What does it take to advocate for 400,000 people — over 25 years — to access something as fundamental as their own birth certificate?  

For Betsie Norris, it started with her own search. As an adoptee in her mid-twenties, she searched for and found her birth family — and came away with a conviction that adoption is not a single moment, but a lifelong journey that deserves honest conversation, systemic support, and legal reform.  

She founded Adoption Network Cleveland in 1988, volunteering for its first seven years before serving as Executive Director ever since. Under her leadership, Ohio-born adult adoptees — including those adopted during the formerly "closed" period from 1964 to 1996 — gained access to their original birth certificates starting in 2015.  

She is also co-author of Journeys After Adoption: Understanding the Lifelong Process, and the subject of the documentary An Adoptee ROARed in Ohio, which debuted at the Cleveland International Film Festival.  

Betsie joins host Anna Jinja for a conversation about what drives lifelong advocacy, how DNA discoveries have changed everything, and what she wishes adoptive parents, birth parents, and adoptees understood about one another.  

Joining them is Dave Lawrence, frontman of Ready Aim Flowers (Athens, Ohio), whose song "Field Notes" — inspired by a real paleontological dig — opens up into a striking allegory for searching, belonging, and the courage to dig without knowing what you'll find.  

"The wounds are relationship-based," Betsie says. "And so the healing comes through relationships."  

Wherever you are in your own story - this episode is for you. 

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