Monday Evening Speaker Series
Adoption Network Cleveland is pleased to offer a VIRTUAL Monday Evening Speaker Series full of topics that are of interest to a broad audience impacted by adoption, kinship, and foster care. These programs are made possible by donors and presenters volunteering their time and they thrive thanks to the active participation of attendees.
Upcoming Presentations
Monday, February 23, 2026
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM ET
The Birth Mother Eras Tour: Stories Across Generations of Adoption
Join us for a powerful and thought-provoking conversation featuring a panel of birth/first mothers whose adoption experiences span five decades, from the 1970s through the 2010s. Through personal stories and reflection, panelists will explore how adoption practices and the treatment of birth mothers have changed over time—and what has remained strikingly the same. This intergenerational discussion offers a rare opportunity to listen, learn, and engage with lived experiences that illuminate the complexities of adoption across eras. Please join us as they explore, compare, and contrast their personal journeys, offering insight, context, and lived experience across generations.
Monday, March 2, 2026
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM ET
Family Secrets - Adoption Secrets with Laure Engel
All families have secrets, some large, some small. We tend to think our family is the only family with secrets but in my experience that is not so. Once I found the courage to write my truth about my secret son it was as if a huge boulder had been removed from my shoulders.
After fifty years I was finally able to be my authentic self. I wanted to claim my story back and give voice to the 17-year-old girl I had been, pregnant and alone. Also, I felt I was giving voice to all those young girls, the unwed mothers, who had not been about to tell their truth in the 1960s.
This is what I know about Family Secrets.
I am here as an example of a fifty-year-old secret that crippled me in ways. My purpose in writing my memoir was to claim and reclaim my story. I think it is a human need, a primal need, that we desire to be seen and understood.
Holding tight to those secrets can cause emotional as well as physical health issues. Secrets cause strained barriers and isolation in families.
Anxiety and trust issues prevail as well as physical ailments when those secrets move from one generation to the next causing generational trauma and disenfranchised grief.
This is especially true of Adoption secrets whether it be the birth mother taking her secret to her death bed, or the adoptive parents secrets about the adoption, or the adoptee holding the secret of wanting to find his birth parents but not wanting to hurt his adoptive parents.
Closed adoptions during the Baby Scoop Era were the perfect hotbed for Family Secrets.
About Laura:
A year after retiring from a 35-year career in corporate sales, Laura L. Engel experienced an unexpected miracle, and her life took a completely different trajectory than she had ever dreamed. She began writing about a secret in her life she had never spoken about.
Her award-winning book “You’ll Forget This Ever Happened – secrets, shame, and adoption in the 1960’s” was published in 2022.
Laura is past president of the San Diego Memoir Writers Association and a member of The International Memoir Writers, International Women’s Writing Guild, Writers Ink in San Diego, and The National Memoir Writers. She is a speaker and has been a guest on numerous podcasts about her Memoir. The interviews topics range from Writing her book and publishing at the age of seventy-three, Adoption, the Baby Scoop Era, Grief, and Writing memoirs later in life. She has had essays published in Writers Digest, Severance Magazine, and multiple journals and magazines. One of Laura’s favorite things is discussing her book with book clubs, at workshops, and with adoption and birth mother organizations.
Chosen as Author of the Month at the San Diego Central Library in 2023, Laura’s work has been published in five different Shaking the Tree Anthologies, plus Adoption and Suicidality anthology, and Grief Like Yours anthology. Two scenes from her memoir – “You’ll Forget This Ever Happened- secrets, shame, and adoption in the 1960s” – have been performed live on stage by professional actors at the annual San Diego Memoir Showcase.
Laura lives with her husband, Gene, and their adored Golden Retriever, Layla Louise, in San Diego’s East County. They are the proud parents of five adult children, along with their spouses, and ten beloved grandchildren.
You can learn more about Laura at: www.LauraLEngel.com
Monday, March 23, 2026
Surprise Siblings with Becky Drinnen and Oliver Leembruggen
Were you the oldest child in your family? Were you the baby of the family? Were you suddenly knocked off of your coveted spot by a DNA discovery? Did you suddenly have the brother or sister that you always wished you had? Join Becky Drinnen and Oliver Leembruggen as they talk about their discovery of surprise siblings.
About Oliver:
Oliver Leembruggen is a simple man with a complexicated identity. In 2018 his DNA results accelerated his journey into finding his genetic connections. Oliver is a co-facilitator of Adoption Network Cleveland’s DNA Discovery Group that meets monthly on Zoom.
About Becky:
Becky is a Baby Scoop Era adoptee who found her way back to her roots through DNA and search, reuniting with siblings, birth parents, and extended family. Becky is a former co-facilitator of both Adoption Network Cleveland’s monthly DNA Discovery Group, and its former Dayton area General Support and Discussion Meeting.
