When the Reporter Becomes the Story

For years, Louise McLoughlin built her career telling other people's stories. Then she uncovered one she never expected: her own.

After learning she was donor-conceived, Louise set out to understand not only her biological origins, but the larger world of donor conception, family secrets, and identity. That journey led her to create the acclaimed documentary podcast You Look Like Me, where she gave donor-conceived people a platform to tell the stories that so often go unheard.

In this episode, Louise joins Corey and Kendall to discuss:

•  Discovering she was donor-conceived 
•  Finding her biological father and a growing number of half-siblings 
•  Why donor-conceived people often feel the search is never truly over 
•  The emotional reality behind DNA discoveries 
•  Why media coverage of donor conception often misses the point 
•  Balancing journalism with personal experience 
•  The importance of transparency, identity, and the right to know where you come from 

This conversation is about much more than DNA. It's about what happens when the person asking the questions suddenly becomes the story.

About Louise McLoughlin

Louise McLoughlin is an award-winning journalist and creator of the documentary podcast You Look Like Me, which explores donor conception, identity, and family through deeply personal storytelling. Her work has helped bring greater visibility to donor-conceived voices while challenging how these stories are covered in the media. 

Transcript

Kendall 0:00

Donor conception, they usually think about numbers.

Corey 0:03

How many siblings, how many DNA matches. But the real story is never about the numbers. It's about the people trying to make sense of who they are and where they fit.

Kendall 0:12

Today's guest, Louise McLaughlin, has spent years telling those stories. Through her acclaimed podcast, You Look Like Me, she's explored not only her own donor-conceived journey, but also the experiences of countless others navigating identity, family, and the emotional fallout of an industry that's still largely misunderstood.

Corey 0:33

Louise has found more than a dozen half-siblings connected with her biological father and covered donor conception from both sides of the microphone, as someone living it, and as a journalist determined to bring these stories into the public conversation.

Kendall 0:45

In this episode, we talk about why finding family never really has a finish line, how donor can see people at changing the conversation around the world, and why the most meaningful stories are often the ones that never make the headlines.

Corey 0:59

We also spend time talking journalist to journalist about what happens when the story you're covering becomes your own. Here's our conversation with Louise McLaughlin. Well, hey Lou, welcome to the Family Twist Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Thank you so much.

Corey 1:14

Now, curious, I know that we have here in the United States, we have a national siblings day. Does such a thing exist in the UK?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Oh God, it probably does. I feel like those like national days kind of cross borders now anyway, and people just kind of like everything's you know collective on the internet, isn't it? But yeah, I mean I know that there's like a donor conception day that's kind of a relatively new thing. Yeah. So there's yeah, there's certain days we attach ourselves to for sure.

Corey 1:42

Does it hit you differently now that you know you have so many half siblings?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I think I have just turned off the part of my brain that tracks this in a daily and weekly capacity. I think a few years ago I was so obsessed with the concept of finding family, finding siblings, and I've spoken about this on my podcast, You Look Like Me. I went into a degree of overwhelm, I think, where I found myself thinking about this stuff too much, especially when you're interviewing people about it all the time. And you're kind of, you know, like some of these experiences are really joyful, others are really traumatic. And I think when I interview, I really want to like feel what people are describing to me. And I definitely got to a point where I was maybe like living this life a bit too deeply. And then, you know, when all the new siblings start rolling in, yeah, it became maybe a little bit overwhelming. So I try to, you know, I take these things as they come now. If a new sibling match pops up, that's like I will engage. But in terms of kind of like tracking it voluntarily, probably don't do that as much anymore.

Kendall 2:53

How many have you found?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

So at the moment, there's I mean, literally it changes all the time. We're in double digits. We have, I think there's nine of us that we have identified, like we have a name, we have a face. And then here in the UK, after 91, they started tracking births from donors. So through our youngest half-sibling, we have managed to find out that we have nine or ten because there's one that we we knew there was a pregnancy, but the birth was never confirmed. So it's an additional nine or ten on top of the ones that we already knew about. We don't have the birth dates for some, so there's a slight overlap. Anyway, it it currently stands between 13 to 17. But for whatever reason, I've always said like 30 plus, and I expect that we'll we'll discover them as time goes on for sure.

