Born in Long Island in 1966, Dave Verrone’s life began with separation — just five days after birth, he was placed with a foster family. For the next 14 months, he bonded deeply with his foster parents and three siblings. In October 1967, he joined the Verrone family, adjusting to his third mother, his father, and a new sister, also adopted.

Childhood brought both love and challenge. Though his adoptive parents cared for him deeply, their “clean slate” approach left Dave hesitant to ask about his origins, shaping him into a quiet “pleaser” who avoided rocking the boat. Separation anxiety, shyness, and self-doubt followed him, but so did perseverance.

Through life’s ups and downs - successes, losses, and moments of self-discovery - Dave built his own family and, in time, reconnected with his biological relatives. His journey is one of resilience, acceptance, and the enduring search for identity.

Season 11: Adoptee Memoirs - books in order:

Practically Still a Virgin by Monica Hall

You Can't Get Rid of Me by Jesse Scott and Keri Ault

Unspoken by Liz Harvie

Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and the Eventbrite for our September 12th & 13th Washington, D.C. Event!

Thank you to our Patreons! Join at the $10 level and be part of our monthly ADOPTEE CAFE community. The next meeting will be determined in September (we are working around our live event and extra work travel).

RESOURCES for Adoptees:

• Adoptees Connect
• Adoptee Mentoring Society
• Gregory Luce and Adoptee Rights Law Fireside Adoptees Facebook Group Dr. Liz Debetta: Migrating Toward Wholeness Movement Moses Farrow - Trauma therapist and advocate National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 OR Dial or Text 988.
• Kristal Parke Because She Is Adopted
• Reckoning With The Primal Wound

Karen was adopted domestically at birth, and found by her birth family at 29, and entered reunion soon after. The experience of merging her past and present was both transformational and complex, bringing up emotions and questions she hadn’t fully confronted before. During this time, Karen sought therapy but struggled to find someone who truly understood the adoptee experience. Many available therapists were adoptive parents—well-intentioned, but not individuals she felt safe opening up to. This gap in adoptee-centered care inspired Karen to return to graduate school in her 40s to become the kind of therapist she needed: someone with lived experience, deep empathy, and the tools to support others navigating the lifelong journey of adoption. Now, as an adoptee-competent therapist, Karen is committed to holding space for fellow adoptees as they explore identity, grief, belonging, and connection on their own terms.

Season 11: Adoptee Memoirs - books in order:

Practically Still a Virgin by Monica Hall

You Can't Get Rid of Me by Jesse Scott and Keri Ault

Unspoken by Liz Harvie

Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and the Eventbrite for our September 12th & 13th Washington, D.C. Event!

Thank you to our Patreons! Join at the $10 level and be part of our monthly ADOPTEE CAFE community. The next meeting will be determined in September (we are working around our live event and extra work travel).

RESOURCES for Adoptees:

• Adoptees Connect
• Adoptee Mentoring Society
• Gregory Luce and Adoptee Rights Law Fireside Adoptees Facebook Group Dr. Liz Debetta: Migrating Toward Wholeness Movement Moses Farrow - Trauma therapist and advocate National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 OR Dial or Text 988.
• Kristal Parke Because She Is Adopted
• Reckoning With The Primal Wound

Pete Droge is a critically acclaimed singer/songwriter based in Seattle, WA who rocketed to early stardom on the strength of his 1994 debut Necktie Second. The Los Angeles Times compared his songwriting to Bob Dylan and Neil Young while also earning similar praise from Rolling Stone and Boston Globe among many others, and within a year he was on the road supporting Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He has since released a series of well-received solo albums, composed a variety of works for film and television, and even appeared in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous.

Sixteen years ago, Pete Droge went looking for his birth mother; instead, he found her obituary. But rather than marking the end of the story, the discovery ultimately led him to reconnect with his surviving relatives and started a journey that would forever change his life and career. He explores it all with poetic grace on Fade Away Blue, a rich, revelatory sonic memoir that faces down doubt and despair with love, resilience, and commitment at every turn. The songs are bittersweet, balancing longing and gratitude in equal measure, and the arrangements are warm and inviting to match, with Droge's tender, comforting lyrics and easygoing, understated delivery.

