Conversations About Adoption

This was a totally spontaneous Conversation had with DezaRay who is a transracial adoptee. I have followed her for years on Instagram, but recently she has joined Adopteetok which is to say the adoption community on Tiktok of adoptees, foster care survivors, first parents, and other advocates who spend their time and energy to bring awareness to all the complexities and ethical issues of infant adoption, transracial adoption, foster to adopt, international adoption, kinship adoption, open adoptions, closed adoptions... and so on. 

DezaRay is the Outspoken adoptee and I am so glad she is. We talked about the video she made last week where someone complained about how much it costs to adopt a baby, being a transracial adoptee growing up in Utah, and so much more. 

Anytime an adoptee gets to talk with another adoptee, it is kind of like talking an old friend, talking to DezaRay was a lot like that for me especially since I see her face almost every day, and that's probably why this episode is over 2 hours long. oops. 

I hope you will listen to the whole episode even if it is in chunks. This was a great conversation about adoption. 

Thanks for listening!

If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child to adoption and would like to be on the podcast, please email me at [email protected]

I also have stickers available! Email me to get some!

This is a bonus episode originally posted on April 19, 2018 on Youtube. 

I asked adoptees and first parents to call in an answer the question, "How has adoption affected your intimate relationships?"

If you like the idea of contributing, please subscribe so you can receive notifications about questions you can contribute answers too. 

Hi! 

This is the VERY first episode I ever tried to make, so please bear with the editing job. (This is why I don't edit anymore. I am not an editor.) This was originally published in 2016. 

This is a conversation with my friend Joey who is also a baby scoop adoptee. He made a documentary film about obtaining his original birth certificate when Ohio made them available to adoptees in 2014. Who am I? is available on YouTube. 

Joey and I plan on recording a follow up episode to give an update on his story in the near future. 

**Trigger warning she talks about how babies and children were abused, and her brother's abuse.**

This conversation is long but so important as the survivors of Georgia Tann are aging & it is so important that they tell their stories. If you are unfamiliar with Georgia Tann, she ran the Tennessee Children's home in Memphis (Which was very corrupt at the time.) from the 20s till 1950 when she died from cancer just 3 days before she was to be indicted. She stole over 5,000 babies and children from poor families in Tennessee only to sell them to people she deemed more worthy to be parents due to their wealth. Her business spanned the country with syndicated newspaper ads for "available" children being run from New York to California. I first learned of her in an episode of the Criminal podcast called "The Baby snatcher", and have since read the book by Barbara Raymond called "The Baby Thief". Barbara actually tracked down people and dug in the archives of court houses in libraries in order to tell the story of Georgia Tann. 

Judy and some of her siblings were children stolen by Georgia. Judy was fortunate that she was adopted by a doting couple, her brother was not as fortunate. 

If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child to adoption and would like to be on the podcast, please email me at [email protected]

I also have stickers available! Email me to get some!

This episode is a conversation with Renee Lynn Gellin lost her son through a perfect storm of financial struggles, and adoption coercion. This experience inspired her to want to prevent other mothers from losing their babies to adoption. She is a cofounder of Saving our sisters adoption. If you are unfamiliar with them, they are a family preservation organization. They and their many volunteers around the country work to support mothers in crisis so they do not feel the need to relinquish their baby for adoption. This episode was originally recorded in January of 2019 for my YouTube channel. There was a need for video editing, and I feel inept at editing videos, so it was put on the back burner, and kind of forgotten about. (I know that is crappy) Now that I am releasing episodes as podcast audio again, I reached out to Rene and asked if she would be ok with me releasing it as it is or would she want to rerecord, she said “Run with it!” So I am.

I am very excited to finally present this episode to the public. Please bear in mind the information in this episode is dated because the conversation is 4 years old.

There is no Youtube version of this episode. 

Links

Saving Our Sisters website where you can donate, sign up to volunteer, or seek help.

Facebook Page for S.O.S. Adoption

S.O.S. On Twitter

S.O.S. On Tiktok

Family Preservation Project on TikTok

If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child to adoption and would like to be on the podcast, please email me at [email protected]

I also have stickers available! Email me to get some!

Posted August 2, 2022

This is a conversation I had with Shyanne. She is the first mom featured in the Time magazine article called "The baby Brokers". 

This is an audio only version, now video on my YouTube channel due to technical difficulties. 

Shyanne's linktree which includes a link to the article. 

This conversation was recorded via zoom, which caused a slight delay and occasional overlap. Thanks for bearing with me through this stuff. 

If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child to adoption and would like to be on the podcast, please email me at [email protected]

I also have stickers available! Email me to get some!

Originally published 4/29/2018

This is the conversation I had with Janet a Canadian first mother of the baby-scoop era. She has searched and found her daughter but there is very little contact between them at the time this was recorded.  She has a great story to tell and we talk about a whole variety of adoption issues. This one is very long, but I think very worthwhile.

Halfway through my dog started barking, I apologize, I hope you can tolerate it and get through the whole conversation. 

You can find the video version of this interview on YouTube here. 

If you are an adoptee or parent who lost a child to adoption and would like to be on the podcast, please email me at [email protected]

I also have stickers available! Email me to get some!

Originally published 4/21/2018

This episode was originally uploaded to YouTube in video format.

Damon is a fellow adoptee and host of the podcast Who am I really?

He shares his amazing story, and we talk about adoption, podcasting, life, and more. 

I apologize for the audio quality.

If you would like to be a guest on a future episode, click here.