10 Best Podcasts About Adoption

November is National Adoption Month, and it’s a great time to tell the stories of adoptees, adoptive parents, or people who want to better understand what it means to be involved in the adoption process.

These 10 podcasts tell the stories of people from different backgrounds who have experienced adoption, highlighting trauma and joy in equal measure through honest and vulnerable conversations. Whatever your relationship with adoption, it can teach you something, point you to where to go next, or even just help you feel less alone in your journey.

Adoption: Making Me

In Adoption: The Making of Me, adult adoptees and former business partners Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Brown join forces to delve into all things adoption from their perspective—both were adopted at birth, but their experiences were different. They create a real community with a book club, read adoption books with their listeners, and interview the author. These are intimate conversations, but at the same time light and friendly. Sarah and Louise have an uncanny ability to get to the heart of anyone who crosses their path, and conversations take many unexpected turns.

Born in June Raised in April: What Adoption Can Teach the World

In Born in June, Raised in April , April Dinwoodie focuses on adoption discussions, especially from the perspective of transracial adoptees, as she openly shares her own experiences with adoption and the life journey of transracial adoptees. April is insightful in her comments and gentle with her guests. Her personal experiences add depth to discussions and serve as a launching pad for others’ stories, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own thoughts.

Who am I really?

About who I really am? Damon L. Davis guides people through the adoption process with compassion, curiosity, empathy, and understanding. Through his interviews with people about their own adoption experiences, listeners will feel validated for everything they feel or think. Who am I really? especially serves adoptees who are in the process of reuniting with their birth families, helping prepare them using insights from others who have gone through similar experiences. The show is not just for adoptees, but also for adoptive parents and birth parents, offering everyone a better understanding of the adoptees’ perspective.

Uprooted

Heidi Marble is an adoptee/writer/speaker born in 1965 who did not realize the loss she felt as a result of her adoption experience until later in life. Pulled By the Root features conversations that uplift, honor, and give voice to the challenges Heidi and many adopted children face. The title says it all: Many adoptees feel unconnected, and Heidi’s honest and vulnerable conversations openly address the emotional and challenging aspects of adoption. Stories of struggle and healing help listeners on their own emotional journeys and provide support and empathy to the adoption community.

Unraveling Adoption

Unraveling Adoption host Beth is an adoptive parent herself and is eager to not only share her own experiences, but also learn from her guests as they talk about the different emotions and experiences of adoptees. Unraveling Adoption strikes a balance between depth and authenticity—Beth doesn’t shy away from tough topics like adoptee trauma, giving other adoptive parents the freedom to admit what they don’t know and search for answers together. This is not only a screening for adoptees, but also a useful tool for their parents.

Adopted included

Adoptees On , hosted by Hayley Radke, provides a safe place for adoptees to discuss their feelings and ideas about adoption and open up about the challenges they face. The podcast focuses on the adopted child’s perspective and explores the complexities and emotions associated with the adoption process. Holly covers stories of reunification, transracial and transnational adoption, and the impact adoption has on individuals and families. It features real and heartfelt conversations, giving adoptees a platform to share their unique experiences and perspectives. Being able to hear the unvarnished truth from adoptees can be a real lifeline for people who feel alone.

My two dads

In My Two Dads, Sam and Paul focus on same-sex and single-parent adoption, as well as early permanency and parenting through the lens of their own experiences as fathers who adopted a son together. They interview guests such as award-winning author Holly Marlow and Great British Bake Off finalist Christine Wallace about every twist and turn of the same-sex and single parent adoption journey, from the moment the dream of adoption begins to the struggles that arise. two fathers. (or two mothers, or one father, or one mother) with a child.

Black Adoption Podcast

Most conversations about adoption are from the perspective of white adoptive parents and often about transracial adoption. But black people adopt black children and babies all the time, and those stories come with their own challenges, steeped in the legacy of the “three Ss”: secrecy, stigma, shame. In the podcast Black to the Beginning , friends Dr. Samantha Coleman and Sandria Washington, who both discovered they were adopted as adults, center the voices and experiences of Black adoptive parents and Black adult adoptees, one story at a time. In telling these stories, Samantha and Sandria struggle with the fourth letter “S”: silence. Hearing these stories helps black adoptive and adoptive parents feel less alone.

Unerased

International adoption deportation refers to the problem of stateless adoptees: some people do not realize that this applies to them, or that they are at risk of deportation until they have lived a full life in the United States. UnErased introduces us to some of these people, like Crystal Moran, a mom of five who moved to America when she was just three months old, was deported to El Salvador and left to fight to return to her family. Or Susan Williams, who was deported back to South Korea after a difficult childhood and a stint in prison. These heartbreaking stories paint portraits of adults forced to return to a place completely unfamiliar to them, and detail the further complications of the adoption process that only add to the trauma and grief that many adoptees experience.

Adoption

Adoption tells the story of three-year-old Bethany and two-year-old Ben, siblings who are separated and placed in foster care, and tells the story of their fractured family through exceptional storytelling. Narrator John Manel follows their story over two years, from the moment they are placed into foster care with nothing but teddy bears and pacifiers, to the moment they reach the arms of their “new mom and dad.” Adoption is a window into the complex adoption process, offering parents, grandparents, social workers and potential adoptive parents a new and interesting perspective on a story that is sad but also common. (If you’re outside the US, you may have to access it through a VPN.)