Pete Droge

Season 11: Adoptee Memoirs - books in order:

Practically Still a Virgin by Monica Hall

You Can't Get Rid of Me by Jesse Scott and Keri Ault

Unspoken by Liz Harvie

Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and the Eventbrite for our September 12th & 13th Washington, D.C. Event!

Thank you to our Patreons! Join at the $10 level and be part of our monthly ADOPTEE CAFE community. The next meeting will be determined in September (we are working around our live event and travel).

RESOURCES for Adoptees:

• Adoptees Connect
• Adoptee Mentoring Society
• Gregory Luce and Adoptee Rights Law Fireside Adoptees Facebook Group Dr. Liz Debetta: Migrating Toward Wholeness Movement Moses Farrow - Trauma therapist and advocate National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 OR Dial or Text 988.
• Kristal Parke Because She Is Adopted
• Reckoning With The Primal Wound

Bob Wilson an adoptee born in the early 1970s at the end of the Baby Scoop Era. During his childhood and young adulthood, he thought little about the fact that he was adopted. But after reading Ann Fessler’s groundbreaking book The Girls Who Went Away (2007) about adoption in mid-twentieth century America, he began the legal process of unsealing his adoption records and attempting to find his birthmother. He located and contacted his birthmother nearly two decades ago and has had a close relationship with her since then. In 2020, GeoHumanities published his essay “Relinquished,” a narrative of his birthmother’s fraught journey to surrender him for adoption and the legacy of that decision. “Relinquished” is a story of a birthmother and adoptee, but it also illuminates the history of adoption, abortion, and unplanned pregnancies in the decades before Roe v. Wade. He is currently associate professor of geography and the environment in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where he teaches courses in historical geography, environmental history, and the environmental humanities.

Season 11: Adoptee Memoirs - books in order:

Practically Still a Virgin by Monica Hall

You Can't Get Rid of Me by Jesse Scott and Keri Ault

Unspoken by Liz Harvie

Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and the Eventbrite for our September 12th & 13th Washington, D.C. Event!

This episode of the Making of Me Podcast is brought to you by the Adoptee Mentoring Society - a virtual community built by adoptees, for adoptees. They offer adoptee-centric mentorship for adopted persons 12 and up, led by trained adoptee mentors. Whether you’re navigating identity, searching for the words, or simply wondering how adoption has shaped you, they get it.

Listeners of The Making of Me Pod get 25% off their first session with code: PRO-TMMPOD

AMS offers free mentorship to adoptees in Washington State and Oregon, as well as scholarships for those facing financial barriers. Learn more at adopteementorship.org or email them at: info@adopteementorship.org

Thank you to our Patreons! Join at the $10 level and be part of our monthly ADOPTEE CAFE community. The next meeting will be determined in September (we are working around our live event and travel).

RESOURCES for Adoptees:

• Adoptees Connect
• Gregory Luce and Adoptee Rights Law Fireside Adoptees Facebook Group Dr. Liz Debetta: Migrating Toward Wholeness Movement Moses Farrow - Trauma therapist and advocate National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 OR Dial or Text 988.
• Kristal Parke Because She Is Adopted
• Reckoning With The Primal Wound

Simon Njoroge is an adopted person from Kenya. He has been involved in the child care reform agenda in Kenya in various capacities for more than a decade, including coordinating an adopted persons support group.

Season 11: Adoptee Memoirs - books in order:

Practically Still a Virgin by Monica Hall

You Can't Get Rid of Me by Jesse Scott and Keri Ault

Unspoken by Liz Harvie

Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and the Eventbrite for our September 12th & 13th Washington, D.C. Event!

Thank you to our Patreons! Join at the $10 level and be part of our monthly ADOPTEE CAFE community. The next meeting will be on Saturday, August 9th, @ 1 PM ET.

