Zach did not have a good relationship with his father. So bad was it that Zach found himself fantasizing about having a new dad. Maybe that was some sort of intuition of what was to come when he finally took a commercial DNA test that proved there was a new beginning out there for him.

We have christened Lynn our first “crowded MPE”, there were that many people involved with her conception and cover up.  Lynn talks about her unusual origin story, struggles with identity and family dynamics.  And shares her one secret weapon to deal with the challenges.

Raised knowing he was adopted, Noah didn’t know much about his ancestry, ethnicity or birth parents until a birthday present helped him put the pieces together, along with five siblings.

Tamara often felt she didn’t fit in with her family, which looked different than most since she was raised by her grandparents. A DNA test proved why she felt different and triggered a series of discoveries that changed her life both for the best and worst. Tamara shows us what resilience in the face of adversity looks like and relies on a positive attitude to cope with her MPE discovery.

Ryan Anderson largely ignored his adoption until the pandemic forced him to face how poorly he had been dealing with it since he found out just before his 18 th birthday – what’s called a Late Discovery Adoptee (LDA).  He jumped in with both feet, posting a video about his journey hoping it would help others living similar experiences and talks more specifically with us about the mental health impact.

Adoptions are part of the MPE universe, and set the stage for the non-paternal events to understand the process.  Jennifer had an intuition about her sense of not belonging in her family since she was quite young. What happens when your intuition turns out to be right? Turns out, you’re no better prepared for the emotional fall out.

Cassandra Adams was raised Italian and Catholic and never expected to find anything surprising in her DNA test.  What she found profoundly changed the direction of her life and fabric of her family relationships, not to mention identity and religious practices.  Get to know her journey through the business of secrecy and the advocacy work of Cassandra Adams.

Christine learned of her NPE by mistake as a child, but the secret lay at the surface because her parents had a different secret to focus on: the swinging lifestyle. For Christine the discovery didn’t just tell her she had a different father, she was also a different race.

Julie was raised in a nice Irish Catholic family and knew from an early age she was adopted.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s more to it than that, since our stories never end in the easy places.  

In a rare treat, we get to share an interview with a biological parent.  It's rare for many reasons, but this is special because it's Allie's biological mother (previous episode).  You'll get to hear another side of this amazing story, equally as elegant and heart-warming as Allie's story.