Joanna grew up believing she was the miracle baby. Her two older siblings were adopted, but Joanna was the biological child her parents had waited years for. Then, when she was 15, her sister told her a secret that changed everything. Also in this episode: a pretty big announcement. Missing Pieces is becoming LA Calling. Same feed. Same storyteller. A much bigger world of stories. 🧩 Joanna: TikTok — @Joannamommma 📸 Instagram: @npe_life_podcast 📧 [email protected] ⭐️ If you like the show...

🎙️ Uncle Clarence Ed Hill grew up with a complicated family story. His mom married his uncle — technically, his dad’s sister’s ex-husband — and Clarence became the man who helped raise him. Years later, an Ancestry DNA test made that already complicated family tree even more complicated. This is a story about family secrets, identity, DNA, and one very unexpected ending. ❤️ Choosing Hope https://choosinghopeproject.org 💜 Free Naloxone & Overdose Reversal Training https://www.zeffy.com/en-...

🧩 In this episode of Missing Pieces, Don sits down with Alison, a sober solo traveler who has explored some of the most remote places in the world. A DNA test she took out of curiosity revealed that the man who raised her was not her biological father—and that the sister she grew up with was actually her half-sister. Alison shares how the discovery shook her identity, led her to two more half-siblings, and forced her to reconsider everything she believed about her family, her heritage and eve...

🧩 In this episode of Missing Pieces, Don sits down with television host, journalist, adoptee, and adoptive mother Lisa Joyner. Lisa shares the story of searching for and meeting both of her biological parents, the emotional impact of finally seeing herself reflected in another person, and how her own adoption experience shaped the way she approached motherhood. They also look back at Long Lost Family, the care that went into those powerful reunions, and Lisa’s new podcast, Plus One with Lisa ...

🧩 Relative Strangers This week on Missing Pieces — NPE Life, Don talks with writer Laura Jenkins, whose essay appears in the new anthology Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship, edited by B.K. Jackson. Laura shares her story of discovering she is an NPE and the emotional journey that followed — the shock, the questions, the search for truth, and the complicated process of making sense of identity when the story you were given turns out not to be the whole story...