Join host Kara Rubenstein-Deyerin as she speaks with people who, like her, have experienced NPE's (non parental events), DNA surprises, adoption issues and other unexpected information bombs that revealed the truth about where they actually came from. As anyone who's ever experienced such an event can tell you, it separates you from you. From knowing your own story. In "Unraveling Me", Kara will explore the myriad ways why knowing the truth about who you are matters.

For more information please visit righttokknow.us.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

THE BLURB: Kara grew up believing she was half Black but learned she was actually half Jewish instead. Jodi, by contrast, grew up believing she was 100% Black only to learn she was 50% Black and 50% Ashkenazi Jew. How does one wrap one's mind around a radical re-imagining of who one is and where one came from? And why is it such a legal struggle to learn these truths about ourselves?

SHOW NOTES

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IN THIS EPISODE: Kara’s first guest is her “opposite twin” in the DNA surprise world, Jodi. Raised in a tiny Midwestern farm town as the only person of color in her community, Jodi spent her childhood trying to be perfect so no one would notice how different she looked. At 45, a half-price DNA test confirmed what her mirror had been whispering for decades—and upended everything she thought she knew about her family, her past, and herself. This is a story about identity, secrecy, faith, and the unexpected gifts of an unraveling— including the found family that helps you survive it.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Kara and Jodi talk about:

• Growing up as “the only one” in an all-white town
• Perfectionism, people-pleasing, and staying silent to survive
• The moment a DNA test revealed she is a different ethnicity
• Grieving a beloved dad while learning he wasn’t her genetic father
• Meeting her genetic siblings and navigating a new culture at midlife
• What it takes to rebuild belonging after misattributed parentage

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1E3 – Unraveling Bruce: Bruce’s story is raw, honest, and deeply human. It reveals the long shadow that secrecy casts—and the resilience required to rebuild identity at any age. This episode is about race, truth-telling, and the quiet survival strategies a child learns when the world insists he is something he cannot understand. And it is a testament to what can happen when, even late in life, we choose to face the truth head-on. Bruce grew up as one of ten children in an Irish-German Catholic family in Texas and Oklahoma. He was the only one who looked different—dark curly hair, brown skin that deepened in the sun—yet his parents insisted he belonged. Inside the home, he was simply one of the kids. Outside, he faced racism he had no language or context for. Decades later, a DNA test taken on a whim revealed what no one had ever told him: Bruce was biracial, and his genetic father was a Black man. Born in 1952 in a state where interracial relationships were illegal, Bruce entered the world as a secret his parents were convinced they had to keep.

SHOW NOTES

In this conversation, Kara and Bruce talk about:

• Growing up “the only one” in a large white family
• Experiencing racism as a child with no understanding of why
• The lifelong impact of secrecy, misattributed parentage, and identity confusion
• Using DNA testing to unravel ethnicity, parentage, and scientific truth
• Waiting four years for DNAngels to identify his genetic father
• Navigating complicated new genetic relatives
• Living as a biracial man raised as white and the emotional toll of never belonging fully anywhere
• How identity formation is shaped by context, environment, and who tells us who we are

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1E4 - Unraveling Oliver: This episode is about adoption, silence, identity, and the long interior journey many adoptees walk before saying their questions out loud. Oliver’s story is gentle, thoughtful, and profoundly human—a reminder that even truths revealed late in life still deserve space, compassion, and voice. Oliver grew up in a Dutch Indonesian family, surrounded by people who looked just like him. In Los Angeles, being Filipino by birth but raised in a culturally similar community meant he never questioned his place. But when the family moved to rural South Carolina at age seven, the contrast sharpened. Suddenly, he was “the odd one out,” but for reasons he couldn’t understand.

SHOW NOTES

At 18, right before leaving for the military, Oliver's parents told him he was adopted. The revelation landed just as he was entering an institution designed to strip away identity and rebuild it from the ground up. For years, Oliver held the truth quietly inside himself, unsure how to search without hurting the parents who raised him. It wasn’t until he became a father himself that the questions he’d buried began to surface. And it wasn’t until decades later, after his mother died and his father developed dementia, that Oliver finally allowed himself to search.

