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Last March, Corey attended Untangling Our Roots Summit in Denver for the first time. He went alone, unsure what to expect, and quietly wondering if he belonged there at all.

In this solo episode, Corey reflects on walking into a room where everyone already spoke the same language. Adoptees, donor-conceived people, NPEs, MPEs, birth parents, adoptive parents, partners, spouses, and allies, all in one space, without hierarchy or comparison. What began as a moment of imposter syndrome quickly turned into connection, recognition, and relief.

This year feels even more meaningful. Corey and Kendall are attending together, and both will be speaking. Corey will be interviewing filmmaker Lisa Brenner, whose work explores identity, truth, and family through storytelling. Kendall will be moderating a powerful panel, “Who Am I? Is This Me. A Male Perspective,” centering men’s voices in conversations about identity disruption and discovery.

This episode is an invitation. To anyone who has ever felt alone after a DNA discovery. To anyone still trying to understand where they fit. To anyone who needs to sit in a room where they don’t have to explain themselves.

Untangling Our Roots is the largest gathering of these communities anywhere in the world, and it only happens every other year. If you miss it this March, the next one won’t be until 2028.

You don’t need all the answers. You just need to show up.

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What happens after the truth comes out, when the search begins and there is no DNA test, no internet, and no clear roadmap?

In part two of this two-part episode, we continue our conversation with Marylee MacDonald as she takes us into the long, painstaking search for her birth family. This was a time before commercial DNA testing, when finding answers meant microfilm machines, legal notices buried in newspapers, and carefully rehearsed phone calls that could change your life in an instant.

Marylee shares how she searched for her birth mother after her adoptive mother’s death, navigating guilt, fear, and hope all at once. When she finally makes contact, she experiences something many adoptees describe but rarely get to feel. Mirrors. Voices that sound like hers. Siblings who feel instantly familiar.

But reunion is not a fairy tale.

Marylee opens up about being kept secret, introduced as a “family friend,” and hearing words no one ever wants to hear from a parent. She reflects on the complicated emotional terrain of reunion, where love, shame, pride, and distance can all exist at the same time.

And then comes another layer. Marylee also shares the story of finding the son she was forced to surrender as a teenager. What followed was not instant closeness, but something deeper. Time. Effort. Shared history. And eventually, a family that chose to make room for one another.

This episode lands during the holidays, and without planning it, Marylee leaves us with a powerful reminder of what connection can look like when the work is done. A full house. A crowded kitchen. Decades of memories made after years of separation.

What We Talk About in Part Two

Searching for birth family before DNA testing
Using microfilm and legal notices to find answers
Making the first phone call to a birth parent
Meeting siblings and finally seeing mirrors
The pain of being kept secret after reunion
Why reunion does not erase grief or shame
Finding a son surrendered in a closed adoption
Building real family history over time
What the holidays can look like after reunion

About Our Guest

Marylee MacDonald is an adoptee and author whose work explores adoption, identity, secrecy, motherhood, and reunion. Her writing reflects both the emotional cost of closed-era adoption and the long process of building real family connection after decades of separation.

Website

Book: Surrender: A Memoir of Nature, Nurture, and Love

Content Note: This episode includes discussion of adoption secrecy, family rejection, grief, and emotional distress. Please listen with care.

Connect with Family Twist

If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone who understands how family secrets shape identity. If you have a story of adoption, late discovery, or a family truth that surfaced years later, we would love to hear from you.

Family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.

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What happens when the story you were told about your adoption turns out to be a lie, and you find out at the moment you need support the most?

In part one of this two-part episode, we talk with Marylee MacDonald, an adoptee who always knew she was adopted and believed she had a tragic but simple origin story. She was told her birth parents had been killed in a car accident. The door was closed. The past was settled.

Until it wasn’t.

At 15, when Marylee became pregnant, her adoptive mother revealed the truth. Marylee’s birth mother was alive. And she had been a teenage girl, just like Marylee.

This episode explores what it means to grow up being told you were “chosen,” while also learning that what can be chosen can also be unchosen. Marylee reflects on the pressure to perform, the subtle reminders that she was different, and the deep ache of growing up without mirrors. No one looked like her. No one sounded like her. No one shared her temperament, her intellect, or her fire.

Part one focuses on Marylee’s early life, her adoption, the lie she was told about her origins, and the experience of being sent to a home for unwed mothers with little explanation and no real choice. It is a story shaped by secrecy, shame, and survival in an era of closed adoptions and hidden pregnancies.

Part two will follow Marylee into the search for her birth family, the reunions that followed, and the son she was forced to surrender.

What We Talk About in Part One

• Knowing you were adopted, but not knowing the truth
• Being told you were “chosen” and the pressure that creates
• Subtle comments that signal you do not fully belong
• The absence of mirrors for adoptees
• Discovering the truth during a teenage pregnancy
• Being sent to a home for unwed mothers without explanation or consent
• How secrecy and shame shaped adoption in the 1950s and 60s
• The emotional cost of learning the truth too late

About Our Guest

Marylee MacDonald is an adoptee and author whose work explores adoption, identity, secrecy, motherhood, and reunion. Her writing reflects both the emotional cost of closed-era adoption and the long process of building real family connection after decades of separation.

Website

Book: Surrender: A Memoir of Nature, Nurture, and Love

Content Note: This episode includes discussion of teenage pregnancy, adoption secrecy, family rejection, and emotional distress. Please listen with care.

In part two, Marylee shares how she searched for her birth family long before DNA testing. Through microfilm, legal notices, and carefully scripted phone calls, she recounts the moment she heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line. She also shares how she reunited with the son she was forced to surrender, and what it means to build real family history after years of silence.

Connect with Family Twist

If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone who understands how family secrets shape identity. If you have a story of adoption, late discovery, or a family truth that surfaced years later, we would love to hear from you.

Family secrets are the ultimate plot twist.