraveling Jennie - Jennie’s story is about more than a DNA test. It is about secrecy, loyalty, medical truth, sibling connection, and the complicated grief of realizing that the people who loved you also kept something essential from you. Jennie took a DNA test because she wanted to know more about her father’s side of the family. Her dad had died of cancer when she was 23, and with her mother’s genealogy already carefully documented, Jennie hoped 23andMe would help fill in the missing pieces. But when her results came back, Jennie found multiple half-siblings she did not recognize. What began as curiosity quickly became a life-changing discovery.

SHOW NOTES
In this conversation, Kara and Jennie discuss:
Taking a DNA test for ancestry and discovering unexpected half-siblings
Her mother’s warning not to test and the missed chance to tell the truth first
Re-examining childhood memories, family photos, and old questions through a new lens
The grief of realizing her dad chose to be her father, but never got to share that truth openly
The medical consequences of being given incorrect family health history
Reaching out to a donor who refuses contact
Building relationships with donor-conceived siblings and finding genetic mirroring later in life
Talking openly with her own children so secrecy stops with this generation

Jennie's story reminds us that there is nothing shameful about donor conception. The harm comes from silence. And sometimes healing begins when one generation finally decides: the secret stops here.

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.