Legal Standing

Today’s story (not my own) – I’m completely distraught because my 2.5 year old nephew is being adopted by his foster parent. She has legal standing over us cause she’s had him over a year. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as foster parent standing. Regrettably we weren’t in a position to be able to take him in at the time he entered care (at age 1) and I will never forgive myself for that. I won’t go into details but I was going through my own struggles at the time and it wouldn’t have been fair for anyone, including my nephew and 4 young kids. But I torture myself day and night about it. Especially now….

My sister, my nephew’s mom, was murdered the day before Thanksgiving. She was in rehab for months last year. Following her plan and trying so hard. We truly thought she was getting him back and that we wouldn’t need to intervene. If only we knew then what we know now, everything would be different. Caseworkers, GAL, supervisors, lawyers were all no help. “Standing” and “bond” was all they kept saying. Lawyers wouldn’t even take the case; they advised me not to try to get custody because the foster parents would win and then our relationship would be damaged. Was I in the wrong here for trying to do this? Isn’t being with family what would be best for him long term? I understand he will have trauma either way unfortunately. But we did say if he came to us, the foster parents could still see him a lot too!! Hoping that would help him with the transition. With us, he could see his siblings, father, grandparents, etc more. He would have genetic mirroring. He would know all of his family history. We’d be able to tell him stories about his mom. How does a 1 year relationship with a foster parent trump a lifetime with biological family?!

The foster parent claimed she was gonna be “so open” and said “you’re not losing him.” All lies. She’s already stopped all communication, blocked me on Facebook, and refuses to allow me (and his grandfather) visits. How could someone treat a grieving family this way? I was never anything but kind to her! We are his safe, healthy, loving family. I can’t tell you how heartbroken I am. He is her first foster child and I should’ve seen this coming. When she found out we wanted to get custody, she said in a text to my mom, “I’m aware of the emails/calls/efforts but after nearly 18 months with me, I’ve been assured that it’s futile. Frankly it is very disappointing because I have been open about everyone staying in his life.” SHE’S disappointed? All our family feels is emptiness.

My mom has my nephew’s sister (since she was a toddler, now a young teen) who is devastated about this adoption as well. Everyday is a nightmare and everything feels hopeless. I already lost my sister and now I’m losing my nephew. It hurts so much some days that I don’t think I can endure it.

One adoptive parent suggested – File a motion to intervene with the county courts. Show up to all hearings and fight! It is required by law to rule out biological family first and most of the time that wins out over the child’s temporary bond with their foster parents.

One who was fostered from birth and later adopted notes -Self-centered people hang on very tight when they have a child that they assume will be “theirs” someday. The system is not about the child’s welfare. Sometimes it is about who has more money. That is the gold standard. In the larger scheme and meanings of life, money matters more than our genuine family members.

It Actually Is A Big Deal

I have seen the impact – in my mom and in my niece – both adoptees. Body image issues where the adoptive mother is determined to be thin and the adoptee has a body that is naturally larger. This can set up issues related to self-worth in an adoptee.

I belong to a mom’s group – all of our children were born within a 4 month period back in 2004 and were donor conceived. Many are going off to college now. Our family will relocate once our property sells because we have become aware and have accepted that there is a lack of social, educational and employment opportunities that match the interests and needs of our two sons. They are both egg donor conceived. They have the same genetic sources and so, are mirrors for each other. Their dad is also genetically related and I do see specific traits from him mirrored differently in one boy or the other. Because college is an issue right now among the other mothers in my group, I was attracted to this article today in Severance Magazine LINK>An Adoptee Confronts an Empty Nest by Sarah Reinhardt. Do take the time to read this well-written piece. I will only excerpt some thoughts from it.

