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Nicole Davis always knew she was adopted. What she didn’t know was how strange the story behind her adoption would look once she started examining it as an adult.

Nicole was born in Alabama in 1974. Her adoptive parents had spent years trying to have a child and then trying to adopt. According to the family story, they eventually failed a home inspection because a step between their kitchen and sunken living room wasn’t up to code.

Then Nicole’s mother wrote a letter to Alabama Governor George Wallace. Within a few months, her parents got a call. They drove to Montgomery and brought Nicole home.

Her mother has always believed Wallace made it happen. Nicole grew up thinking that was a great story. Today, she has a lot more questions about it.

In Part 1 of our conversation, Nicole talks about growing up adopted in rural Alabama, the family she was raised in and the fears that followed her from childhood. As a little girl, she worried someone would come and take her away. Eventually, she found herself staring down the road and hoping someone from her biological family would show up and do exactly that.

Years later, Nicole began finding biological relatives and learning how much of what she thought she knew about her origins was incomplete or simply wrong. Then an Ancestry match appeared.

Nicole initially ignored it. When she finally looked more closely, she discovered she shared 27 percent DNA with the woman trying to contact her. She had found a sister.

That sister had another surprise: the biological father Nicole had believed was dead for 12 years was alive.

Nicole also happens to be a serious horror fan, and the connection between her adoption experience and the things that scare her is fascinating. Horror gave her something real life often didn’t: predictable fear. Freddy Krueger had rules. A Stephen King novel had an ending. Her childhood could be much harder to predict.

That makes Nicole a natural crossover guest for Family Twist and our other podcast, Horror Heals.

In Part 1, we talk about adoption trauma, abandonment, biological family, DNA discoveries, rural Alabama, evangelical Christianity, the questions surrounding Nicole’s adoption and the possibility that George Wallace played a role in how she became part of her adoptive family.

And just when you think Nicole’s family story couldn’t sound more like a horror movie, she says it herself:

Her family dynamic is “a nightmare.”

Part 2 is coming next week.

Remember, family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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What does it mean to reclaim an Indigenous identity you didn’t have the opportunity to grow up with?

In Part 2 of our conversation with Monica Hall and Kristal Parke, we explore one of the connections that first brought these two women together: they are both adoptees, and they are both Cree.

Kristal talks about growing up without a connection to her Indigenous culture and the complicated feeling of not being “Indigenous enough.” Finding other Indigenous adoptees who are also trying to reconnect has given her something she didn’t have growing up: people who understand that conflict without needing it explained.

Monica understands it well. She didn’t know she was Indigenous until she connected with members of her biological family. She later learned that her father spoke fluent Cree and that her great-grandmother was a medicine woman.

In the 1990s, Monica began exploring the culture she hadn’t grown up with. Her aunt taught her to bead and make medicine bags. As an herbalist, Monica wanted to learn about the healing plants of her people. She attended powwows, and her daughter became a fancy dancer.

And yet, Monica admits there’s still a part of her that wonders whether she deserves to call herself Cree. She didn’t experience the prejudice members of her biological family faced. She wasn’t raised speaking the language, and much of the cultural knowledge in her family wasn’t passed down. Adoption separated her from those experiences before she had any choice in the matter.

That shared uncertainty is part of what connected Monica and Kristal. They can recognize each other as strong Indigenous women even when claiming that identity for themselves can be more complicated.

We also talk about Kristal’s documentary about Monica’s life, Life’s a Mother, the response to its trailer, their shared sobriety and the friendship that has grown far beyond the film itself.

Kristal also explains why staying with Monica comes with some serious “mom energy,” although Monica’s particular brand of mothering apparently includes the occasional, “Look at me when I talk to you.”

If you missed Part 1, The Genetic Sexual Attraction Nobody Talks About, start there, then join us for Part 2 and a conversation about Cree heritage, adoption, cultural identity and finding your own relationship with a history that was always yours.

Remember, family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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Genetic sexual attraction is one of the most difficult and misunderstood possibilities that can emerge after biological family reunion. For decades, Monica Hall rarely spoke about her own experience with it.

In part one of this special two-part Family Twist conversation, Monica returns alongside filmmaker and fellow adoptee Kristal Parke. Their friendship began after Monica learned about another Cree adoptee in Canada and decided she needed to find her. One Facebook message and an hour-long phone conversation later, a friendship had begun.

