Kristina Inman and Melanie Miller

[00:04] KRISTINA INMAN: My name is Kristina Inman. I'm 35. Today's date is March 5, 2022. I am currently in such as Georgia. Such as Georgia. And my partner today is Melanie Miller, and she is my biological mother.

[00:33] MELANIE MILLER: My name is Melanie Miller. I'm 57 years old. Today's date is Saturday, March 5, 2022. I'm in Daphne, Alabama. My partner is Kristina Inman and she is my biological daughter.

[01:00] KRISTINA INMAN: So I'm in such as Georgia right now temporarily, but I'm actually from Pensacola, Florida, which is where I was born and raised. Well, nearby in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, but basically along the Gulf coast. It's where I've spent most of my years. And, Melanie, you grew up around that area as well, and then you moved to Alabama eventually. When did you guys move to Alabama?

[01:28] MELANIE MILLER: It was shortly after I got married. We moved to Brewton So that was, let's see, 90 219 92. My husband at the time had a job in Flomaton Alabama. So we moved to Brewton Alabama.

[01:49] KRISTINA INMAN: So that was about five years after I had been born. So you had by the time Amanda by then, right. But was that it?

[02:00] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah, Amanda had been born by then.

[02:03] KRISTINA INMAN: Gotcha. So if you had told me when I was a kid or a teenager that I would get to interview my biomom, I would have been very excited. You know, you watch the tv shows like Maury or what's Jerry Springer and things like that where people have their reunion moments, but honestly, that's all that's tv. And a lot of those are dramaticized or they're coming from a place of something scripted, and they're rarely from my perception positive experiences. So I back then, didn't anticipate that I would get to do direct to consumer testing and put the pieces together that way. It wasn't really on the table like that. The concept that people would be doing cheek swabs or spitting a tube and then connect on the Internet was very, just complete fantasy. It wasn't even in my mind. The Internet was barely a thing when I was a kid, so.

[03:09] MELANIE MILLER: Right.

[03:10] KRISTINA INMAN: But yeah, there's a lot of questions I think adoptees typically have for biological parents and biological family that are along the lines of tell me more about my biological family from that side. But unfortunately for us, if I had found you, you wouldn't have had any of those answers. So if you want to explain and start us off by telling us a bit more about your adoption story and how you grew up, that would be good.

[03:40] MELANIE MILLER: Okay. My parents were. They met in Pensacola, Florida. At Warrington Baptist Church. My mother had had surgery that left her not able to have biological children herself, but she's always loved children, and she. She and my dad decided to adopt myself and my brother. My brother's not my biological brother. He's two years younger than me. And they adopted me, and then they adopted him. We stayed in the same. I grew up in the same house in West Pensacola, and they're wonderful parents. My experience being an adopted child, I feel like when I found myself pregnant with a baby and no prospects of, you know, a decent career. At the time, I wasn't in a relationship with the father. Since I'd had such wonderful parents, I really made the decision to find another home for the baby I was carrying without. I wasn't. I was. There was no fear involved in it, I think because I had had such a good experience. My mom, to this day, is just wonderful. Tina knows that. She's met her. My father passed away last year, and to me, those were my mom and daddy. And unlike Tina, I think, and I don't know, really the background of what, you know, swayed her, but over the years, I had never had the inclination to find my birth parents. It wasn't something that I craved or wanted. There are people that are like that, that, you know, that's what they. They want, but it wasn't what I'd ever wanted. And, of course, throughout. And, Tina, you probably had this throughout the years. Do you want to find your bio mom? You know, are you interested? Is kind of like the first thing that people know about you, and.

[05:59] KRISTINA INMAN: Absolutely.

[06:00] MELANIE MILLER: And the questions come from early grade school on up, you know, do you want. And I would always say, and I remember this always, that, no, that's my mom and dad, and it's not really something I'm curious about. So making the decision to give a baby up for adoption, so to speak, didn't come with the fear. I wasn't ready to have a child. Looking back, I think I could have handled it, but, you know, hindsight is 2020, and I knew at the time, I lived in a little garage apartment in town and was working at Pizza Hut, so, I mean, there. There just wasn't. I didn't have the resources. And so I don't want to say it was an easy decision for me, but it was one that I've been comfortable with for all these years. And I think my experience is the reason why I don't know what I would feel like if I'd been raised by my bio parents, if I would have felt differently somehow, but I can't say that because that what. And what happened?

