Comfort Cases: Unpacked Podcast | Episode 11 | Rebecca Gruenspan

Can you love adoption and still be deeply troubled by parts of the system? Adoptive mom and adoption professional Rebecca Gruenspan joins Rob Scheer for a candid conversation about the beauty, complexity, and ethical challenges of private domestic adoption.

Throughout National Adoption Awareness Month, Comfort Cases: UnPacked is sharing different stories and perspectives on adoption. This episode explores open adoption, transracial parenting, money and power, inconsistent state laws, and the responsibilities that continue long after an adoption is finalized.

Rebecca also discusses how artificial intelligence is entering the adoption world—from adoptive-family profiles to communications with expectant parents—and why authenticity, trust, and human judgment matter. At the heart of the conversation: loving adoption means being willing to examine what needs to change.

CONVERSATION HIGHLIGHTS:

Loving adoption while questioning parts of the system
Single motherhood and raising a child of another race and culture
How open adoption and birth-family relationships evolve
The responsibilities of transracial parenting
Why adoption laws and practices vary across states
The line between supporting an expectant parent and influencing their decision
How money, competition, and social media shape adoption
The possibilities and ethical boundaries of AI
What ethical adoption should look like today

ABOUT REBECCA GRUENSPAN

Rebecca Gruenspan, MSW, is an adoptive mom, author, podcast host, and founder and CEO of RG Adoption Consulting. Since 2013, Rebecca and her team have guided more than 500 families through domestic infant adoption across the United States. She is also CEO of Our Chosen Child, author of The Adoption Roadmap, and host of The Adoption Roadmap Podcast. As a white single mother raising her Mexican son through an open adoption, Rebecca brings both lived experience and professional expertise to this conversation.

CONNECT WITH REBECCA

RG Adoption Consulting: https://www.rgadoptionconsulting.com/

Our Chosen Child: https://www.ourchosenchild.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rgadoption/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ourchosenchild/

Facebook: Search “RG Adoption Consulting” and “Our Chosen Child” Book: The Adoption Roadmap

Podcast: The Adoption Roadmap Podcast

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To listen to previous episodes of Fostering Change and Comfort Cases: Unpacked, please visit: www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.

📩 Have thoughts or questions, or an idea for a future guest? Reach out at fosteringchange@comfortcases.org – we’d love to hear from you! From all of us at Comfort Cases: Unpacked, thank you for listening, for sharing this journey with us through seven incredible seasons, and for believing that every child deserves dignity, belonging, and hope.