Eventually, that friendship became something neither of them expected: Kristal started making a documentary about Monica’s life.

The film gives Monica an opportunity to talk about parts of her story she previously wasn’t ready to share publicly, including a relationship with a man she learned was her half-brother. Monica speaks openly about genetic sexual attraction, the intensity of that relationship, the shame she carried afterward and why she kept it largely secret for decades.

She also discusses addiction and sobriety, the grief that came when the relationship ended, and the very different perspective she has on that period of her life today.

Kristal has her own difficult role in telling the story. She isn’t interviewing a stranger. Monica has become one of her closest friends. Kristal talks about moving between filmmaker and friend, knowing when to ask another question and making sure Monica remains comfortable with what ultimately appears on screen.

There are plenty of laughs, too. Monica has accumulated decades of archival footage, old interviews, home movies and other surprises that she turned over to Kristal for the documentary. Some of those surprises were considerably more personal than Kristal anticipated.

In this episode:

• Monica speaks openly about genetic sexual attraction after biological reunion
• Why she kept the relationship secret from most people for decades
• The shame and grief she carried after it ended
• How addiction and sobriety intersect with this period of her life
• Why she can talk about the experience now when she couldn’t before
• How Monica and Kristal became friends
• Why Kristal decided Monica’s life should become a documentary
• The responsibility of filming someone you also love as a friend
• What decades of Monica’s archival footage bring to the film

We’re also relaunching Monica and Kristal’s original Family Twist episodes so listeners can hear their individual stories.

Then join us next week for Part Two, when the conversation turns to another bond between Monica and Kristal: their shared Cree heritage and what it means to reconnect with Indigenous identity after adoption.

Remember, family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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What happens when adoptive parents enter adoptee spaces and hear things that are difficult, angry or painful?

Charlyn Spiering doesn’t believe the answer is to get defensive. She believes it’s to listen.

Charlyn is the host of Adoption Uncovered and the mother of five children, both biological and adopted. She joins Corey and Kendall for a candid conversation about raising adopted children, talking openly about first families, respecting the parts of an adoption story that belong to the adoptee, and recognizing that even well-intentioned parents are going to make mistakes.

Charlyn shares her family’s experience raising Aaron, her son adopted from India, and the effort to incorporate Indian culture into their family without claiming his identity or story as their own. She also discusses Aaron’s feelings about potentially visiting India and connecting with his first mother, including an important reality that sometimes gets lost in adoption conversations: not every adoptee wants the same kind of reunion or relationship.

That opens up a fascinating conversation with Kendall about his own childhood. Kendall always knew he was adopted, but as a kid he still identified with the Native American heritage of his adoptive father. That connection wasn’t biological. It came from the man who raised him and the things they loved together.

Charlyn also has a family discovery of her own. She was in college when her father revealed that she and her brother had Jewish ancestry, something previous generations had deliberately kept quiet. Years later, DNA testing helped uncover more of that missing family history.

Corey, Kendall and Charlyn also get into closed adoption, searching for biological family before consumer DNA testing existed, disability and international adoption, the complicated question of first-family contact, and why adoptive parents need to make adoption something their children can actually talk about.

And because this is Family Twist, the conversation eventually includes Indian food, homemade potato pancakes, Billie Eilish, K-pop, Spotify playlists and the music our parents and children use to let us into their worlds.

Charlyn says something during the episode that sums up her approach to entering adoptee spaces:

“I want to learn. I’m not here to tell you stuff.”

Sometimes listening is the most important part of the conversation.

Listen now to Family Twist and hear an adoptive parent, an adoptee and two podcasters get honest about adoption, identity, culture and who gets to tell the story.

Remember, family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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A baby abandoned on one of America's most historic days. A mystery that lasted nearly eighty years. Could modern DNA finally reveal the truth?

On August 15, 1945, while crowds filled Boston Common celebrating the end of World War II, a young woman handed her infant son to a teenage newsboy, slipped him a few dollars, and disappeared.

That baby grew up to become Tina Drzal's father. For decades, his family knew only fragments of the story. Who was his mother? Why did she leave him? Did she ever try to find him? And what happened after that unforgettable day?