Corey 3:46

I think we're starting to see it becoming more common for people to kind of sort of I've got to shut this part out of my life right now because it's it could become overwhelming and an obsession, you know. And as you said, there have been really there have been good experiences we've had the same on this show. We've had some really positive experiences, a friend of the show, Ryan, they travel what their vacations are all about meeting siblings and and you know, and re-meeting siblings, you know. It's just so that and you know, I think that's very joy joyous for them. But others, you know, not the same situation.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

I I also think like, you know, at the end of the day, this is a story about relationships, isn't it? Every new person you find is a new relationship, and relationships are tricky, even when they're great, you know, like especially when they come with this, like, oh my god, you're my sibling, what does that mean? And you maybe don't meet the other person on you know what it means to them. You know, it's just a lot of emotional juggling, I think. And that that can be draining and joyous, as you say, but it's like sometimes I do have to like compartmentalize that. Because when I found my first half sibling just eight years ago, I mean that was like a month process because I had been looking for decades and I found her and it just blew my mind. And then I found my biological father five years ago, and that blew my mind for maybe three weeks, and then the next sibling two weeks, and then I mean, like the processing time is getting smaller because it just has to. But you know, every time I get a new sibling match, like I log off work that day because my brain just washing machines. So yeah, it's it's it's crazy, and it it doesn't get less crazy. Like I've I'm better at processing it, but it's yeah, I mean, you're finding a new family member, it's gonna throw you for sure.

unknown 5:35

Yeah.

Corey 5:36

Right. And you know, when we listened to this podcast, started, you know, creating the word like four and a half years ago, we knew very, very little about the donor conception community. In fact, naively we were probably thinking, like, oh, it's such a good thing. It's giving, you know, it's giving families an opportunity to so we didn't know about how unregulated it was and how traumatic it can be for discoveries until we started, you know, interviewing people who had been through the situation and you know, all over the map. I'm sure you're familiar with Laura High and her advocacy work. And we had Donor Dylan on the show who has gone and met, you know, dozens of his offspring. And that's just every story is fascinating. But it's interesting. I don't know how it is in the UK, but it's so such an unknown here that I was just at a conference a couple of months ago and I could hear somebody say, What's donor conception? And they were an attendee, and this was a conference for adoptees, don't you conceive people, you know, NPEs. So it's like, I mean, this is the name of the methods, you know. And so we're talking about somebody in the community who doesn't even know.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Yeah, I'm always amazed by the level of understanding that exists in the public and also in the media. So obviously, I'm a journalist by trade, and you know, I pitch stories within this realm a lot, and I kind of come up against the same things all the time. Like you'll go to an editor and they'll be like, oh, actually, you know, we've covered this. And as we know from covering anything about like DNA and finding out who you are, finding out who your family is, you know, there's like 20 million rabbit holes you can go down, especially like the human side, the legislation side, the industry side, like the unregulated side. There's just so many stories to be told. But you'll come to these editors who are like, no, no, we did a story on that back in 2005. We've done it. I take it for granted that this story in my head has been out in public for so long. And then I was telling someone recently about a story that I was working on that's not public, not podcast related, but it's it within this realm. And I was like, oh, you know, like Facebook marketplace donors. And I just took it as a given that they would know what I was talking about. And they were like, What? That's that's crazy. People find donors on Facebook, and I just get there's this mismatch all the time of like, I think the story's been told and editors think it's oversaturated, and then you find people, as you just said, who actually don't know it at all. It's just so fascinating to me that these stories aren't in the public consciousness the way we presume. And when they are, they're not in the right form, I don't think. You know, like when I started the podcast six years ago, it was, you know, to a degree because I was sick of seeing a headline, I've got 20 plus siblings, I've got 200 plus siblings, you know, or like you know, just scandalous. And like that is true. Like, donation needs to be regulated, and like that number of siblings is insane. But there's so much more to the story than that. And I think it was just humanizing it behind, you know, it's not a story about numbers, it's a story about people at the end of the day, to me. And that's kind of what the podcast has has wanted to show, and that's what my work wants to show as well.

Kendall 8:53

Well, I'm so glad you're doing what you're doing because what I've come to realize, and I never thought about until we started this podcast, is that I think donor conceive people are in such a unique position because you don't know when the story ends, right? Like you don't know how many people you'll find where I don't think it does.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Like, this is a lifelong acceptance now that it just keeps rolling.

