An Adoptee's Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging

01/01/25 • 44 min

Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption & Foster Care

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

Join our discussion with an adult adoptee about her search for her birth family and her identity. We will talk with Julie Ryan McGue, a domestic adoptee and an identical twin. She is the author of Twice a Daughter, which explores her coming to terms with her adoption and her search for her birth parents, and Twice the Family, which explores more of her relationship with her adoptive family.
In this episode, we cover:

Tell us your adoption story.
What role did adoption play, if any, in your childhood?
Feelings of needing to be perfect.
Fantasizing about birth family.
When did you begin to search for your birth parents?
Was searching for your birth family something you knew you would do from a young age?
After considerable effort, you located your birth mother. At first, she said she did not want contact. How did that leave you feeling?
After you had phone calls and met, you didn’t want to tell her much about your adoptive parents.
How did your mom (your adoptive mom) react to your search and when you found your birth mother?
How do you wish she had reacted?
What happened with your search for your birth father?
Did you feel the same sense of shame, embarrassment, and rejection?
Your birth mom’s reticence to help you find your birth father and your continued search caused a rift in your relationship. How is the relationship now?
The tension between the birth parents’ right to privacy vs. the adoptee’s right to know.
Your experience with online adoptee forums.
The primal wound.
Importance of adoptee support groups.

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Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

Weekly podcasts
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Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Click here to send us a topic idea or question for Weekend Wisdom.

Tell us your adoption story.
What role did adoption play, if any, in your childhood?
Feelings of needing to be perfect.
Fantasizing about birth family.
When did you begin to search for your birth parents?
Was searching for your birth family something you knew you would do from a young age?
After considerable effort, you located your birth mother. At first, she said she did not want contact. How did that leave you feeling?
After you had phone calls and met, you didn’t want to tell her much about your adoptive parents.
How did your mom (your adoptive mom) react to your search and when you found your birth mother?
How do you wish she had reacted?
What happened with your search for your birth father?
Did you feel the same sense of shame, embarrassment, and rejection?
Your birth mom’s reticence to help you find your birth father and your continued search caused a rift in your relationship. How is the relationship now?
The tension between the birth parents’ right to privacy vs. the adoptee’s right to know.
Your experience with online adoptee forums.
The primal wound.
Importance of adoptee support groups.

Support the show

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Previous Episode

My Parents Disapprove of Open Adoption - Weekend Wisdom

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Question: How do you speak to family members about open adoption? My entire family supports my intention to adopt as a single parent and has been very excited and generous as I have been working towards becoming a parent. My siblings were both adopted and there is a history of adoption in my family, mostly closed adoptions like my brother and sister. I would say my parents were ahead of their time in how they spoke openly about adoption and really worked hard to make us all feel loved and special. They shared with my siblings as much information about their birth parents as they had and supported my sister even to seek out a connection with her birth mother. However, despite all of this my parents seem to question open adoption. Do you have any tips for educating parents and family members about open adoption?
Resources:

Adoptee Voices (Resource page)
Interview with Pioneer Researchers in Open Adoption (Podcast)
Open Adoption (Resource page)

Support the show

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Next Episode

Should I Foster a Younger Child or Teen First? - Weekend Wisdom

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Question: My husband and I are licensed to foster/adopt, but there have been no placements yet. We initially thought our age preference was 2-6 year olds, but as we have gotten more information/education we think we may be a good home for teenagers. We have no children (adopted/fostered/biological) between us but this also means we have no one else in the home at this time. We are still interested in fostering (and adopting should the opportunity arise) younger children as well at some point. My question is would it be "better" for us to start with teens and move to younger children after the teens have left our home (for college, work, general adulthood independence) or would we be better prepared for teens after having younger children first?
Resources:

Support the show

Weekly podcasts
Weekly articles/blog posts
Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption & Foster Care - An Adoptee's Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.
Dawn Davenport 0:00
Welcome everyone to creating a family. Talk about foster, adoptive and kinship care. I'm Dawn Davenport. I am the host of this show, as well as the director of the nonprofit creating a family.org. Today's show is an interview with an adoptee author, and we're going to be talking about her search for identity, family and belonging. We'll be talking with Julie Ryan McGee. She is an American writer and a domesti