ABOUT

About Adoption: The Making of Me

Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Browne, two adult adoptees and former business partners who had a successful ice cream truck in Los Angeles, team up again — this time in frank and honest conversations about adoption, centered on the adoptee experience.

Each season Sarah and Louise recap a chapter from a book focused on adoption and then interview a fellow adoptee.  

Sarah and Louise came out of the 'fog' in real-time through Seasons One and Two and are advocating for change in the adoption industry. 

Adoptee stories are needed to reframe the narrative around adoption. So often, the public narrative is that adoption is a ‘win-win’ for all parties - unselfish birth mothers giving up their babies to hopeful adoptive parents - a win/win for all. These ‘unwanted’ babies find a home, and all is well.

But that isn’t always true; in fact, it’s mostly not true. Books like Ann Fessler’s The Girls Who Went Away, which covers adoptions from 1946-1973, when Roe v Wade was established; and Gretchen Sisson’s Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, which focuses on adoptions between 2000-2020, highlight dark practices and statistics that prove just the opposite of what’s been so ingrained in the mainstream.

And when it comes to adoptees, evidence suggests they face higher risks for childhood adversity, trauma, and attachment issues. Such problems can include anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD, bipolar disorder, an increased risk for suicide (adoptees are four times more likely to attempt suicide), and physical/sexual abuse. Adopted children and teens, along with children in the foster care system, are overrepresented in rehab and the prison system.

Sarah and Louise have a clear mission - to create an oral history of adoptee stories for the sake of posterity and as a record of the effects that relinquishment has on the adoptee - a voice often overlooked in adoption discussions.

 


About Co-Host Louise Browne

Louise Browne is a co-host of Adoption: The Making of Me, and she is an adoptee, dog and animal lover, hiker and kayaker, Executive Operations at a fin-tech company,  former owner of a gourmet ice cream truck (with her awesome podcast host) and supporter of women and and all people.

Louise was adopted a few days after birth in 1968 into a loving home in a suburb of Denver, Colorado and lived there until graduating from high school. From the time she was young, she always knew she was adopted and wondered about her birth parents.  She had some verbal information about them from her adopted family, but her records were sealed as in the case of so many other adoptees.

When Louise’s only son was born, she was in awe, as many adoptees are, at having her first known biological relative. Staring at her son in the delivery room she said, “I know him.” This sparked an intense desire to discover her true nature, beyond her nurture and adoption, and how everything since her birth led to the making of Louise.

Then, when Louise was 32, her biological family found her and called her at home in Los Angeles. It was then that she found out that her birth mother had died in a tragic accident in 1975. This piece of information proved to be a touchstone between the guiding and protective voice in her head and the events of the past.

Hosting Adoption: the Making of Me has brought questions and past feelings to the surface about why she had always felt the way she did. Sharing this journey of discovery with the adopted community has proven to be a life-changing experience.

Louise’s Journey in Photos

About Sarah Reinhardt

Sarah Reinhardt is an adoptee and co-host of Adoption: The Making of Me. She is a writer, empty-nester, OCD dog parent, and works in Public Media in Kansas City.

Sarah was born in the baby scoop era in St. Louis, MO, but only by chance — her birth mother’s water broke on the ascent from JFK to St. Louis. When Sarah found that out later, her lifelong obsession with New York City made sense.

Sarah grew up in a small town in Missouri with a younger brother who was adopted, and younger twins (brothers) who were the biological children of her adopted parents.

It was only when Sarah was pregnant with her own child that she began to wonder 'who' she was. The search for her biological roots began.

What followed was a reunion with her birth mother and siblings and the discovery that her birth father had died before she was able to locate him.

It wasn’t until starting the podcast and reading The Primal Wound that, in the adoptee universe terms, Sarah’s ‘fog’ began to lift.

Sarah loves providing a platform for adoption stories, and she hopes to be involved in adoptee advocation for years to come.

Sarah’s Journey in Photos