Kendall 9:20

Yeah, because I mean I think about my own situation, and thankfully for me, it was I think it was I was fortunate that in the span of three weeks I found everyone there was to find. You know what I mean? Like it well, we my brother and I joke about the fact that my father was so prolific that we might have another, at least another half sibling out there, but but I mean, all joking aside, in it feels like we found I found everyone that I should find in in a three-week period. So I feel fortunate because I've been waiting 47 years at that point, and I was incredibly impatient. And if it had taken me, you know, five years to find the other side of my family instead of three weeks, it would have driven me crazy, I think.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Well, and that's that's the thing, it's like it can drive you crazy, and it's so out of your control. Like you've no other option than to sit and be driven crazy because what else do you do? You know, you can you can be proactive, you can put yourself on the DNA sites, you can, you know, like really early on, I think even before I started the podcast when I was just doing kind of articles on stories, and it was before anyone in the UK had come of age where they were allowed to or able to find out who the donor was. So basically, when you reach 18 now, after you're conceived in 2005, once you turn 18, you can find out details about the donor and who he is or who she is, or who they are. But yeah, I mean that just wasn't the case years ago. And there was a story, there was this woman who stood in London, in the center of London, with a sign saying, Are you my donor? You know, did you donate? Like, and and I just thought the fact that this industry was so reckless that a person is forced to stand on the street with a sign saying, Could you be my biological dad? I mean, it's just bonkers, you know, and that that just sums up the human side of this so well to me.

Corey 11:32

I definitely share your frustration as a journalist, a lifelong journalist myself. You know, I got out of the print business, the newspapers and magazines in almost 20 years ago when the bottom fell out, you know, when they they did not know what to do with the internet and how to get and how to get people to pay for it. And the writing was on the wall, but nobody knew what to do. And so I can't even imagine trying to pitch, you know, something now. And I and I have done like for you know, freelance clients and stuff like that, pitch. I I know how how difficult it is to get an editor to say, yeah, this sounds great. And it's like the unfortunate thing is like, is it shock tactics that's gonna entice them to do it? Here's the percentage of people, and here's you know, how closely that they're these families could be getting there like to the point where half siblings could be dating or and have gotten married. And I mean it's like you hate to like have to go there.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah.

Corey 12:21

But like, what's it gonna take for it to become more in the public consciousness? Because the more it's in the public consciousness and people are you know and furious about it that aren't, you know, aren't a a a donor or a donor-conceived person, that's when the regulation is gonna start happening.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

I completely agree. And when I was talking about, you know, like the shock tactics of like 200 plus siblings being a headline, I was gonna say the the big incest thing, which again is, you know, it happens, it's horrific, you know, but we shouldn't lead with that. You know, there should be the story should have value without the horror side of it. Right.

Kendall 12:58

Just because to your point, it's a basic human right to know where you came from, you know, it just is.

Corey 13:04

And we haven't even touched for the medical stuff, you know. I mean, it's all there's so many words related to it, and it's just like, how is this still happening? Well, it's because it's a you know business with deep, deep pockets.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah. What else can you say? Took the words out of my mouth.

Corey 13:23

I don't know how much you know about how unregulated it is here in the States, but how is it over in the UK?

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Yeah, so there's kind of two sets of law changes. So there was one right after I was conceived, which was a constant source of frustration for me when I was growing up. I was like, I just missed it. But you could get kind of non-identifying info. So again, that's what my half sister, my youngest half-sister, applied for. So she was able to get like the donor file, which said, you know, hobbies and hair color and height and stuff like that, but nothing identifiable. And she can also join a register to find out we've got the birth years of any half siblings born after that law change, and they have the option to apply or to sign up to a register. So it's better, it's not ideal. And again, you know, all of that information is great if you know your donor conceived in the first place. We've had I think it's getting better. I think as kind of more single parents have opted to use donation, as more LGBTQ people have like decided to use donation, it's opened the conversation and it's more transparent, and that's incredible. I do think that there is a temptation always for straight couples to hide it. I think that is changing as the conversation changes, but I do think that it still exists, and I think in the UK it's slightly better than Ireland. But anyway, so then there was another law change in 2005. So that's like you're just identifiable now as a donor once the donor can see person reaches 18.

Corey 15:00

As the donor your English side?

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Yes.

