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I've Been Looking for You Since 1988: DNA Discovery
Episode 226th April 2022 • Family Twist: A Podcast Exploring DNA Surprises and Family Secrets • Corey and Kendall Stulce
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Have you ever wondered if your DNA could uncover secrets from your past?

Many of us have pondered about our origins and family history. This episode taps into the universal curiosity and deep emotional journey involved in uncovering one's roots through DNA testing, particularly for those touched by adoption.

I've Been Looking for You Since 1988: DNA Discovery

Benefits Listeners Will Gain:

  1. Insight into the Emotional Highs and Lows of DNA Discovery: Learn about the roller-coaster of emotions that accompany the discovery of long-lost family members through DNA testing.
  2. Understanding the Impact of Ancestry Tools: Explore how modern tools like 23andMe and AncestryDNA can reveal unexpected familial connections and alter one’s sense of identity.
  3. Inspiration from Real-Life Adoption Search Stories: Be inspired by a touching story of connection and the complexities of searching for biological relatives in closed adoption scenarios.

Dive into this episode to follow Kendall's poignant and uplifting journey of discovery, and see how a simple DNA test can lead to life-changing connections.

Listen to More Emotional Adoption Stories

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Transcripts

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

of a Family Twist, a podcast about relatively unusual stories of long lost families, adoption, and lots of drama. I'm Corey. And I'm Kendall, and we've been partners for over 16 years. In the first episode, we looked at Kendall's past as an adopted baby and only child in Arkansas. And then the dead ends of trying to find information about your birth family because it was a closed adoption. Right. We're in California having a fantastic life, wonderful friends, wonderful jobs.

But there was something still nagging at me about the closed adoption and what can we do to find out where your family is. So.

I think it was on a group on, I got a 23andMe kit and it yielded some interesting results, right? It did, it did. I was actually fascinated by it in that you gave a DNA sample similar to other ones that you would give. And it did, it was amazing to me because I love things like this. Like you got the results and it said you had blonde hair as a child, which is true. That I had blue eyes as a baby, which is true. That I currently had green eyes.

that my index finger is shorter than my ring finger, that I am someone who is able to curl my tongue. The things that it matched on the DNA was amazing things to learn. And just, more than anything, it was just comical and cool. But yeah, I think we were both just, wow, this is really accurate a lot of ways. So that was like, I didn't know if anything was gonna come from that. And it didn't include.

es. So that was like early in:

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

It'll takes about six to eight weeks to process, but it didn't take that long. You got an email like just a couple of weeks after that. I did. And yeah, that was a surreal day. You didn't even think it was like real because they said it was going to take such amount of time. And you just thought, well, this is clever marketing. They're just trying to keep my anticipation going. Exactly. I thought, do I need to buy another package? Is that what they're trying to do is sell me. And at that point, of course, I probably would have just because my interest had been peaked. But right.

Yeah, it was amazing. You're at work that day. You get this email. You look at it. What do you see? So I get this email from ancestry .com saying, congratulations, your results are ready. And I click on it. And again, I still thought it was marketing. I was like, there's no way it's not ready yet. But it said click here to log into the ancestry .com site, which I had already registered with and.

so that they could connect my DNA sample to my profile. And so it says click here and you can get your results. And it's funny with as much as I have struggled throughout my life with passwords for various sites, I must've really wanted to remember this one because I did not struggle with my, my password. I was able to jump right into the ancestry .com site. And the cool thing about the way that happened at the time, it's four years ago, maybe it's changed, but.

It immediately took you to a page that showed you your DNA matches. And, and the way it was arranged was your, was that your closest matches, your, your closest relatives were at the top of the page. Right. Yeah. I see this name at the top of the page and it says Christopher Clark. And that's all it says. So it doesn't, for instance, you might assume with the name Christopher that it was my, that was a male and you might, but.

For instance, there was no reference to where he was, what his age was, that he was a male. Nothing, literally nothing was just a name. What is cool about Ancestry is what you're able to do as far as communication is they keep it anonymous and that you can contact your matches, but you're doing it through Ancestry. So you immediately said, here's my birth name. Here's the day I was born. Here's the hospital I was born in.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

city and state. And then you send that off and then what happened? Yeah. So yeah, to your point, I click on Chris's name. I see no details about him. It says, do you want to contact Chris? And I say, yes, I typed exactly what you said. I wrote, I literally just got my results back. You show up at the top of my list as my closest DNA match. Here's what I know about myself. And I gave him those details, right? My birth name, my birth date, my birth city.

