Nothing About Us Without Us
The adoption story has been told about us for long enough. This is a documentary series that centers the people adoption most affects, but who are rarely asked to speak.
We challenge the traditional adoption narrative with honest, unscripted conversations that reflect the full complexity of the adoption experience.
Every episode centers a voice that the traditional adoption narrative has spoken over. We give that voice a stage, a camera, and the time it deserves.
Nothing About Us Without Us is not a slogan. It is the only promise this series makes.
About the Series
Adoption Narrative Shift is an 11-episode documentary series hosted by Dr. Abby Hasberry, LMFT, LCMFT, BCC. Each episode centers a different group within the adoption constellation in honest, intimate conversation.
Siblings. Partners. Children of adoptees. Grandparents. Professionals. Birth parents. The people estranged. The late-discovery adoptee and the DNA surprise. The people who never searched.
This is the conversation that has always needed to happen. We are putting it on camera.
"Nothing About Us Without Us is not a slogan. It is the only promise this series makes."
The Series Promise
The Episodes
Each episode gives an uninterrupted platform to a different group within the adoption constellation: people the system has spoken over, spoken for, or ignored entirely.
These are the people the narrative was built around but never built for.
In ProductionTheir stories begin before the relinquishment and continue long after.
In ProductionThis episode holds the complexity of love, entitlement, loss, and growth inside adoptive family systems.
In ProductionBiological siblings were separated. Adoptive siblings navigate difference. All of them navigate loyalty.
In ProductionThis episode explores what it means to love someone navigating an identity wound you did not share.
In ProductionThe adoption experience transmits across generations, even without the adoption.
In ProductionSome find out at 30. Others at 50. Others still at 70. Each faces an identity rupture that comes with a delayed truth.
In Production23andMe and ancestry kits have become a form of involuntary adoption disclosure. This episode examines the ethics and aftermath.
In ProductionInside the industry, this episode centers the practitioners willing to interrogate the system they work in.
In ProductionThis episode centers those who chose distance from adoptive families, birth families, or both, and asks why.
In ProductionThis episode explores the choice not to look: its reasons, its costs, and its validity.
In Production
Ph.D. · LMFT (TX, MI) · LCMFT (MD) · BCC
Dr. Abby Hasberry is a licensed marriage and family therapist, board certified coach, and the author of Adopting Privilege: A Memoir of Reinventing My Adoptee Narrative. She is also a transracial adoptee and a birth mother.
That combination is not incidental to this series. It is the series. Dr. Hasberry does not study this population from the outside. She has navigated the adoption system from the inside, twice, and has spent her clinical career sitting with those who have done the same.
She serves on the boards of Adoption Knowledge Affiliates and Adoption Mosaic and holds licensure as a therapist in Texas, Michigan, and Maryland.
Support the Project
Adoption Narrative Shift is fiscally sponsored through Charm City Impact, a confirmed Maryland-based 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor. Contributions are tax-deductible. Our Seed&Spark crowdfunding campaign launches soon, sign up below to be notified the moment giving opens.
You believe this story deserves to be told. Every gift, at every level, moves this series closer to the screen.
Thank you: Your name listed on the project website as a Story Holder.
Notify Me at LaunchYou are part of the shift. Your gift helps cover the everyday costs that keep production moving forward.
Thank you: Your name listed on the project website as a Narrative Shifter + project updates delivered directly to your inbox.
Notify Me at LaunchYou are turning up the volume on voices that have gone unheard. Your gift covers one guest's honorarium.
Thank you: Digital acknowledgment on the project website + exclusive behind-the-scenes production updates.
Notify Me at LaunchYou know that when we center the right voices, everything changes. Your gift funds a full day of production travel.
Thank you: Digital acknowledgment on the project website + invitation to a live virtual conversation with Dr. Hasberry and the production team.
Notify Me at LaunchYou are showing up for the people this series centers. Your gift covers production equipment costs for a full filming day.