[07:09] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah, it's interesting, the number of parallels in our stories independently. Like, there are differences, but there's definitely some things in common. And I think one of the differences, like you said, when people asked those sort of, they don't realize that they're prying questions, but when they're like, oh, you're adopted, like, don't, they would, they would never ask, have you ever. Well, I did get that question. Have you ever thought about. It was always like, this. This attitude that they were first suggesting to me that I could find my biological family. Have you ever thought about looking for them or you wanted to?

[07:51] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah.

[07:52] KRISTINA INMAN: I'm like. And you get tired of answering that question. But, yeah, I do think we had different perspectives on that because I was very curious. I don't know how different, like, I don't know a lot of the intricacies of what can make an adoptee feel that. The way that they do about that.

[08:12] MELANIE MILLER: Right.

[08:13] KRISTINA INMAN: And I don't want to make any assumptions about that because it's just how I perceived life to be at the time. But I definitely had a lot of questions I wanted to know from mostly a biological standpoint, you know, like, my traits, what my medical potential was, you know, where. Where I quote unquote, came from. I think most of it stemmed from that and not from a, you know, my parents aren't my parents, or.

[08:41] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah.

[08:41] KRISTINA INMAN: It was less about my parentage and more just what made me, you know, where did I come from?

[08:47] MELANIE MILLER: Right.

[08:48] KRISTINA INMAN: And so I knew from a young age that I was adopted because they told me my parents, Rob and Connie, told me that before I can remember. So as I grew up, I knew that what adoption was based on, our exposure to it as kids, and said, oh, that applies to me. You know, like, the rescuers down under, they look for. They help an orphan that's in one of the movies, you know, or little Annie, Orphan Annie, you know, that stuff. I was like, oh, that applies to me in a way, except I was adopted as a baby, and so I internalized, like, that's what, adoption is generally a positive thing. That that's me, you know? But I still had a lot of deep, nagging questions about who. Who I was and where did I come from. I also did have a lot of, I would say I had some angst, especially in my teenage years, about why was I given up for adoption. You know, we would, I think, have some differences there. For me, it was still about identity, and there was a lot of, I think, a special kind of trauma that some adoptees feel where they feel, you know, am I not good enough? Was I abandoned? I definitely struggled with things like that. I was in counseling for most of my childhood for things unrelated to the adoption. But I think that helps set some groundwork for me as an adult, because I've recognized now I'm in my thirties, and I'd say I'm still grappling with it and trying to figure this out. But I think feeling those things and having that experience helped teach me how to work through feelings of not feeling good enough and feeling like I wanted someone's approval. I feel like some can share that sentiment of feeling like they want to prove themselves to someone or get their. Get somebody's approval for who they are as a person. And it can project onto, like, your workplace, your school, if you're failing, if you're having a hard time. Yeah. You've internalized that. What's that?

[11:09] MELANIE MILLER: I said relationships.

[11:11] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah. Especially relationships. And I think even when you have, like, a good relationship with adoptive parents, that those feelings can be so deeply set that they're hard to recognize. And it's interesting when you get, like, you think about it in that way, you know, you get sort of, how.

[11:34] MELANIE MILLER: Dare I feel any other way? Since I had such great parents, I can see where that would be. Like, trying to dig deeper is almost an offense, even though they're not taking it that way, or you're not taking it that way, but are meaning it that way, but it may inhibit some growth in that area to recognize it. Yeah, I think I went through that.

[11:59] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah. And I felt that way, too. So my adoptive mother Connie and I feel the same way you do. She's my mom. She's the one who raised me. I think it drives your other kids a little bit baddie that I call you Melanie all the time. But I'm like, you know, Connie was my mom. She's my mom. That's what I mean by mom. And it.

[12:21] MELANIE MILLER: Oh, yeah.