In this conversation, Kara, Oliver, and Melissa talk about:

• Growing up looking like you “fit,” even when the story doesn’t fit you at all
• The shock of discovering adoption at 18
• How the military intensifies questions of identity and belonging
• Why many adoptees delay searching until their raising parents are gone
• The emotional and ethical landmines of reunion
• The fear of hurting the people who raised you
• Using DNA and genealogy to trace a genetic mother
• Navigating this journey as a couple—support, differences, boundaries
• What it means to build identity when the truth arrives decades late
• What supportive partnership looks like when one person is unraveling their identity

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1 E5 – Mark Hansen - Mark’s story sits at the intersection of fertility fraud, misattributed parentage, and the long-term trauma caused by secrecy. It is raw, candid, and deeply human. This episode is about truth-telling, consent, identity, and the lifelong impact of what happens when people in power make choices without it. And how you can turn your pain into power. Mark was 47 years old, sitting beside his aging father at a routine medical appointment, when everything he knew about himself changed. In the quiet of that exam room, his dad turned to him and said: “There’s something I’ve never told you...” . What followed was a revelation that reshaped every corner of his identity. Mark learned he was conceived in the 1960s through an unethical insemination procedure. With no consent. No disclosure. And no accountability.

SHOW NOTES:

In this episode, Kara and Mark talk about:

· The exact moment his raising father disclosed the truth

· What insemination practices looked like in the 1960s—and what doctors were actually doing

· How he confirmed the truth with DNA testing

· Seeing his genetic father’s face for the first time—and seeing his own staring back

· The moral obligation he felt to notify four half-sisters living just miles away

· Why secrecy, shame, and fear keep families silent for decades

· How misattributed parentage can unravel sibling relationships

· What it means to “lose” your dad twice—once in death, and once in truth

· The ripple effects on extended family, medical history, and identity

· How he rebuilt stability and self-understanding in the aftermath

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IN THIS EPISODE: Unraveling Lauren...

SHOW NOTES

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

S1E7 – Unraveling Marcie - This episode is a profound look at identity, secrecy, reunion, and the lifelong impact of being denied your own information. Marcie’s story shows that unraveling can happen at any age, and that even those who’ve spent a lifetime helping others make sense of their origins can still be blindsided by their own. Her journey is a reminder that identity is not a fixed thing—it’s a living, shifting truth we deserve to know, and a story we deserve to claim.

Marcie’s story is unlike any other in this season because it spans every side of the adoption and misattributed parentage world. Marcie co-founded the National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP), fought for nine years to change Indiana law, helped open adoption records, and eventually helped create the Untangling Our Roots conference with Kara.

And then, at 68, everything she thought she knew about herself shattered. A DNA test, one she took reluctantly for her brother, revealed a family secret. Suddenly, Marcie found herself on the very path she’d guided countless through. Socked, disoriented, ashamed, grieving, and desperate to understand where she came from.

SHOW NOTES:

In this conversation, Kara and Marcie talk about:

· Surrendering a child in the closed-adoption era

· The trauma of reunion and the beauty of connection

· How denial becomes a survival skill

· The night a shoebox of memories forced her to face her past

· The emotional freefall of discovering your genetic father isn’t who you believed

· Why even experts are unprepared when their foundation cracks

· What it feels like to belong to no one—and everyone—at once

· What adoptees, birth parents, and MP individuals share—and where their experiences differ

· How community and compassion carried her through the darkest days

Everyone has the right to know the truth about where they come from. Unraveling Me speaks to those people impacted by DNA surprises, NPEs (non-paternal event), adoption, assisted reproduction, and other revelations that their parentage isn't entirely what they thought. Having experienced an NPE herself, Kara (through Right To Know and this podcast) seeks to highlight those moments when we learn the most unsettling of secret—who we really are.

At Right To Know, we encourage engagement to facilitate and create real change. As an organization, we are inclusive. We assist adoptees, the donor-conceived community, people with an NPE, birth parents, gamete providers, new genetic family, recipient parents, raising families, and significant others. In learning and growing from each other, we must put the voices of adoptees, donor conceived, and people with an NPE first.

For more information about Right To Know - or if you have a story you want to tell - please visit us at https://righttoknow.us/.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.