Joining Corey are Tina Drzal and Boston historian David Kruh, co-authors of Little Mister Victory. Together, they combined newspaper archives, historical records, DNA testing, and years of detective work to reconstruct one of the most remarkable adoption stories we've ever featured.

This conversation explores:

• How one newspaper article restarted a decades-long search
• Using DNA to solve an adoption mystery from World War II
• The emotional impact of inheriting unanswered questions
• Why family secrets continue to echo across generations
• The surprising discoveries that completely changed the investigation
• How compassion can reshape the way we view difficult decisions from the past

Whether you're an adoptee, an NPE, a genealogy enthusiast, or simply love an unforgettable true story, this episode is a fascinating reminder that history is never as distant as it seems.

Learn more about Little Mister Victory at littlemistervictory.com.

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Most movies treat adoption, donor conception, or DNA discoveries as a plot twist. Then the credits roll. But for the people living these stories, that's when life actually begins.

Writer and director Jason Mullis wanted to tell a different kind of story. Before writing Myth of the Ghost Kingdom, he spent months listening to adoptees, donor-conceived people, late-discovery adoptees, NPEs, and others whose lives had been shaped by family secrets and unexpected DNA discoveries.

The result is a film that doesn't simply ask, "Who are your biological parents?"

It asks the much harder question: Who are you after the truth changes everything?

In this episode, Jason joins Corey and Kendall to discuss:

• Why authentic representation mattered from the very beginning
• What he learned from the adoption and DNA-discovery communities
• The responsibility of telling someone else's story
• Why identity can be more powerful than any fictional plot twist
• How family secrets continue to shape generations
• What he hopes audiences take away from Myth of the Ghost Kingdom

Whether you're adopted, donor conceived, an NPE, or simply someone who's ever questioned where you belong, this conversation is a reminder that the most compelling stories are the true ones.

About Jason Mullis

Jason Mullis is the writer and director of Myth of the Ghost Kingdom, an independent feature film that follows a woman who discovers as an adult that she was adopted and begins searching for the truth about her identity. The film was developed with extensive input from members of the adoption and DNA-discovery communities, bringing an uncommon level of authenticity to a story about family, identity, and belonging.

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For years, Louise McLoughlin built her career telling other people's stories. Then she uncovered one she never expected: her own.

After learning she was donor-conceived, Louise set out to understand not only her biological origins, but the larger world of donor conception, family secrets, and identity. That journey led her to create the acclaimed documentary podcast You Look Like Me, where she gave donor-conceived people a platform to tell the stories that so often go unheard.

In this episode, Louise joins Corey and Kendall to discuss:

• Discovering she was donor-conceived
• Finding her biological father and a growing number of half-siblings
• Why donor-conceived people often feel the search is never truly over
• The emotional reality behind DNA discoveries
• Why media coverage of donor conception often misses the point
• Balancing journalism with personal experience
• The importance of transparency, identity, and the right to know where you come from

This conversation is about much more than DNA. It's about what happens when the person asking the questions suddenly becomes the story.

About Louise McLoughlin

Louise McLoughlin is an award-winning journalist and creator of the documentary podcast You Look Like Me, which explores donor conception, identity, and family through deeply personal storytelling. Her work has helped bring greater visibility to donor-conceived voices while challenging how these stories are covered in the media.

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Finding your birth family is often portrayed as the ending of the story. For many adoptees, it's actually the beginning.

In this episode, Patricia Knight Meyer returns to talk about reunion with both of her birth parents, the remarkable relationship she built with her birth father, and the emotional challenges that no one prepared her to face.

Together, we discuss:

• Why reunion with each birth parent took a very different path
• The grief experienced by birth fathers and why it deserves more attention
• Genetic mirroring and finally seeing yourself in someone else
• Why Patricia believes adoptees and birth families need better preparation before reunion
• The inspiration behind her memoir, Wonderland: Memoir of a Black Market Adoption
• The music that became the soundtrack to her journey

And then, right near the end of the conversation, something completely unexpected happens. Corey and Patricia realize they've shared a powerful moment before, they just didn't know it until now.

The e-book edition of Wonderland is available for preorder now. The print edition and audiobook arrive this November, and Patricia will return to Family Twist for a special bonus episode after publication to share readers' reactions and what's happened since the book's release.

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