🧩 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.

Relative Strangers features 28 writers exploring family secrets, DNA discoveries, inheritance, identity, and what it means when a person who was once a complete stranger turns out to be close family.

You can follow Laura on Instagram at @lajenx
Visit Laura’s website at www.laurajenkinswriter.com
You can follow B.K. Jackson at @b.k.jackson

🎁 Don is also hosting a giveaway for copies of Relative Strangers. To enter, go to Instagram and follow the instructions on the giveaway post at @npe_life_podcast.

🎧 Listen to Missing Pieces — NPE Life
Stories of DNA surprises, NPE discoveries, donor conception, adoption, and the people left to make sense of family secrets.

📩 Contact Don: donNPE@icloud.com
📸 Instagram: @npe_life_podcast

⭐ Please follow the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And if Laura’s story moves you, leaving a rating or review really helps other people find the podcast.

🧩 Analog Rick

In 1992, Rick set out to find his birth mother’s family without DNA tests, without Ancestry, without 23andMe, without Facebook, and without the internet as we know it.

All he had were a few pieces of information, some determination, and the willingness to follow a trail the old-fashioned way.

In this episode of Missing Pieces — NPE Life, Rick tells the story of how he found the missing pieces of who he was.

And make sure you listen to the end, when Don shares what happened after the interview — including how he finally uncovered the identity of Rick’s biological father, a man with a criminal past straight out of an old newspaper headline.

🎧 Listen to Missing Pieces — NPE Life
Stories of DNA surprises, NPE discoveries, donor conception, adoption, and the people left to make sense of family secrets.

📩 Contact Don: donNPE@icloud.com
📸 Instagram: @NPE_LIFE_Podcast

⭐ Please follow the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And if Rick’s story moves you, leaving a rating or review really helps other people find the podcast.

Veronica From The Other Side

In this episode of Missing Pieces — NPE Life, Don talks with Veronica, who discovered in middle age that her father had two children outside of his marriage.

For NPEs — Not Parent Expected — adoptees, donor-conceived people, and others who uncover family secrets through DNA, the focus is often on the person making the discovery. But what about the family on the other side? What is it like to get the call that a stranger shares your father’s DNA? What happens when a secret you never asked to keep suddenly lands in your lap?

Veronica shares what it was like to learn that she had siblings she never knew existed, and how her family had to make room for a truth that changed the story they thought they knew.

🧩 Missing Pieces — NPE Life
Stories of DNA surprises, family secrets, and the search for identity.

📸 Instagram: @npe_life_podcast
📧 Email: donNPE@icloud.com

🧩 Christina’s Truth - LIVE 🎙️

On today’s episode of Missing Pieces, we hear Christina’s incredible story — the questions, the search, the emotions, and the years spent trying to understand where she came from.

But this episode takes a turn neither of us will ever forget…

Because during the recording itself…
I tell Christina who her biological father is. LIVE.

No script.
No warning.
Just one of the most real and emotional moments we’ve ever captured on this podcast.

🎧 Listen now.

✉️ donNPE@icloud.com

📸 Instagram: @NPE_LIFE_PODCAST

🧩 Jamilia - Out of Anonymity

Years ago, I did an episode called The Moment of Truth —
a collection of stories about that exact instant when denial disappears… and the truth hits.

Who you are.
Who your parents are.
No more guessing. No more stories. Just truth.

Jamilia was one of those voices.
And she didn’t just describe that moment — she nailed it.

But that moment?
That’s not the end of the story.

It’s the beginning.

🎧 Today, we hear what came after.

✉️ Reach out
donNPE@icloud.com

📸 Follow along
https://www.instagram.com/npe_life_podcast/

🧩 3 Sisters United

On today’s episode of Missing Pieces, we tell the story of June — raised in Canada by her grandparents, growing up with questions instead of answers.

As a teenager, she learns who her father is…
—or so she thinks.

What unfolds next connects three sisters, decades of silence, and the kind of truth that changes everything. This is one of those episodes that reminds you why this show exists.

🎧 Buckle up.

🍫 Support Choosing Hope (and make people very happy)
We’re raising funds with See’s Candies — because doing good should taste amazing.
Grab something sweet for someone you love (or yourself, no judgment):

👉 https://www.yumraising.com/store/spring-2026-spring-for-hope-sees-candy-fundraiser-4517/LisPog72533

🌱 Untangling Our Roots Summit
The conference that brings together the NPE, Donor Conceived, and Adoption communities under one roof:

👉 https://untanglingourroots.org/

✉️ Reach out
donNPE@icloud.com

📸 Follow along
https://www.instagram.com/npe_life_podcast/

Thanks for listening.
Really. It matters.

🎙️ Tonia – Dirty John’s First Wife

Today on Missing Pieces, I’m joined by Tonia Bales, the first wife of John Meehan, also known as Dirty John. 🧬 At one point in the episode, an unknown sibling comes into the story.

Tonia has a new book out today — January 13, 2026:

📘 When You See It: How I Outsmarted & Outlasted Dirty John
🛒 Available wherever books are sold
👉 Amazon: https://a.co/d/2v1sdNR

🎧 Listen to Tonia’s podcast
The First Wife: John Meehan’s Reign of Terror
👉 https://www.audible.com/podcast/The-First-Wife-John-Meehans-Reign-of-Terror/B099BYMH4G?srsltid=AfmBOopq4Yu6okol_zuGIMPAG8mqVw3atXfQCK-1i61juepfZS0mJv6I

🧬 Untangling Our Roots
👉 https://untanglingourroots.org/

🧠 Amy Jauman – Projects & Work
👉 https://www.amyjauman.com/projects

To check out my new sister Tammi’s company please go to https://www.viverealestate.mx/

📩 Contact the show
Email: donNPE@icloud.com

📸 Follow on Instagram
👉 https://www.instagram.com/npe_life_podcast/

🎙️ Missing Pieces explores the stories of people who’ve discovered—or are still searching for—their "missing pieces".

In this episode, Don talks with Amanda, who grew up in South Texas always wondering why she didn’t look like her other siblings. Years later, DNA gave her the answer—and with it, she found her missing pieces.

🧢👕 Missing Pieces Merch
👉 https://missingpieces.printify.me/

🌳🧬 Untangling Our Roots Summit
👉 https://untanglingourroots.org/

📧 Email Don: donNPE@icloud.com

📸 Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/npe_life_podcast/

📸 Find Amanda: https://www.instagram.com/butterflylove1979/