[12:22] KRISTINA INMAN: And it works for us, I think. But at first, they were like, oh, yeah, yeah. Whenever I would call you Melanie. But. But, yeah, I had. I had that experience because I know that my mother also struggled with some of those feelings of inadequacy or feeling like she wasn't enough for someone. And all of that comes from her upbringing. I don't wanna speak on her behalf too much, and she passed away in 2018. But I know that she and I struggled with some of those feelings mutually. And because of that, it made it really difficult when I decided I wanted to start searching and find my biological roots because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. But I was so curious. And in 20, 1723, andme got FDA approval for their health results screenings. And I was kind of waiting for that because, as a biologist, I knew that there was a grain of salt to be taken with all of the results. But I was also like, let me hang on for this. FDA approval for what they're offering in addition to the physical traits, and was given the kit as a gift. And I still remember telling my mom and dad, like, oh, hey, I got this for Christmas. Like, I'm gonna do it. Isn't that great? And it was like, be casual, you know? But I did end up finding, of course, my biological father, and I hadn't found you until my mom had already passed away. So I don't know if that made it better or worse in terms of my guilt. But, yeah, I think no matter how I would have put it, she may have not taken it the way that I would have hoped. You know, I think for all things considered, it turned out okay. That was how it went, you know? So. But, yeah, speaking of that testing, that was my breakthrough. So I had been starting my search in basically 2018, and I found my bio dad right away because I matched with one of his daughters. And I knew, based on the information provided in the children's home society paperwork, that it was unlikely that he knew about me. So I knew if I found paternal relatives, that I would be a complete surprise and was prepared for that. So that was another reason I kind of staved off searching, is I needed to wrap my head around what I was going to say. Who was I to this person, whether it was him or his kids or his spouse, if he had one, you know, I didn't. I had to figure out, like, what I was going to say and what I was okay with and what kind of relationship I was trying to get in searching. So I think I was in a good place when it finally happened. And, of course, with that, I was able to get closure of who he was and who his kids are, but I don't have an ongoing relationship with him because of the circumstances around my birth. But we'll see what the future holds. And, of course, he's got two kids that I have met so far, Crystal and Colton, and their joy. So I think they would get along with your kids, too. So it's kind of interesting to see both sides of. Of the coin that kind of relate to who I am, as a person, helps me put pieces together to see other people that I now know I have a shared blood with, if you will. I am curious how you felt once you knew. I was doing a lot of research on who your biological parents were through that testing and how you worked up to the point where you're like, okay, now I'm curious if you can tell.

[16:42] MELANIE MILLER: Me more about that, to be honest with you. Like, on July 3, when we were up in Montana, Tina and I had gone to Montana to meet my bio father and her bio grandfather. And he had flown us up there, and we had. They had gathered a lot of family together, which I'm kind of a introvert pretending to be an extrovert, I guess. And so it was overwhelming to me. And plus, she has the curiosity for. You have the curiosity for all of those extended family people, and I still have not had that curiosity. I'm okay with it. And I say okay in a positive way, not okay. I'm putting up with it because I didn't search those people out. And I'm glad now that I know my bio dad, because him and his wife are terrific people. And I'm glad to know the relatives that we have met But it's not something that's high on my agenda. It's interesting to me that my youngest daughter had the same curiosity. Even without knowing and knowing that my ex husband and myself are her biological parents. She had the curiosity to know more because my past was empty, so to speak. So she had the same exact urge to know and curiosity to know that you. That you had, you know, that part of the story was unfinished for her. So I think that's why she reached out, you know, to 23 andme. And it's interesting, too, that you and her are so alike in so many ways. I mean, mannerisms, everything is just crazy alike. And in that as well, because the other two kids never thought about it. Never thought about doing 23 andme and trying to find out my parts that I didn't know of. And I'm sure that they had heard over the years when they were old enough to know what adoption was. Well, have you? You know, they probably ask the same questions that grade schoolers ask of us. Didn't you ever want to? And I've always told them, no. You know, that's my mom and dad. I've never had a desire or curiosity. So that hasn't really changed for me. You know, I'm thankful to know George, and I'm thankful to know my half siblings. Now and still lens, you know, George. George's son with Lynn. I'd love to meet him one day if he's ever, you know, okay with that. But if he's not okay with that, I totally understand. I don't have a problem with that at all. I have a brother, and that's the brother I was raised with. That's. I mean, flat out, that's how I feel. So I'm glad to know other, you know, great people, whether they're friends or happen to be blood related. But it's never really been a curiosity, and I'm. I'm. I'm really excited that you came into our life. I think the kids, you know, were stunned and floored, you know, to find out.

[20:31] KRISTINA INMAN: But I. Yeah, that's another interesting part about it. Right? So you told them that I was.

