I Was Told My Birth Parents Died. That Wasn’t True.

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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.