I didn't assume he'd know what hospital I was born in, but I did go ahead and include that, I think, as well. And I said, here's my phone number. Please call me as soon as you can, hoping that this person, whoever he could be, I didn't know what he was. I didn't know whether he might be my brother, my uncle, my dad, my first cousin. Exactly. I didn't know what. And that was amazing. I sent him my phone number and five minutes later I get an email back from Ancestris and it's

It's because he had replied within the site to my email and it says, calling you now. And my desk phone rings and I pick it up and it was Chris. And he said, Kendall, I think I'm your half brother. Wow. At this point, we're going to let Chris and Kendall share what that experience was like. We're welcoming Chris Clark to the podcast.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

My name is Chris Clark. I am Kendall's brother. And I grew up knowing that he existed, but never thought I'd meet him. So Chris, I'm going to ask you to jump back into your memory bank and help us understand when you first heard about the fact that dad might have another son. I was relatively young, maybe when I was nine or 10. I don't know an exact.

time, but I remember it was on those occasions when he was maybe in drunken anger, spanked me a little too hard and I was whimpering up in my bedroom crying, oh, I'm trying to get over it. And then he, an hour or two hours later, come up apologizing and sobering up a little bit. And he'd say, don't ever forget, you're my number one son, you're my number one son. And I thought it was such a dumb thing to say, even when I was a little kid, I was like, why the hell is he saying that? Because I'm his only son.

It was happened probably maybe four or five times. And maybe when I was around 12, I think I finally just said to him, maybe I was 13, whatever it was. I said, why do you say like, I'm your only son. And then it was like, he was waiting for me to say that. It was like, it was his opening. I remember he paused, he got real quiet. He's you actually have a brother and that was caught off guard. And he told me the story. I always knew that he was 17 when I was born. I started trying to do the math. I'm like, all right, wait a minute. So even then, you know that.

At the very least, he met my mother at least nine months before I was born. And I know it was a little bit before that. They weren't just in a one first time that they met that type of thing. I'm like, how young was he? And he went on to explain that, you know, your name was Scott and that your mom, they were transferred off base, Otis Air Force base. They were transferred away and they kept in touch through letter a few times, never spoke again. He didn't know anything after that. That was it. Just that I was born. Yeah. He knew you were there.

and Sean's son, Jamie. It was:

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

watching it. I think it was just one of those pastimes of drinking that he would do on occasional weekends. But we all went, it was me, him, Sean, Jamie went, which is Sean's son, and then Pete and Ray Pete. Okay, so we had both Peets, which are like family to us. And we had a great time. It was all more about the tailgating and enjoying the day. And I drove dad home, because he really ripped it up. On the ride home, I said, you ever think about your son? Does that ever cross your mind? Just trying to put myself in his shoes and thinking there's no way I wouldn't have sought out.

finding them. One thing, if you haven't figured out, he's a pretty reclusive guy and he's okay with letting the past stay in the past. And I'm sure he's got his regrets that he didn't do right by you. I think he'd rather just leave that in the past, that type of thing. So I asked him and he said, yeah, I do. So we talked about you and I was always thinking, when am I going to meet my brother, Scott? I knew I couldn't find you. Like that was my thing. You were just a Scott. I had searched for you.

I was convinced maybe it was:

Can you help me find out who I am? And there were listings in Arkansas just like that, they give the particulars and I thought that maybe it was you, but I wasn't. That was it. I really couldn't go beyond that. How did dad describe what happened when the pregnancy with me was discovered? What he told you about the whole circumstances of my being conceived? So they were very carefree and careless, hippie type kids. And this is his first.

real serious girlfriend. He's dumb enough probably to this day to think that was one of his true loves in his life. Sadly it was, right? I mean, my mother was the last one and he was 17 when he married her. So sadly when he looks back at the history of his great girlfriends or they were all like middle young teenage stuff where I have three teenagers and none of them have had a serious relationship yet. Thank God. It's just a different world.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

go back into the late 60s, early 70s, but he said that she became pregnant. And I don't know any details about how long they hid the fact that she was pregnant. I've never asked that. I don't know if he even remembers the details behind that. It was found out on base. I guess the base commander had learned the base commander was upset that two teenagers, children of two guys on base were going to have a child. And back then things were handled a little differently. And.

pulled in grandpa, your other grandfather. Yeah. And said that one of you guys have to pick up and transfer out. And I guess their decision was to get her family, your mom's side of the family out. So they transferred to Arkansas. And like I said, that was, yeah, that's all I really knew about that. But he was madly in love with her. He wanted to marry her. He wanted to raise you in our grandparents' house.