[20:38] MELANIE MILLER: Born, and I don't know if I've told you this, but when Allison. I think we've talked about it. I'm sure we have. On that Christmas day that Allison was standing in the middle of my mom's living room and said, I connected with this girl from Pensacola. Says that she's got to be my half sister, my biological half sister. And I had walked outside with a friend of mine, and my mom came outside and said, I don't know if you just heard what Allison said, but she just said that she. That she's met this girl online, through email or whatever, and that she's your half sister. I said, yeah, mom, I heard what she said. So. And then it kind of took a couple of days for all of it to come out in the wash. And my husband, we were divorced by that time, but before we got married, he knew about Tina. He knew that I had placed her for adoption. But the kids never knew, so they never, you know, and that was prior to my marriage and all that, but the kids had never known about it. And Paul, I remember the next week, it was on a Tuesday, and he had called me, and he said, mom, I feel like I don't even know you and dad, because dad had kept the secret, you know, all those years, too, and. But that was the outburst. And then after that, it was just, we got to meet Tina, and we all got together, y'all. You got together with the kids. I think you had not met Paul, but you met Charles. And then we got together on Paul's birthday at the house, and that was just a really nice day. It was really nice.

[22:32] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah. I met Alison, who's the one that's just a little younger than me. And did I say that wrong? I think I said, amanda. Who's William? I met Alison. Couple a names there. Yeah, I met the two of them at the same time over in Daphne and Daphne, Alabama, and we met up at Amanda's house, and we went out for lunch, and that was the moment for me. You know, I hadn't met my paternal siblings at all. These were the closest relationship biologically, aside from my own son, that I'd ever met. So, you know, needless to say, this huge mystery of who's my bio mom? And, like, who are, you know, how will I find her? Because she's adopted, too. But, you know, I was getting to meet two of my sisters from that side, so it was really exciting for me. And, of course, you already mentioned that Allison and I have so many similarities. Oh, did she?

[23:36] MELANIE MILLER: No.

[23:38] KRISTINA INMAN: Is it me?

[23:40] MELANIE MILLER: I'm here. Am I here? Have a gone. Did you.

[23:44] KRISTINA INMAN: I don't see your video anymore, but Ben was freezing up a little bit, too. Okay, back to where they say, I've got a.

[23:50] MELANIE MILLER: Does that mean anything?

[23:54] KRISTINA INMAN: I think your signal is low.

[24:01] MELANIE MILLER: Hey, can you hear me?

[24:05] KRISTINA INMAN: All right, I think Ben said, I think we should be okay. All right. So, yeah, you mentioned that Allison and I have similar mannerisms and the way we think and what we feel about things, and it was, I think, immediately apparent. I feel that way about Amanda, too, though. I feel like we have a lot of the same thought processes and feelings about things, but we just express it outwardly a little differently, whereas Allison and I are almost little twins.

[24:33] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah, definitely.

[24:35] KRISTINA INMAN: That's really interesting because, of course, nurture versus nature is a huge topic, just in general in the public domain and pop culture. But I, as a biologist, am fascinated by that. And it was really funny to hear Allison and I finishing each other's sentences and nodding and saying, mm hmm. At the same time when we were listening to Amanda talk. I'll never forget that. That was really amazing. And I wanted to see what kind of experience you had when we went to Montana, which we did in 2018. And I set up meeting with your maternal half sisters and half brother because I figured out who your biological mother was. But she unfortunately passed away in 2000, I think. No, not 2000. 1988. I want to say somewhere not longer, Ellen.

[25:33] MELANIE MILLER: It was 18 years before we got up there, so if y'all can do the math.

[25:39] KRISTINA INMAN: Was it okay?

[25:40] MELANIE MILLER: I think so. 18 years before we met George.

[25:45] KRISTINA INMAN: Gotcha. Yeah. So I can't remember exactly when, but obviously before we were able to find them.

[25:51] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah.

[25:52] KRISTINA INMAN: And I had gotten to meet your biological sisters before then, because I flew out to Phoenix, and that was a really cool experience, too, because I met my cousin Hannah, who is also a lot like Alison. And I was in a room. It would just be. I don't know, that, you know, there might be a black hole or something created from that. Like, we're just way too similar, but it's in a really lovely way, I think. So I was excited to see you meet your siblings. And it was like, for me, even though you're like, oh, yeah, this is a nice thing presented to me. I'm going to take this opportunity. For me, it was like a pilgrimage. I put these pieces together, and I reached out to all these people, and I solved the mystery of who your biological parents were. And I was getting to see the fruits of my labor. And I felt. I felt, you know, peace within me, feeling some closure, feeling the things that I wanted out of it. But I also had, like, some secondhand happiness for you because you were like, okay, now I. Now I have this closure for myself. Even if it didn't feel like a need. It was a nice thing to have. And, of course, it was a really good trip. I think it was interesting.

