Adoption: The making of me interview/podcast

S11, Ep. 6: Theresa Werba was born in 1962 in New York City to a 17-year-old former prostitute. She was given up for adoption at three months old. She was placed with a loving foster mother until she was 13 months old, when she was taken away for technical reasons and placed with an older couple with ties to a New Age religious cult. She endured a bizarre childhood of emotional and physical abuse and left home at the age of 15. She was disinherited by both adoptive parents upon their deaths. Theresa found her birth mother in 1984 and has had a positive relationship with her for over 40 years. Theresa was told a certain individual was her biological father and legally assumed his last name for over 30 years. In 2020, Theresa was able to locate her biological father through DNA testing via two half-sisters. He was a completely different person from the one her mother remembered. Unfortunately, he died in 2019. He never knew that Theresa existed. Theresa legally changed her last name to his in 2020 and is exceedingly happy with her newly harmonized genetic identity. Theresa is an author, poet, and singer. Her book, When Adoption Fails: Abuse, Autism, and The Search for My Identity, describes the unusual and peculiar life she had growing up in an abusive adoptive home with undiagnosed autism, and the search for, and discovery of both her biological parents. Find Theresa at www.theresawerba.com and on social media @thesonnetqueen. Watch on Youtube