He tried to convince grandma and grandpa that and they weren't having it. And I think deep down, that was probably some of the stuff that created such a wedge between grandma and him, because you ask him about her, it's, he describes that relationship as bad and violent. And honestly, I think she probably just had enough of him being reckless. So I think that had something to do with it. By the time I had turned 18, both of my adoptive parents were dead. For me, that

That sort of meant that I couldn't accidentally hurt their feelings, right, by trying to find others. But I also knew that they were completely supportive of my finding them. Ironically, the man who handled the adoption for them, their attorney, had become a judge in my hometown. And I actually had known him all of my life. And I actually went to him, to his office, and said, hey, can you help me out a little bit?

I knew it was a private adoption. I knew his hands were tied. I was hoping from a friendship level that maybe he'd spill some beans and he did the right thing. He wasn't trying to get disbarred as a result of my search. And he was very polite and said, Kendall, I totally know how you must feel, but no, I can't help you. And really, I don't know honestly what he might have known because I had my adoption papers and I knew my name. I was born in Little Rock and my birth date.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

But the only other person's name that was listed on the adoption papers, of course, didn't have either of my biological parents names. The only name that was on my adoption papers was the man who was listed as my guardian. He was a state of Arkansas employee who seemed to be a social worker who was assigned to many children. So it seemed really vague. I even tried to find him and I found a record of his death. Ivan Smith, I'll never forget the name, but.

Because when you're holding those papers, it feels like your only connection at that moment. And I wanted so badly to find all of you or any of you. I had no idea. I had no idea what to assume. I always hoped that I wasn't the product of a couple who just were older and just didn't want a kid. I hoped that they were just super young and...

grandparents did the logical thing and said, no, you kids would be crazy to try to raise this child. So that part was very cathartic to find out because it makes you feel less rejected isn't the right phrase, but it did. I understand it did. It made you feel like, okay, that was a logical choice. I might have done the same thing if I were either any of those four grandparents. So it helped to know that. Now it also, there's this.

tiny bit of anger that comes with that too. Oh, sure. Not for my parents, but for my grandparents thinking. And I think only because like you said, times have changed. And nowadays, I think it's maybe not unique, but you just see so many grandparents who are raising their grandchildren today. So part of me thinks, why couldn't that have been a possibility for any of them? You'd almost want to say it's a generational thing, but I don't think that's the case. I think it's a family to family thing.

I think there are some families that are well equipped to handle that type of thing and there are others that are not. And I don't know anything about your mom's family at all. Dad wanted you. I think your mom wanted you. But there was some hard stances, like you said, and that's why some of maybe your resentment is towards your grandparents. But I think in grandma and grandpa's case, I don't want to, like, God rest their soul. I don't want to say anything really horrible about them. That's not, I don't want to exaggerate the truth.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

But they were, they were not very old. That point, think about it. I think grandma was 20, 19 or 20 when dad was born. So she was only 35 when you were born and was probably at a point like no way. I, like she's only a few years away of having an empty house and probably didn't want to start all over. And they enjoyed their simple life of smoking and drinking, but I,

I think they chose that and the hard path. I can't imagine her not being the one making the decision. Grandpa was a really sweet, gentle soul that I don't know that he would have taken a hard stance had she been okay with it. I think he would have totally gone along with it. So I would think it was probably more her decision. I know nothing about that, but knowing her and the stories of how things went growing up for dad and Sean and Steve, she was the one laying down the law. Talk to me about...

how you got your ancestry kit and the way that progressed. Yeah, commercials for ancestry intrigued me. There's always like this story hanging over our family's head, which come to find out goes even way deeper than grandpa telling the story. But the story was that when the Lewis and Clark expedition, we were related to the Lewis, not the Clark. And the name Lewis is a first name in our family and has been.

for generations. So that always had piqued my interest. Is this really true? I wonder if I can find that out. And I was thinking, it'd just be neat to see what I can learn on this stuff. Or I think this has to be part of the reason anyone does ancestry. Someone is believing they're so Irish that they go tattooing an Irish flag on their arm, and then they might think somebody, maybe I'm not all that Irish, which was definitely my case. I always thought we were very Irish. I'm 10%.