[27:16] MELANIE MILLER: But I can't wait to go back to Montana. You know what's funny? And I don't know if I've told you this, but my mom and dad, they have taken me all over the continental United States, all over, every. Almost every state that you can think of, the one place, and you would think that this would be top on their list would be a Montana state like Montana. And my parents never took me to Montana.

[27:46] KRISTINA INMAN: I'm disappointed that I never went as a child either. Because it's beautiful.

[27:50] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah, it's beautiful. But, see, I don't know. And mama's never said anything to make me think this one way or the other. But what if there was something in my, you know, my package or my paperwork that said, you know, mother is, you know, native of Montana, and maybe mom and dad just never took me there, you know, just. Just because, you know.

[28:15] KRISTINA INMAN: Well, Montana is a big state, as we found out. I don't think we would have accidentally run into her.

[28:22] MELANIE MILLER: Right, right.

[28:23] KRISTINA INMAN: Six 4 hours to get anywhere.

[28:25] MELANIE MILLER: I know.

[28:27] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah.

[28:27] MELANIE MILLER: But I can't wait to go back. I'm really excited to go back once.

[28:34] KRISTINA INMAN: Covid is less of an issue, because that's been the biggest fear. I think we would have done it once or twice over by now if it hadn't been for Covid. And, you know, we don't want any of our elderly relatives being exposed to those things and much less ourselves. And it was a huge disappointment because I really. I wanted to go back soon, and I had unfinished work. You know, I had other people to meet, and I had more genealogy searching I wanted to do. And for me, I felt. I felt like that was a big barrier. But on that note, as far as genealogy searching goes, one. Of course, you know, this. One of the coolest things out of the searching that I've done is that many of the people that are related to us and matching with us on 23 andme and ancestry DNA are that they're adopted. And I. Not only are they adopted, but a lot of them, and nearly all that I can ever think of in a. In a glance of my mind of the names and people I've spoken to, but they're native american or of native american ancestry as well. And when I got my 23 me results back, I immediately knew who was a paternal relative because that half sister I matched with anyone that wasn't related to her was a maternal relative. And I just went down the list and looked at people's ancestry results, and I could immediately tell a large proportion of them had native american ancestry. And when I reached out to them, I would get answers like, I'm sorry, I can't help you because I'm adopted, or, well, I'm here because my mother was adopted or she was given up as a baby. So, like, not even using the word adoption or I. Well, I don't know who my father is. All I know is that he was from this area in Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, places in Canada. And there were so many dead ends from these. These contacts that I had from the genetic. The testing that I did. And I didn't quite know what to make of that at first. There's a lot to be said about the ancestry testing and ethnicity estimates in these kits. Like, more than the last few minutes of our interview can go over. But I definitely was surprised by our connection to the little shell Chippewa tribe in Montana and the Turtle Mountain tribe of North Dakota, which, respectively, are what your bio dad and Biomom are affiliated with. And I've had such an interesting and fulfilling time helping other people who are adopted or adopted descendants of adoptees from those areas. It's been fulfilling for me to take a step outside of my own searching and help other people with their searching. And what did you think about our connections to the people in those areas and with these tribal groups?

[31:55] MELANIE MILLER: I was floored. I mean, that was the biggest surprise. I never would have thought that I had any Native American in my blood. It makes me more aware, and you were talking about how many people had given up or had their babies that they didn't raise for whatever reason or however it was, however it came about. But there's such a large group of people right ahead of my era of being born in the sixties. And it probably continued in other types of ways, but with better, better terms used to describe it than it was the previous, like, decade or I, you know, a couple of decades before, because they were insisting that native american women give up their children and to be raised in white families and stuff like that. So there was a lot of that going on in that area before I came along. And like I said, you know, it's probably still the. It was probably still the practice, but just put under different terminology to make it more acceptable. But so many people were dislocated from their birth families. And so sometimes I've even thought, especially now that I've read a little bit more about it and seen a couple of documentaries, that those kind of things may have led to the decision that, you know, a person that had been around that or the culture was nothing. You know, it wasn't adverse to a young woman giving her baby up where, you know, there could have been a community to, to raise it. So I think it's. I'm sure that it leads to a lot of that same group of people having had to give up their babies or having given up their babies by choice.