Corey 15:03

Before finding out you just thought 100% Irish?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

No, so my dad who raised me is English as well. Um, so it hasn't changed my change that at all. I'm still 50-50, sit down the middle. So I mean it my biological dad, the donor, is from like North England. So it's a place called Hull. I just did an episode where he and I went on a road trip together. I have never gone to Hull before. I say this in the episode, but it's been described many different ways. You know, some people find it very charming. One comedian said it was a renovated fish crate, which is less complimentary, but yeah, but definitely a town that like had a boom in the, you know, the it's a seaside village, basically. Yeah. I keep calling it a village. I actually don't think I think it's a city. It definitely had a boom, and then that moved away, and it's kind of, you know, you can tell that there is poverty there. It's hugely interesting to to go up and see, you know, where my roots were. And it was in what I like to do with the podcast is always kind of obviously it follows my story, my discoveries along the way, and I always like to either mirror that or contrast it with the story I'm telling alongside, so the interviewee I'm telling. I spoke with a woman who found out that she had Jewish roots and she found that absolutely life-changing. It just like she absolutely embraced it. She'd always felt like she wasn't quite fitting in with her family and that she was like on the outside looking into the Jewish community, and she had no idea why. So then that showed up and she was like, Oh my god, it makes so much sense. And it just deeply kind of changed her and like the way she approached life. And then that kind of contrasted with me going up to Hull and being like, you know, Neil, my the donor, and was like showing where he grew up and everything. And it was almost like, you know, and you had like have a kid and you the the parents being like, Look at this, it's so interesting. And the kids just like, yeah, yeah.

Corey 16:56

Yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Obviously, I was trying to take it in, but there was so much to take in. And I didn't have, you know, I didn't cross the border and go, Oh my god, I'm home. You know, and I didn't, I didn't expect to, but it was just for me, it was really interesting to to have those two contrasts of like I was like, this is where Neil's from, you know, that's interesting. But I definitely didn't go like, you know, I didn't feel fundamentally changed and like I'd seen where my ancestors were from, and right, you know, that connection didn't exist. And I and and ultimately the episode kind of went, that's okay. You know, we can connect with parts and not connect with parts, and that's all right. This whole thing is really complex anyway. So as long as we're being kind, you know, we're allowed to take the relationships that make sense to us. We're allowed to give as much as we feel able to give heritage, geography, history, whatever it is, you know, it it's okay to take what makes sense and kind of leave the rest.

Kendall 17:53

I can kind of relate to that because I never knew that I had a connection to New England because this is where I was conceived. But I'd been to New England many times. I'd been to Cape Cod, which is specifically where I was conceived. And so I I am so delusional, I think is the nice way to say it about things, that I thought, oh, the first time that I go to Cape Cod after I've made this discovery, it's gonna be like the heavens will open and you know, I'll have homecoming. And while it was very cool to go see my biological uncle, my brother my dad's brother's house, and see what I could have been raised with, you know, from a from a an environmental perspective. Aside from that, I was like Cape Cod's exactly as I remember it. Like it was nothing, you know. I was like, it's still a cool place, but yeah, I could have been conceived anywhere.

Corey 18:51

Kendall's favorite place that he's ever visited is Court. And that's where he's from. That's where his people are from.

Kendall 18:57

I know it's bizarre. That was cool to me to find out years later that if I had to pick my favorite place in Ireland, I was like, oh, this is this is so wonderful. And I purposely spent more time there than other cities. And then when I was like, holy shit, that's really where my family, you know, that was cool to me. And that was, I don't believe in like, you know, I'm not spiritual or anything like that, but I loved the coincidence of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

It's funny that you say that because the only place I've ever felt that for was Chicago. I I studied in Chicago and I stayed after I graduated for a little bit. It was my first job in journalism, and I just loved it. And funnily enough, like heritage-wise, DNA-wise, nothing. But the dad who raised me, which I didn't even know until I accepted the place in the semester abroad to study there. His great uncle lived there. So I moved there and discovered that all of his family were there that I had never known existed. And that's interesting to me because that is like the family connection, but not the blood connection. But Chicago to me, I literally have a picture up on my wall saying like Chicago is home. And it like that to me, like I just felt it in my soul. Like, cool.

Corey 20:16

What is your ultimate goal with the podcast? Are you going to keep it going for as long as there are stories to be told?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So I've literally just the last episode is coming out in a week today. I'm really proud of the podcast. I'm really proud of the community and the just the change I've seen over the last six years. You know, people were really fearful, but really reluctant to speak to me when I started because they were like, oh, you know, my family told me this is the secret, none of my other family knows, my friends don't know. They would do it maybe, you know, without their name included. People really you have to be, and you still have to be really brave to tell this story, but it has changed. And people reach out to me and ask me, I have this story, like, can I come on? And that's a big change even in just six years. And also, I guess I don't feel the weight of responsibility the same way. And not to like, not to big myself in the podcast up, but you know, when I started six years ago, there really wasn't any podcast doing what it did, at least not that I had found. And now there are other podcasts that really do elevate Derna Cancy voices and experiences, and they take lots of different formats. And I just think it's just great that they exist. And I think we like I served a really important role in a really important time to do that. And I don't know if I feel like I'm handing the button over. Like the other podcasters definitely don't know that I feel that way. Like no one's like, Oh, I'll take it. They're just like doing their thing. I feel like it's in a safe space. I'm happy with the conversation and how it's growing.