I don't even, you're probably, I don't know if you're more than I am, but in the updated, like every year, I just got my updated one. Or if you saw your updated one, I just got it maybe a week ago, two weeks ago. So it changes as more people do it. They are able to zero in a little bit closer to your real, your real heritage. But so for me, it was just a general interest. It wasn't because I thought I'd find no, no offense. I just, I didn't even connect those dots in until after I took the test and started seeing relatives pop up.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

But I still didn't put a whole lot of thought into it. And when I first got my results, I think the closest relative was a fourth cousin. So I wasn't really getting much. I'm like, I'm reaching out to these people going, who are you? Who's your grandparents? And I didn't know who they were. I'm like, oh, this is doing nothing like this. But then every every day, it seemed like more people show up as cousins and stuff like that on your results. I still.

I thought it was enjoyable and I thought I'm going to try to build a tree. It's something that I always thought was fun that actually grandma's bad of a picture as I was painting of her. One thing she loved to do was genealogy. She was very much into that. I wanted to see if I could gather that all of that information and then connect it with the ancestry information. And when Karen got me the kit, she bought me the, I think a one year subscription gives you access to a lot of that research.

And yeah, so that's how I got it. And then obviously August happens. And that was that was just like, I can't believe this. This is like, I just never thought I would never have I would never put a dime on betting that I ever find you. I know it's interesting because I was thinking the same way you were I thought, wouldn't it be cool to find out, you know, especially somebody who has zero knowledge, I didn't know what to assume. I didn't know if I was mostly British or mostly Irish or what. And so that

was definitely something that was interesting to me, but Corey's whole thought was, I want to see if we can find any of Kendall's family. Right. And I'll never forget that day. I sent in the specimen where that little tube of spit that you send him. And I remember getting that email back saying, we've received your sample. It will take six to eight weeks to process. And I remember the day, August 23rd,

2017. I'm always emotional about this in general, but I remember sitting at my desk in San Francisco at work. I had given my work email because I knew I wanted to get the result as quickly as I could. So I get an email to my work email and it says, congratulations, your results are in. And at that point it had only, I had only sent it three weeks before. Yeah. Mine came in quick too. Yeah. And so I thought, Oh gosh, they're just trying to sell me something because I thought this is super early.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

But I click in it and of course, logically it takes you, there's a link to the ancestry site. And it's funny, I joke about myself that I never remember passwords, but I must've really wanted to remember that password because I knew it. I didn't struggle and I typed it right in. And it was so cool because for anybody who hasn't seen the ancestry site, the first page that I saw was, were my matches, my DNA results. And it was just...

I didn't search for anything like your name was at the top of the screen. And it says something like very close family member, very reliable test results or something like that. And you were smart because when I clicked on your name, of course, you know what the name Christopher, you assume it's a guy. But when I literally, when I click on it, it doesn't, you had done what I would have done. You didn't say that you were a man. You didn't say where you were literally.

It was just a name because it said very close family member. I remember clicking on your name. And of course it's, I love what I love about Ancestry is it does protect individuals. Like it, I didn't have your phone number. I didn't have your personal email address. And so you need to send the email through their site. And I just think that's such a smart thing to do and probably makes a lot of people feel more secure about, you know, doing this thing. And I remember sending you that.

th,:

Yeah. And it's interesting because I worked in a space, the office where I worked had six desks and often four people were sitting in there with me at the same moment, but it was just like the perfect time. There was nobody there. I feel like I, I, you and I had a chance to talk without feeling like other people were listening. And it was just, it was of course amazing. And you told me so much in the first.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

minute of that call that I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. It must have been amazing. It must wait coming off your shoulders and with every word I was given you had to have been like, in your mind, you must have had a million questions and, and I'm giving you bits and pieces that are just checking boxes for you. It's like I said, it's such a different I'm on the opposite end of it. And I'm not none of that. My questions are, wow, does he look like dad?

Does he sound like that? Does he look, is he as tall as that? Is he look like me? Like there, my, my questions were more simple. What was his life like? But I didn't, I wasn't in the dark. I was raised by him. I had all of those things already answered. Well, when you and I got off the phone, still nobody had come up into the office where I was. And so nobody disturbed me, but that office had a rooftop. We had a.

access to a rooftop deck and nobody was out there. And I remember opening the door right by my desk, going out onto the rooftop deck and sobbed for just minutes. I just, I was overwhelmed. Oh, sure. Just sure overwhelmed. And I remember going downstairs in the office saying, and people looked at me like I had just seen a ghost or something like that. Like I looked physically affected. And I remember Jamie, one of my colleagues who

Uh, it was just fantastic. She's like, what's wrong, Kendall? And I was like, nothing, actually, nothing's wrong. This is like the most wonderful moment. And I just started spewing verbally, spewing, telling everybody who was in there all staring at me like in disbelief and they all start crying. And it was just an amazing moment. Yeah. Yeah. On my end of it, it was kind of tell dad, tell, told my mother, told Monica that spreads immediately to the rest of the family called Sean, all that stuff. And.

