The Adoption Chain

Hear Mary's adoption journey. Connection and rejection from a biological parent and beyond.

Guest Tammy Waldron tells her story and talks about Attachment issues and the crater that can be left behind

• If you’re carrying unresolved trauma, Andrea’s story is a reminder that survival mode can last into adulthood unless you intentionally work through it.
• For listeners with adoption, foster care, or family rupture in their history, her experience highlights the importance of being believed and having your story corrected.
• Andrea mentions hypnotherapy as part of her work for people who want to move past blocks and old patterns.

Don and Scott pontificate on past episodes while moving into an under construction home studio.

Is there Evidence of post or pre-adoption Trauma? |The Adoption Chain Episode 6

Kristen Alexander becomes The Adoption Chain's first female guest and shares a family story with more twists than most novels.

Raised alongside her brother Michael like fraternal twins, both adopted six months apart, Kristen spent her childhood sensing there was more to the story.

Years later, a search for her biological father — a Tennessee cattle rancher — led to a dinner-table revelation that connected two families who never knew they were linked. Kristen opens up about secrets and shame, the lifelong pull of the "what ifs," and how her relationships with her biological parents finally came full circle.

Where does adoption fall on a scale of 1 to 10? For Kristen: an 8 growing up, a 2 today.

The Adoption Chain is a show about the stories that connect adopted people everywhere. Learn more at theadoptionchain.com.

What if the woman who gave you up for adoption was your mom's close friend — and stayed in your life the whole time?

In Episode 4 of The Adoption Chain, Donald and Scott welcome their first guest beyond the hosts: Michael Porter, Scott's longtime college friend and a small-town Teacher of the Year. When Michael's parents told him he was adopted, his only question was "Do I have to leave?" — that's how good he had it. His birth mother had been his adoptive mom's friend before he was born, so letters, phone calls, and Christmas updates kept them connected for years. Michael shares the joyful reunion in Texas, the moving story behind "I couldn't take you from your mom," the half-brother he unknowingly crossed paths with again and again, and a nature-vs-nurture revelation about the grandfather whose life he repeated without ever meeting him. Plus this week's famous adoptee: Frances McDormand.

A warm, funny, deeply hopeful look at open adoption done right.

In this episode:

(02:14) Famous adoptee: Frances McDormand

(09:58) "Do I have to leave?"

(14:15) His birth mom was his mom's friend

(20:10) The reunion in Texas

(21:30) "I couldn't take you from your mom"

(30:37) Nature vs. nurture

(31:58) "The Question"

Follow the show so you never miss the next link in the chain. Learn more at theadoptionchain.com. Have a story to share? Reach out at [email protected]

What happens when your birth father hires a private investigator to find you ? and you decide you'd rather not know?

In Episode 3 of The Adoption Chain, co-host Scott Smith becomes the first link in the chain, and his story is the mirror image of Donald's. Scott grew up in an open adoption, always knew, and was genuinely happy never searching. Then his biological father, Chuck, discovered at his 30th high school reunion that Scott was his son and hired a PI to track him down. Scott's answer was simple: "Tell him he did the right thing." The phone number still sits, unused, in his nightstand drawer. Scott also opens up about the late-night messages from a birth mother he's never met, the coincidences that connect their lives, and why, at 58, he's finally rethinking the door he closed at 30.

An honest look at the adoptees who don't go looking and what changes when the past comes looking for them.

In this episode:

(02:08) Famous adoptee

(16:47) The birth father who reached out

(19:58) The private investigator

(23:10) The number never dialed

(32:14) "Scott, this is your mother"

(37:56) "The Question"

Follow the show so you never miss the next link in the chain. Learn more at theadoptionchain.com. Have a story to share? Reach out at [email protected]

His original birth certificate simply read "Baby Boy Cox." In Episode 2 of The Adoption Chain, Donald Lepp finishes the story he began in Episode 1 — and it becomes a full-blown investigation into his own past.

After finding out at 50 that he was adopted, Donald petitioned a court to unseal his adoption records and interviewed the widow of the lawyer who arranged everything. What he found was a 1967 closed adoption pushed through with no home study and no court order: a newborn driven across Oklahoma and handed over at a party, paperwork signed after the fact, and a system that treated both baby and birth mother as an afterthought. Along the way he shares the biological mother who lived just 1.7 miles away his entire life, the lies she was told about where her baby went, and the book he's writing about it — Ballad of the Interloper.

Honest, unflinching, and surprisingly hopeful, this is the adoptee experience most people never hear about.

In this episode:

(00:20) Making peace with the truth

(02:49) The investigation & the book

(11:42) "Baby Boy Cox"

(14:00) The handoff with no court order

(18:57) The lies his birth mother was told

(28:06) "The Question" segment

Follow the show so you never miss the next link in the chain. Learn more at theadoptionchain.com. Have a story to share? Reach out here: [email protected]

What if everyone in your life knew you were adopted… except you? In the debut episode of The Adoption Chain, host Donald Lepp reveals how one Ancestry DNA test exposed a family secret he'd unknowingly carried for 50 years — including an anonymous letter he brushed off decades earlier, and the daughter who quietly tracked down his biological mother.

Donald and co-host Scott Smith — friends who are both adopted — kick off a show built on one idea: everyone knows someone who's adopted, they just may not know it yet. Following "the chain" from one adoptee to the next, they share honest, funny, and surprisingly moving stories about identity, belonging, and the truth behind closed doors. Along the way they dig into open vs. closed adoption, the little-known "Baby Scoop Era," Donald's Muscogee (Creek), Potawatomi, and Cherokee heritage.

Whether you're an adoptee, an adoptive parent, or you've ever wondered about your own roots, this is a conversation you'll want to follow to the end.

In this episode:

(00:00) Does everyone know someone who's adopted?

(02:55) Famous adoptee: Debbie Harry

(11:15) Finding out at 50 — the DNA test

(17:30) The anonymous letter

(29:06) How his daughter solved it

(45:00) Native American roots revealed

(50:23) Open vs. closed adoption & the Baby Scoop Era

Follow the show so you never miss the next link in the chain. Have a story to share? Reach out at [email protected] or www.adoptionchain.com