S1 E49 - Unraveling Stephanie Stephanie’s story is about what happens when a lifelong search for roots finally begins. It is also a reminder that success does not always mean finding every answer. Sometimes it means discovering where you come from, building relationships along the way, and finding the courage to keep searching. Stephanie was adopted at three years old from a Mother Teresa orphanage in India and raised in a white Catholic family on Long Island. She always knew she was adopted, but for most of her life, she gave little thought to the identity, culture, and history she had lost.
That changed when her husband gave her a DNA test. Stephanie’s limited paperwork said she was born in Patna in northern India, but her DNA matches pointed toward Kerala and the Malayali community in southern India. She also learned that the birthday she had celebrated for nearly 50 years was not her actual birthday. Suddenly, even the most basic facts she thought she knew about herself were uncertain.
SHOW NOTES
In this conversation, Kara and Stephanie talk about:
- Growing up as the only Indian person in nearly every room, including her own home
- Searching for other Indian adoptees and finding community through conferences
- Discovering that her adoption paperwork and DNA tell different stories
- Connecting with genetic relatives without yet knowing how they all fit together
- Returning to the orphanage where she lived and confronting the life she might have had
- The pressure adoptees face to feel grateful
- Why love does not erase an adoptee’s need for identity, history, and genetic connection
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.