What I had not considered until I read this story is the impact on an adoptee who finally has a genetic mirror in her own biological, genetic child and then, that child leaves to go off to study for their own higher education. My husband and I will likely experience this with our sons soon. They are ready to test their independent wings and fly off to their own separate futures. Many adoptees have deep abandonment issues and I can understand how these could be triggered when their own genetic, biological child leaves home, leaving behind an empty nest. My own parents conceived me when they were very young (it’s a miracle I didn’t end up adopted). It was always a given with them that they expected us to “leave.” With my sons, because my husband and I are older parents, I never cared if they didn’t leave but now I am facing that inevitability myself but without pushing them out the door. My heart knows the time is right for them to fly.

Sarah writes – “Sure, intellectually I’d known it was coming. In fact, I’d encouraged him to apply to out-of-state schools because he could ‘always come home,’ but I hadn’t truly emotionally prepared for the actual leaving piece of it. The unslept in bed that took my breath away the morning after I got home. Seeing the lone t-shirt that hadn’t been packed on the floor of his closet. Not hearing Spotify during his long showers or staying up until he was home from a night out with his friends, waiting to start a new show until he had a night free, or any of the myriad things that made up our routine.”

“His going had been, until this moment, just a concept—part of the plan when you have kids, or a kid, in my case. They graduate high school and they go to college—or at least that’s what I understood. And as other parents have throughout the course of history, I wanted better for my son in every area of his life—a better foundation of love and self-worth than I had, better opportunities than I had, better exposure to whatever it was he expressed interest in.”

“So I drifted through his childhood, showing up in the way I knew how, by being available and loving him and laying the groundwork for him to live out his dreams. But I forgot about me. I forgot to plan for me.” Sarah notes. blogger’s note – they really grow up so fast !! One day they are little tikes and the next they are large, young adults.

More from this blogger – Hmmm. I know this is what my husband is worrying about now. This is going to be a radical change for him, as he has had this wild forested environment of hundreds of acres of trees to care for. It’s not just our boys going off on their own as happens in so many families – we are being uprooted with them. We do intend to buy another house, once we relocate, and think of it as a “safe harbor” that the boys could return to if they needed to. But we do know they will probably leave and find a place to live independently – probably sooner than later – but one never knows. The older one is very ready to do that as he is now 22 and looks forward to having full control of his own living space. They have made our life much richer by making us a family. Both have been educated at home and both want to experience going to a traditional kind of schooling – so both expect to attend community college when we move. Still, for my husband, the property we will be living on will be a lot smaller and he’ll lose so much of what he spends time doing. He is a doer so I’ve no doubt he will find his way into doing something with his “retirement” years.

Sarah notes that as an adoptee – “Beker was the first person in my life with whom I shared blood. And that might seem like no big deal, but for adoptees it’s a profound experience. You grow up with no mirror, no explanation for why you shot up to 5’10” and have blonde hair and green eyes, a gap in your teeth and long arms and legs, or no reference for why you twirl your hair or dislike certain foods that the family around you loves. And later, when you’re older, you wonder where your penchant for pairing vintage and new clothes, alternative music, and your pursuit of a creative life originated. And on a cellular level, never feeling ‘quite right’ with the people around you. There’s no real way to understand it—you’re just… different. And awkward. And everyone knows it but no one says it.”

She later adds – “From that point on, Beker became my focus. . . . I thought . . . the right way to parent—undivided devotion to my child.” blogger’s note – It appears that is the kind of parents my husband and I have been. It has often been about the boys – the zoo, the circus, etc. Following my oldest son around taking directions as his camera person because he showed a strong interest in telling stories through a visual medium early on. Just one example of many I could cite. My genetic, biological daughter calls my husband and I “doting parents.”

Kristin Chenoweth Reunion

Kristin with Mamalynn

Kristin’s birth mother has passed away but thankfully, she was able to reconnect with the woman and spend 10 years knowing her. She tells the story (about the 3:50 mark) in an interview with Katie Couric in 2019) that her uncle said to her birth mother “There’s a girl on there (Jay Leno’s show) that acts just like you.”