Thank you: Signed copy of one of Dr. Hasberry's books + digital acknowledgment on the project website + live virtual conversation invitation.
Notify Me at LaunchYou believe every voice in the constellation deserves to be heard. Your gift helps partially cover production costs for a single episode, including travel, guest honorariums, and production crew expenses.
Thank you: Signed copies of all 3 of Dr. Hasberry's books.
Notify Me at LaunchYou are investing in one full conversation. Your gift supports a complete episode from filming through final edit.
Thank you: Signed copies of all 3 books + invitation to the virtual prescreening of Episode 1.
Notify Me at LaunchYou are making space for the people this series centers. Your gift funds a significant portion of production for the series.
Thank you: Signed books + virtual prescreening + acknowledgment in the newsletter and on the project website + one-hour virtual conversation with Dr. Hasberry.
Notify Me at LaunchYou are a founding investor in this series. Founding Funders will be acknowledged in the series credits and in all major funding materials.
Thank you: Signed books + virtual prescreening + one-hour conversation with Dr. Hasberry + newsletter and website acknowledgment + series credits + all major funding materials.
Notify Me at LaunchFiscally sponsored through
Charm City Impact · Maryland 501(c)(3) · Contributions are tax-deductible
Speaking & Consulting
Dr. Hasberry speaks at conferences, trainings, and community events on adoption-informed care, identity development, birth mother grooming, and the clinical implications of adoptee trauma.
Book Dr. HasberryPodcasts & Media
Adoption Knowledge Affiliates
AKA featured Dr. Hasberry at their Book Club for a full discussion of Adopting Privilege.
Watch →Untangling Our Roots, Keynote
Dr. Hasberry explores the transformative journey of self-discovery and the profound impact of owning your narrative.
Watch →Thriving Adoptees Podcast
Time is not the greatest healer. Abby shares her most profound aha moments on racial identity and healing.
Listen →Everything's Relative, Eve Sturgess
Abby talks about coming into the adoption conversation with two penultimate experiences.
Listen →Unraveling Adoption
"Supporting a birth mother doesn't mean just offering empty words, but actively showing her what support looks like."
Listen →Project Parenthood
Abby discusses practical and emotional guidance for transracial adoptive families.
Listen →Press & Media
Podcasts, keynotes, book talks, panels, and press coverage. Dr. Hasberry speaks on adoption narrative, birth mother grooming, transracial identity, and the documentary series.
Book Dr. HasberrySpeaking Topics
Birth Mother Grooming & Adoption Coercion
Adoptee Identity Development & Transracial Adoption
Adoption-Informed Clinical Practice
The R3 Framework: Reflect, Release, Reinvent
The Power of Owning Your Narrative
Documentary Screening + Panel
Adoption Knowledge Affiliates · Book Talk · Video
Adopting Privilege Book Club Discussion
Untangling Our Roots · Keynote · Video
The Power of Owning Your Narrative
Pact, An Adoption Alliance · Press
Book Review: Adopting Privilege, by Katie Wynen
Activism in Adoption · Interview
A Conversation with Author, Adoptee, and Birthmother, by Kristin Thomas
Thriving Adoptees Podcast · Spotify
Profound Aha Moments on Racial Identity and Healing
Everything's Relative with Eve Sturgess · Podcast
Transracial Adoptee & Birth Mother: Two Penultimate Experiences
Unraveling Adoption · Podcast
Supporting Birth Mothers Through Informed Decisions
Project Parenthood · Podcast
Tips for White Parents Raising Black Children
Texas Public Radio · Worth Repeating
The Often-Confusing Experiences of Being a Transracial Adoptee
Adoption Network Cleveland · Tough Talks Podcast
Lessons Learned Through the Fog of Adoption and Reunion
Published Works
Adopting Privilege
A Memoir of Reinventing My Adoptee Narrative
Print via Muse Publishing · Audiobook on Audible
Order Print AudiobookEngage with the Series