Kendall 21:57

You should be very proud of yourself for empowering. that the people that you've empowered. I mean that's huge, right? That's that's what I think all of us are trying to do, you know, and selfishly, this is very therapeutic for me from a person, you know, who didn't find out young, you know, about my story. I just want to help anybody who's struggling with that decision. You know, do I search? Do I care? We can't make that decision for them, but I want him to know it's okay to question whether you care. It's it's a it's a complex thing.

Corey 22:35

Yeah. We'll have guests you will have people that we meet at conferences and stuff. They're like, I'm thinking about starting a podcast. And I'm very encouraging for people to do it. One, it's just an interesting experience. Two, we don't feel like there's left as a competition level, you know, like these stories all need to be told and even if we're having the same guests on, well you might like this person's podcast. You might like their voice and and you might not like ours, you know, so great you you get to hear their story in another place.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

I think what's really unique about this is like I don't see it as competition either. And I never did even when I was like running. And one I think the documentary style does bring something very unique. But even if other people were kind of doing that, which I think actually there might be one other that does that style, you know the feedback that I've always got and there's one comment that is kind of in my mind at the moment someone said something it's like yours is a voice that I've come to find a lot of comfort in or your your voice has become a warm hug. Your voice has become this and like I think for something like this when you are telling like a story that again is so human like you're elevating those voices of people just like sharing how they feel in like the deepest level ever to an audience who feel like they haven't been heard, they haven't been understood. I just don't think you can have too many podcast resources in that space because if someone wants to know more, they just want to fall down that rabbit hole. You know and they'll you know like they want to be enveloped in that and it's not going to be like they have one podcast and they're done. They're like oh I get it. You know, they they want that home and I think that's really special that we can offer something like that.

Corey 24:17

And as a journalist how often do we get really positive feedback like that?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

We don't I've done kind of online videos for like CNN vice and yeah over the years and yeah the the comments are very different. It's a different vulnerability right it's yeah early in my journalism career I was really reluctant for this to be a subject that I covered and I don't know why. I think part of me likes to make life harder for myself than it needs to be. And it kind of felt too obvious. And so yeah I was really reluctant. I then did this like blog post that went again not like viral but viral to me because I was expecting crickets and I got this feedback from all over the world saying you know you've put this into words that I could never I I didn't know I felt this way until I saw it written down but that's exactly what's happening in my brain. And and even then still I was like it's it's too obvious. I don't want to be the donor conceived journalist who writes about donor conception. I d I I don't know like taking away from my other journalism I wanted to do hard news I wanted to cover like international conflict I was really afraid of being pigeonholed and then it got to a point you know I did another article I did like one a year and I was like you know that's fine I'm like serving that but you know it's not my it's not my niche. And then I just probably going back to the the story that I told you about of the woman holding the sign and I remember pitching that and no one wanted it. No like the BBC didn't want it. You know I can't remember where else I brought it but they didn't want it because they were like there's no resolution to it. They were like what's the story you know it's the girl on the street great and I was like that's the point there is no resolution that's the story.

Kendall 26:02

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

And I got to the point where I was like you know what no one else is covering this. So so I have to I have to do it. And I you know I don't know why I was so r reluctant and resistant to it because it's it's so rewarding and it's so important and I still get frustrated at the coverage as we've already discussed for multiple reasons. You know I think it's undercovered I think it's badly covered I think it's inaccurately covered. So yeah I I I'm glad I went this way. I'm glad that it's getting coverage and I'm glad I've been a part of it and I'm glad that people are becoming more willing to to share their stories as well well I do think it makes sense because you're a journalist that it would have been you would have felt a little torn back then even though I'm not a journalist, I didn't consider it.

