Voices of Adoption
Voices of Adoption
Podcast Description
Voices of Adoption amplifies authentic stories from across the adoption triad - birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive families - along with adoption service providers. Host Donna Pope, Executive Director of Heart To Heart Adoptions and Clinical Mental Health Counselor and her co-host Nathan Gwilliam, founder & former CEO of Adoption.com, create a safe space for honest conversations about the complexities of adoption. Birth parents share their journeys of love, loss, and healing. Adoptees discuss identity, belonging, and their lived experiences. Adoptive families open up about challenges and beautiful moments. Adoption service providers offer insights from their professional experience supporting families throughout the process. Each episode bridges different perspectives within the adoption community, helping listeners understand that every adoption story is unique yet connected by common threads of resilience and hope. These conversations don't shy away from difficult emotions or complex questions. Instead, they honor the full spectrum of adoption experiences with empathy and respect. Join us for stories that educate, inspire understanding, and remind us that every voice in the adoption community matters.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast emphasizes themes related to adoption including birth parent narratives, adoptee identity, and the experiences of adoptive families, with episodes such as discussions on the emotional ramifications of adoption reunions, the impact of culture on identity for transracial adoptees, and the importance of understanding the statistics behind adoption practices.
Voices of Adoption amplifies authentic stories from across the adoption triad – birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive families – along with adoption service providers. Host Donna Pope, Executive Director of Heart To Heart Adoptions and Clinical Mental Health Counselor and her co-host Nathan Gwilliam, founder & former CEO of Adoption.com, create a safe space for honest conversations about the complexities of adoption. Birth parents share their journeys of love, loss, and healing. Adoptees discuss identity, belonging, and their lived experiences. Adoptive families open up about challenges and beautiful moments. Adoption service providers offer insights from their professional experience supporting families throughout the process. Each episode bridges different perspectives within the adoption community, helping listeners understand that every adoption story is unique yet connected by common threads of resilience and hope. These conversations don’t shy away from difficult emotions or complex questions. Instead, they honor the full spectrum of adoption experiences with empathy and respect. Join us for stories that educate, inspire understanding, and remind us that every voice in the adoption community matters.
Real bonds with kids are not built face to face. They grow shoulder to shoulder, one small moment at a time, says stepmom coach Alicia Krasko. In Voices of Adoption, host Donna Pope sits down with someone outside the adoption triad who understands its emotional core anyway.
Alicia Krasko is not an adoptee, an adoptive parent, or a birth parent. She is a stepmom coach, and the guilt she coaches stepmoms through, the fear that not loving a child instantly means something is wrong with you, is the same guilt Donna names from her own experience raising her son.
The Guilt No One Talks About
Alicia hears the same fear from stepmoms that echoes what many adoptive parents feel, that if love does not arrive right away, something must be broken. Donna describes her own version of it. When her son came to her at two years old, it took a matter of weeks, not moments, for love to grow. Neither Alicia nor Donna treats that timeline as a failure. Both call it normal.
Bonds Built Shoulder To Shoulder
Alicia’s coaching method rejects forced face-to-face bonding in favor of shoulder-to-shoulder time, car rides, board games, even sitting through a video game neither person particularly enjoys. The goal is not a fun activity; it is a low-pressure one the child can tolerate long enough to let a real connection start. That principle holds whether the relationship began through marriage, foster care, or adoption.
Family Built By Choice
Alicia’s own story reinforces the episode’s second thread, that family is not defined by biology alone. She has stepped back from parts of her biological family and built a new community in its place, a choice many people in the adoption triad make in reverse. Alicia and Donna also name the loyalty bind children can feel, the sense that loving a new parent figure means betraying the parent they already have. That binding gets acknowledged here rather than dismissed.
This conversation is not really about stepmoms or adoptive parents specifically. It is about anyone building a bond with a child on a timeline they did not choose, and giving themselves permission to trust that timeline instead of rushing it. No matter where you are in your journey, you’ll find people who understand.
Hear how a stepmom coach explains what it really takes to build a bond with a child who is not yours by birth.
Download Your FREE Guide to Adoption at VoicesofAdoption.org. Like, share, and subscribe to spread the word.
Follow or Subscribe to Voices of Adoption on your favorite platform
Website: VoicesofAdoption.org | YouTube: @VoicesofAdoptionShow | Twitter (X): @Voices_Adoption | Instagram: @Voicesof_Adoption | Facebook: Voices of Adoption | TikTok: @Voices_of_Adoption | LinkedIn: Voices of Adoption
Follow Donna Pope (Host, Executive Director of Heart to Heart Adoptions)
LinkedIn: @donna-pope | Website: HeartToHeartAdopt.com
Follow Nathan Gwilliam (Co-Host, Founder of Adoption.com)
LinkedIn: @nathangwilliam | Website: PodUp.com | Podcasts – Why We Believe: WhyWeBelieve.com · Podcasting Secrets: PodcastingSecrets.com
Follow Alicia Krasko
Website: aliciakrasko.com | Instagram: @aliciakrasko | Facebook: Alicia Krasko | YouTube: @AliciaKrasko | Pinterest: aliciakrasko
Disclaimer
This podcast’s information is provided for general reference and was obtained from publicly accessible sources. The Podcast Collaborative neither produces nor verifies the content, accuracy, or suitability of this podcast. Views and opinions belong solely to the podcast creators and guests.
For a complete disclaimer, please see our Full Disclaimer on the archive page. The Podcast Collaborative bears no responsibility for the podcast’s themes, language, or overall content. Listener discretion is advised. Read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for more details.