In this 3-part series to Episode 3, we deep dive into three very different adoption stories to explore the topic of biological identity and origin. In Part 1, Jason reveals a major find, a truth to his own adoption story that perhaps would have gone undiscovered if not for Ancestry.com. In Part 2, we talk about the truths one mom faced while building a family through adoption. Here, we have a heart-to-heart with a mom who shares her very personal journey to building a family through adoption.  

 

This week: 

• Enjoy a Whiskey Old Fashioned and share this recipe’s origins
• Channing met Jason and Yvonne through a mutual friend, Hank and Sueann Fortener, founders of Adopt Together 
• Channing tells Jason and Yvonne that she had medical challenges that made it impossible for her to carry her own child 
• To Channing, adoption felt like it made a lot of sense and there are kids out there that needed a home, so that’s the path she chose
• Channing explains how she talked to her children about their own adoption journeys 
• Yvonne asks Channing, “What has been your search for identity?” 
• Channing talks about feeling like she was “playing with half the deck,” being a Black girl growing up in an all-white neighborhood
• Channing talks about growing up without representation in media, and how much she appreciated women like Shonda Rhimes now 
• Jason and Channing talk about being biracial, both Black and white, in cities that were historically sundown towns.
• Channing talks about how she predicts how her children will come to understand their adoption journeys 

 

Cocktail: Whiskey Old Fashioned

Recipe

• 2 oz of George Dickel Rye Whiskey
• Three teaspoons of simple syrup 
• Several dashes of bitters 
• A couple of splashes of water 

 

History & Meaning

The Old Fashioned :

Before the 1860s, cocktails in America tended to be some mixture of spirit (often cognac), water, sugar, and bitters. After the 1860s and into the 1870s, other liquors like absinthe were being introduced to bars. 

But a generation of drinkers wanted something more classic, so they would ask for something their grandfather would drink. They would say, “Make me something old-fashioned.” And the name stuck.