Kendall 26:49

And the courses that I took that were related to it were talking about the fact that you have to be so unbiased and you have to be you know and I just completely disagree with that level of journalism.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

I just don't think that that's true at all. I think again it's like you know you don't interview someone who says it's raining and interview another person who says it's not raining. You look outside and say whether it's raining or not like that's what being a journalist is and no one really makes this to me but I do this in myself all the time because I always want to walk the line of you know advocate which I think I am for transparency for openness for you know the right way of doing things as I see it from what I've seen covering this and for what I've lived and then journalist and how do you balance that and like I try to counter criticism that I could get from other people but I mean who is more well placed to speak on this and the industry and the damages and the harms and you know and the wins so again some of that is like my own voice in my head but I just think that I think we're really empowered to to be journalists and I also think we we use the word bias and what it means in a really incorrect way a lot of the time in journalism. And I think I think as a journalist I can firmly say the industry made mistakes. It is still making mistakes there are giant mess ups happening all across the world the way this industry works is inherently harmful in many of the approaches it takes less so maybe than it used to be but still there's human fallout from it all the time. And I can say that quite confidently as a fact that is driven by what I've seen, by you know data, but also by lived experience and also the lived experience that I've heard. So I I just think I I think that's valuable and I think that that needs to exist more in journalism actually if anything.

Kendall 28:49

Yep I agree with you and I'm so glad that your stories you you have that infusion of the heart you know of the story. And I think that matters because even for me I've been in human resources for 30 years and publicly I didn't want to be seen as anyone that could be vulnerable right not that it held us back much but it definitely went through my mind when we talked about doing this I thought oh gosh what if people whom with whom I work listen to this you know like how will it change their perceptions of me?

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah.

Kendall 29:26

I shouldn't have been worried because the people who have listened to it who know me professionally are like oh it makes me know that you're even more kind than I thought you were it's only been a positive and that's just I don't know paranoia on my part. I don't know why but yeah no I get it.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

Sometimes I post something on social media and I'm I'm like you know are my friends just going would she ever shut up about it. We know she's donor conceived you are 13 get over it. But then they listen to the podcast and they're like oh my God I never knew I totally agree.

Corey 29:58

I had a little bit of imposter syndrome myself when I was thinking about writing a book about this group of celebrities but nobody else was doing a book and I've already gotten all this research like okay I'm not known as a celebrity biographer but I'm just gonna start doing it and then if they tell me to stop. But they didn't it took to the persuading it was five years of work but you know it's like no I've I'm the right person to do this.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

And sometimes in journalism like being the right person is just being the person who does it like you know that's the difference. Like person A did it person B didn't like and that's that's who gets the byline that's who gets the project at the end of the day you know especially when it's your own idea right like go with it.

Kendall 30:38

I think you should just fully embrace you know who cares if you had a farewell to or next you know you can do a share and come back next year and say oh just joking I'm back I think like season one because this is the third season I think the season one you know it it wrapped up really nicely and then yeah season two I was like hi I'm back being we'll return right there's nothing wrong with that. You have the right to make that choice later.

Corey 31:07

So Lou the the last question that we always ask on the podcast is when you were going through the your discovery maybe just first signing out your donor conceived or when you were searching you know for siblings and the donor was there a song or a musical artist that you leaned on?

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Oh my god my teenage years were just like completely emo and punk and like Al Levine and Fallout boy like I was a very angsty kid so like finding out age 13 did not help that. So I was like no we're not just dad it just sped into your musical development yeah.

Corey 31:42

Lou, thank you so much for the podcast getting the message out there further I know you'll continue to do that. If there's anything we can do to help with storytelling you know we're we're here as collaborators so just keep us in mind.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yeah thank you so much. It was like such an enjoyable conversation.

Corey 31:58

I love talking about stuff like this really fun to you one thing that I really appreciated about Louise is that she never lets these conversations become about shock value. She keeps bringing them back to the people at the center of the story.

Kendall 32:10

Whether someone is donor conceived adopted and NPE or simply trying to understand where they belong that's what this is really about. Identity isn't a headline it's something you carry with you every day.

Corey 32:23

I also love hearing the perspective as a journalist we know how hard it can be to convince people these stories matter and Louise has helped move that conversation forward in a meaningful way.

Kendall 32:32

If you haven't listened to You Look Like Me, we highly recommend it. Even as that chapter comes to a close the stories Louise has shared will continue helping people feel seen and understood.

Corey 32:44

If today's conversation met something to you please share it with someone else that's how these stories continue to reach the people who need them most. And remember Family Secrets are the ultimate plot twist. FamilyTwist Podcast is produced by Mosaic Multimedia LLC