It was, it was everyone was just completely amazed that ancestry allowed. I don't think anyone would, again, the way they don't really use the commercials don't suggest that's what ancestry is for to find your long lost siblings. It's all about just finding your heritage. And so when you say that's how I did it, they're like, no way something we thought would never happen was able to happen because you spin into a tube. Absolutely. But yeah, I

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

No matter how much I tried to put myself into your shoes, I never really I can never experience what you experience there. Even hearing you gave me more information just now. I didn't realize you were I don't think I realized you were at work. I think I was on vacation. I was up at the beach because I get a little gray. And when I read about it versus talking to you about it versus. But yeah, no, I I was out on now that I think about it, I was out on my my I was like out on the chair.

outside of our camper, everyone else, three kids and Karen were in the, in the camper, I don't know, eating breakfast or a snack or whatever time it was. And I'm like, Oh my God. And yeah, it was, it was amazing. One of the probably most relieving moments of that conversation for me was just knowing that our father was alive. You know what I mean? Like the fear, cause let's face it, I had just turned 47, not.

knowing how old my father was. You know what I'm saying? My fear was like, even if I found siblings that my parents might not still be living, that sort of thing. So just knowing that was just such a relief to think, oh my gosh, okay, he is still alive. There might not have been a day that went by that we didn't communicate. And it was wonderful, I think, for both of us. And you were so kind and said, you guys are welcome whenever you can make it out. Because we wanted to physically see each other.

And Cory and I decided, we just found each other in August, but by October, we were like, we're coming. We're going to make this happen. And with as many pets as we have, that was probably a major undertaking just to get, just to get care. But no, I'm teasing, but it was wonderful to fly out. I'll never forget the picture, the posters that the kids were holding up at the airport saying, I'm over here. Uncle Kendall, it's just, it's wonderful.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was good stuff. It really was. It was amazing to me. And again, it was a surreal moment. Yeah. Where sometimes it didn't feel real when you've thought about something for so long and given up hope at some level that it would actually ever happen. And I joke with Corey about the fact that it's always been wonderful to be part of his family because they're so

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

close and they're so loving and I love to see the interactions. But it also sort of makes you jealous. Yeah, sure. It does. It makes you think why don't I have that? Why don't I especially if the people are out there, I just need to find them. And I don't know if we had we have fulfilled fulfilled that gap as much as you had hoped. And all of that I know it's it.

I try to warn you upfront how dad might be in terms of just his lack of sobriety and how that might impact stuff and just who he is. And then I'm not going to talk about anybody else, but how it might go down. But I knew at least from our standpoint, he at least had us, which is really all I can speak to, but we're really busy people. I feel like we probably haven't fulfilled what you expected when you guys...

traveled across the country, but no, we, we knew that everybody's busy and we also, you know, we get it that we're that this is like a big revelation to live through for everybody. And we're also not super. I think we're pretty easy going when it comes to all those things. Really. Oh yeah. I think for, uh, that there's two things at play for us. I feel guilty that we don't see each other. The pandemic obviously slowed things quite a bit, but even prior to that, I always felt, man,

I know these guys want to get together more often than we get together. And that holds true for all of my friends who I have not spent. I got extremely close friends I haven't seen in 10 years and they only live an hour away. Life with three kids that, you know, right now and the timing of it is they're all teenagers. Yeah, like the last thing they want to do is hang out with us, let alone any family. We can't even be in the same vicinity of them if their friends are nearby.

Cause it's what are you doing here? I want it's like, just the way teenagers are. So it's like the worst era for you guys. It would have been awesome if they were like two, three, and four. And it would have been so much different. I think if that we got to deal with what we got. That's right. That's right. So busy. It's been wonderful. And what probably isn't obvious to anybody listening is that Corey and I came out to visit in October on the plane ride back home after meeting everybody.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

Corey looks over at me and says, we have to move there. And I didn't know on the plane ride. I know that you said. Yeah. Oh, and again, I'm very good. Makes me very emotional, but it made me so happy. Yes, we chose to leave St. Louis together. We chose to move to San Francisco together. But he also I feel like he also made special sacrifices then. And here he was willing to move 2700 miles, leaving.