[33:59] KRISTINA INMAN: Mm hmm. Yeah, definitely generations of impacts that have caused people to be in an economic position where they can't support a growing family or the coerced adoptions that have been the result of the state or the federal government and in the US and Canada and those, the people I interacted with, that is exactly the case for many of either them or their parents or their parents parents. And it makes searching so difficult, especially because those records just, they're hard to keep. There's a lot of obfuscation. There's political, you know, motives behind a lot of that stuff. And to me, it stuck out as, you know, forget my little adoption. These families and these communities have been broken apart by adoption. And they have such a need for someone to help put those pieces together, which I think is how I ended up matching with so many on 23 andme and ancestry that they're doing that testing because they're trying to find those connections to relatives in that route. And it still calls into question a lot of the things that people are doing when they're trying to do these tests and what the goal is for that. And I'm really interested in that conversation. But my first hand experience was that people have questions and they're looking for answers in affordable and accessible ways. And it's inspired me. I thought that I was going to do it to find my own answers for myself, but now I have way forward that. I think, you know, that my skills and interests will serve me better. You know, I can't just stop at my own answer. I have to help find other answers for other people.

[35:58] MELANIE MILLER: I think that's great, especially that you have an interest and then you have the background and.

[36:05] KRISTINA INMAN: Right.

[36:07] MELANIE MILLER: I think that's a great avenue for you to take, whether it's in a career or whether it's a side gig that you just, you know, keep pursuing. I'm glad that you found us.

[36:20] KRISTINA INMAN: I'm, I'm glad that you're around and you had the kids you had, and you're all, you're all wonderful people and, you know, life is the way that it is. And, yeah, I love my parents, and I think that they did a good job raising me. And.

[36:38] MELANIE MILLER: So it was fun meeting your dad at Thanksgiving. That was interesting.

[36:43] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah, it took a little while to make those pieces come together, but I just pushed him and I said, come on, you gotta come meet her and meet the rest of the siblings and all of the nieces and nephews I have now. Well, on your side, I have a bunch of nieces.

[37:04] MELANIE MILLER: Well, see, I mean, when I met you, how old was Josh at the time? All of a sudden, I wasn't a grandmother of baby girls. I was the grandmother of an advanced teenager.

[37:16] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah.

[37:16] MELANIE MILLER: Wasn't he 14 or.

[37:18] KRISTINA INMAN: Surprise.

[37:19] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah. Wait a minute.

[37:22] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah, he turns 18 this year, actually. And that's another parallel in our stories, I suppose, is that I was pregnant at a young age, but the difference being that I, I kept my child and I raised him, but I did consider adoption and for some of the similar reasons you mentioned, but I was in a relationship with his father at the time, and so we continued raising him up into a point, and now we co parent, but that was the parallel for us. And I don't, you know, I think in the position that you were in, I did wonder when I was a kid, you know, 23 is old enough to have a kid, and then now here I am at 35, like, hmm, if I were to be considering having another kid, I might wait another couple more years, you know, so it's funny how you have different perspectives as you grow older just from being older.

[38:14] MELANIE MILLER: So. Yeah.

[38:16] KRISTINA INMAN: But I'm glad we got to do this, Melanie, because me, too. Some of these things we've talked about before, but I would like people to know that these stories exist, and I, people have very different adoption experiences, and sometimes there's eerie parallels, but you can have a different outcome.

[38:36] MELANIE MILLER: I'm glad it wasn't the Maury Povich version.

[38:40] KRISTINA INMAN: Yeah. Yeah, me, too.

[38:43] MELANIE MILLER: For, for your end or my end, because I don't know.

[38:47] KRISTINA INMAN: On my paternal side, it's a little, it can be a little Maury povich occasionally, but again, just stick with us. They're all very good people. I feel very dearly about them. It's just a different, it's a different story on that side.

[39:04] MELANIE MILLER: Yeah. All right. All right.

[39:11] KRISTINA INMAN: We have 1 minute left.