RESOURCES for Adoptees:

• Adoptees Connect
• Gregory Luce and Adoptee Rights Law Fireside Adoptees Facebook Group Dr. Liz Debetta: Migrating Toward Wholeness Movement Moses Farrow - Trauma therapist and advocate National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 OR Dial or Text 988.
• Kristal Parke Because She Is Adopted
• Reckoning With The Primal Wound

Barbara was born in 1964 and although given up within the first week of life, she wasn’t ultimately adopted until she was 16 months old. She was never told why or where she was that first 16 months. While growing up Barbara occasionally asked about her biological mother. Her adoptive mother told her that she would never be able to find her, as the records in New York State were sealed. Barbara accepted that as fact, and never sought to look further. She lived with her adopted family until she was 18 years old and then her adoptive parents abruptly moved 1000 miles away. She had always had trouble fitting in at home and struggled socially, but when her adoptive parents left, those issues magnified and she was left wondering more and more about her past. Until she married at 28 years old and contemplated having children did she really begin to question her identity.

Working for a financial firm in a Human Resources Department, Barbara managed her company’s blood drive. It was that day when she gave serious thought about her own bloodlines. She found the adoption agency and the representative shared a list of non-identifying information. And so began the long search for her biological mother. When she found her 2 years later, Barbara discovered that they lived only 20 blocks away from each other when she was growing up and only a town apart when she found her. That was the beginning of a long relationship they still have today. She has met her biological father, as well as extended family.

Barbara considers herself blessed and has written a manuscript about the search, and her mother has edited the work. They both feel that they were meant to reunite after all those years apart, and live less than a mile apart today.

Season 11: Adoptee Memoirs - books in order:

Practically Still a Virgin by Monica Hall

You Can't Get Rid of Me by Jesse Scott and Keri Ault

Unspoken by Liz Harvie

Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and the Eventbrite for our September 12th & 13th Washington, D.C. Event!

Thank you to our Patreons! Join at the $10 level and be part of our monthly ADOPTEE CAFE community. The next meeting will be on Saturday, August 9th, @ 1 PM ET.

RESOURCES for Adoptees:

• Adoptees Connect
• Gregory Luce and Adoptee Rights Law Fireside Adoptees Facebook Group Dr. Liz Debetta: Migrating Toward Wholeness Movement Moses Farrow - Trauma therapist and advocate National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 OR Dial or Text 988.
• Kristal Parke Because She Is Adopted
• Reckoning With The Primal Wound

Katherine Allen McNally is an adoptee and a licensed therapist who specializes in working with adoptees and their adoptive families. She transitioned from a career in graphic design and advertising to pursue this path, driven by a deep personal commitment to supporting this unique population. Over the course of her work, she has encountered a wide spectrum of adoption narratives, including various forms of conception, gestation, birth, relinquishment, adoption, and survival. These experiences led her, along with a colleague, to develop a trauma healing model known as The TAG Method for Trauma Reprocessing and Integration.

At the heart of The TAG Method lies the adoption experience. Katherine is passionate about sharing this model and its insights with broader audiences. She believes that adoption represents a significant and often overlooked trauma—one that is visible yet rarely acknowledged. In her work, she explores how adoptees navigate attachment loss, the silent fear of being “not chosen” again, and the emotional impact often referred to as "the cloud." She also discusses the "three As" and how these themes influence the adoptee experience.

Katherine shares how clients access these deep-seated pains and begin the process of healing, ultimately freeing themselves from a trauma they never asked to carry. She also offers personal reflections from her own healing journey, enriching her professional insights with lived experience.

To find Katherine: http://www.ktherapy.com/

Season 11: Adoptee Memoirs - books in order:

Practically Still a Virgin by Monica Hall

You Can't Get Rid of Me by Jesse Scott and Keri Ault

Unspoken by Liz Harvie

Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and the Eventbrite for our September 12th & 13th Washington, D.C. Event!

Thank you to our Patreons! Join at the $10 level and be part of our monthly ADOPTEE CAFE community. The next meeting will be on Saturday, August 9th, @ 1 PM ET.

RESOURCES for Adoptees:

S12F Helping Adoptees
Gregory Luce and Adoptees Rights Law
Fireside Adoptees Facebook Group
Dr. Liz Debetta: Migrating Toward Wholeness Movement
Moses Farrow - Trauma therapist and advocate
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-8255 OR Dial or Text 988.
Unraveling Adoption with Beth Syverson

Adoptees Connect with Pamela Karanova

Because She Was Adopted by Kristal Parke

Dear Amy, letters to Amy Coney Barrett. A project by Meika Rouda

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