Show Notes
S1 E27 Unraveling Aaron & Jess In this thoughtful and often funny conversation, Kara, Aaron, and Jess explore what happened when a long-abstract donor relationship became real—and how that reality slowly reshaped all of their lives. What begins as a donor-conception story becomes something much more unexpected: a conversation about the many ways family can take shape. Years after choosing an unknown donor because it felt like the safest legal and emotional choice, Jess’s daughter took a DNA test to learn more about her ancestry and found Aaron right away. What followed was not just a new connection for a donor-conceived child, but the beginning of an evolving relationship between two adults trying to navigate unfamiliar terrain with care, curiosity, and respect.
SHOW NOTES Kara, Aaron, and Jess discuss: Why choose an unknown donor in the first place What donor conception looked like in the early 2000s, before photos, social media, and widespread DNA testing Aaron’s decision to take a DNA test A child’s experience of donor discovery when the truth was never hidden How Jess and Aaron built trust while following her daughter’s lead The emotional complexity of genetics, parenting, and belonging
This episode challenges old assumptions about what makes a parent, what makes a family, and how connection can grow when honesty is there from the beginning. Aaron and Jess show that while genetics matter, relationships matter too, and neither has to cancel out the other. Their story is a reminder that sometimes the families we build do not fit familiar templates, but can still be rooted in care, respect, and love.
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.
More from Unraveling Me
S1 E51 - Unraveling Chris & Mary Chris grew up knowing he was adopted—and knowing his genetic family. His parents shared celebrations, built relationships with one another, and made room for everyone in his life. He calls it “integrated adoption.” But even with that openness and connection, Chris struggled with feeling slightly different everywhere he went. Recognizing the grief connected to his adoption brought a question he hadn’t known how to ask: “Is it okay that I feel this way?” His raising mother, Mary, answered without hesitation: “Of course it’s okay.”
S1 E50 - Unraveling Corey & Kendall Kendall always knew he was adopted. His parents welcomed his questions, and when his adoptive mother died, his father showed him the name he’d been given at birth. Kendall was ten. He searched through phone books, library records, and adoption registries, and petitioned the court three times for his sealed records. Years of dead ends left him believing he might never find his genetic family.
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.
S1 E48 Unraveling Tom J Tom Junod has spent much of his career investigating other people’s lives. His profile of Fred Rogers inspired the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and his essay The Falling Man became one of the most recognized pieces of writing about 9/11. But in his memoir, In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means to Be a Man, Tom turns that investigative lens on his own family.
S1E47 Unraveling MP MP grew up feeling like the odd person out. He looked different from his brothers, struggled to connect with the man he believed was his father, and was repeatedly reminded that his interests, personality, and appearance did not fit the rest of his family. At 13, he unexpectedly learned that his parents had married after he was born. That first crack in the family story left him wondering what else he had not been told.