to new England in January of:

that the pilot joking about, gosh, I hope I'm glad we did it slide more than we just did on the runway. And I remember thinking, wow, this is potentially scary. And then picking up the rental car and white knuckling the drive, because I'd just been in California for nine years where if you drove to snow, you left it the same day. If you left Tahoe. But it was it's been an amazing journey and it has been. You're right. And I appreciated your warning about.

dad and with the level of connectedness I might not have with him. He's a great guy that, and I love speaking with him. And I, and I do love every chance we get to connect and hear his stories, but, and I wouldn't trade that, you know, for anything. When I think about it, the way that he and I get to talk when we're together, I has to be different than if we had tried to still live in California, have phone conversation. I just don't feel like they'd be the same.

types of conversation. Basically being here has been wonderful. So super quick. So what was the conversation like when you told Karen that we decided to move here after? Yes. That, believe it or not, I think I told you guys this, that stressed me out. My immediate thought was we're going to have a good relationship and we'll always stay connected and we'll visit you and you will visit us. But my immediate concern was,

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These guys might not get what they expect with moving out here. And I worried that I was going to hurt you. That was really like my immediate thought was, oh man, I hope they don't want to get together every weekend. I'm never available. I am like, I'm a director of basketball. I'm coaching baseball and softball coaching two baseball teams at the time. And we were, I had just got out of coaching soccer. Karen was still coaching soccer. I think like we're always two passing ships.

We don't even see each other care tonight, like as often as we should, let alone saying, Hey, we got four hours of a window here. Or if we did have four hours, we can wanted to take a deep breath and just say, we got four hours. So I worried. Right away that we were going to live up to your expectations. I was concerned, but at the same time I was like, this is good. Like if they're okay with it being what I can give, this is going to be great. So I was excited about that part of it. I did.

I wanted to make sure you guys knew all the info. I wanted to make sure we were in a cold snap, I think when you announced it or whatever. We have seven straight days of 16 degree weather or something like that. I was like, kept sending you snapshots of the forecast. I was like, oh my God, these guys, I hope they know what they're in for. This is awful. I hate it here. You would ask me, what's your temperature today? I'd be like, oh, it's chilly. It's 52. And you'd be like, yeah, it's a little colder here. Yeah. Yeah.

I just didn't want any regrets from any angle. I understood what you were doing and why you were doing it. And I, and honestly, I loved you for that. I thought that was really, my heart was with you on all of it. I just, um, deep down, I didn't, I just didn't want to be a disappointment. And I remember you're telling me that and I'm glad that I think I made you feel okay about it. Like before we got here, it's just, no, this is our adventure and we'll make it. And the good thing for us, I think is that.

We'd already done it. You know what I mean? Like we'd already picked up in St. Louis and said very quickly, actually, within a matter of literally a couple of months, we made the decision to move from St. Louis to San Francisco and made it happen really quickly. Not that's a pattern that most people want to repeat, but at the same time, I think we'd had such a good experience doing that, that we just weren't, didn't have the reservations that others might've had if they were going to move.

Corey & Kendall Stulce (:

You have your children, you have your four -legged children. But when you don't have children that are engrossed in a school system and friendships and stuff like that, like in a million years, if the roles were reversed and I had found you and I was the adopted one, I wouldn't have moved. From my angle, I'm like, there's no way I could have ever done that to my family. Even if she was supportive of it, I would have fought against it. No way. Like we had three kids, blah, blah, blah. So, but when you guys made the decision, I was like, all right, like...

They don't really have anything restricting them. I think I told you this. I was like, you sure you guys want to do this? You guys have like close knit community of friends. You guys are going to wine country. You're telling me all the time you guys go to wine country and really enjoy that. You're going to miss out on that. I was like, I was like, oh my God, they have this going on and they're going to come here and it's going to be this like two different levels of what they're getting out of life. And I just.

I worried about that a lot. Keep in mind, you know, I had to help Corey escape from St. Louis. He'd already done his sentence there in 30 years. No, I joke about that. St. Louis is a good place to live, but it feels more St. Louis -ish here than it feels like California. But that's OK. It's still been a really positive thing for us in general. In the next episode, Kendall's new brother, Chris, does some detective work to try to find out if Kendall's birth mother is actually still alive and if he has more siblings out there.

This is the Family Twist podcast hosted by Kendall and Corey Stulce with original music by Cosmic Afterthoughts and produced by Outpost Productions and presented by Savoir Fair Marketing Communications. Have a story you want to share? Visit Family Twist Podcast .com. All our social media links are there as well.

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