She has spoken about meeting her biological mom for the very first time – “I walked in the room and she went, ‘It’s you?!’ And I said ‘hi!’ and [it was] just like looking in the mirror.”

blogger’s note – I’ve had similar moments when I saw photos of my mom’s birth mother and my dad’s birth father – how much my parents were like their genetic parents. It’s that genetic mirroring that is so often lacking in an adoptee’s life with their adoptive parents, and sometimes extended families. Each of my parents had one sibling who was also an adoptee.

Chenoweth has said in interviews before that her adopted parents always made sure she knew she was adopted and loved, while growing up as a child. “They always said, ‘The lady that had you in her belly could not take care of you the way she wanted to, and she loved you so much.’”

Kristin goes on to describe her birth mother as an incredible person. She notes that upon the two of them meeting, her birth mother asked her “Can you forgive me?” Which she does and says “I’m so grateful for her.”

Chenoweth goes on to say “So many things became clear to me about myself when I met her and came to really know her. Those of us who knew her loved her light. Her love of music and all things artistic. An artist herself!”

Kristin adds, “In her belly, I became fans of Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall, Jimi Hendrix, and, of course, Billy Ethridge – my bio dad. The two of them gave me the innate artistic ability I have today,” Kristin continued.

(LINK>Bassist Billy Ethridge replaced Lanier Greig, shortly after ZZ Top was first formed. Ethridge was a bandmate of Stevie Ray Vaughan. He quit because he didn’t want to sign with London records, so Dusty Hill took his spot. )

On her birth mother’s passing, Kristin notes – “Mamalynn prayed for me every year on my birthday, hoping I was having the most perfect life, which of course, I was.”

“I snuck away and prayed for her too, wishing that someday I would be allowed tell her ‘thank you,’ Which I did on 12/12/12. A beautiful day!” she said, adding that the two “didn’t leave anything unsaid in the end.”

“I will miss her till the end of my days,” Chenoweth continued. “But then, I will fly into the sky, where she will be waiting to greet me, and she will say, ‘start singing Babygirl!’ And I will. RIP Mamalynn.”

“Kristin, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Rita Wilson wrote on the tribute. “What a blessing you got to know each other over these past years. And that she got to know you. Your gratitude in this tribute is so bright and clear. Love you. May her memory be eternal.”

blogger’s note – my mom was a singer – she even sang and played her guitar at my wedding. She and my dad both died knowing next to nothing about their genetic parents. I did think that each of my parents met their birth parents after they passed and instantly knew more – than even I know now – about their genetic ancestors. What I know now is hugely more than my parents knew about them during their own physical lifetimes.

The Unthought Known

My mom was full of sayings, actually my dad too. “Honesty is the best policy” was one. I guess it was a deep one for me, for I’ve always tried to be what I refer to as a “straight” shooter. I have a friend who says somewhere deep down inside, she always knew, even if what she deeply knew could not be fully articulated. Eventually, the truth came out. It usually does.

So, maybe I also knew that secrets never keep very well. As ignorant as we were, we never kept the truth of how they were conceived from our sons. Following advice I had seen offered, we told them abbreviated origin stories when they were yet very young, even if these were stories they were too young to fully grasp. After I learned our egg donor had done a 23 and Me test, I bought one for my husband and then test kits for both boys. They were older now and we could honestly discuss the whole situation with them and they could comprehend it fully. 23 and Me gives them a private channel of communication with their egg donor (genetic mother), if they chose. They have also spent time with her and her youngest son, when they were yet very young, though they’ve only seen photos of the other two. Distance and financial constraints negate our having very much contact.

Since learning my adoptee parents’ origin stories (they both were adopted), I’ve also learned a lot about all things adoption and that extends into donor conceived persons’ stories, as well as what is referred to as a non-parent event – meaning that someone discovers that at least one (or sometimes both) of the parents they thought were theirs – were not. This can be painful and difficult for one to wrap their mind around, especially if this knowledge comes late in life. That is what happened to Jon Baime when he was 54 years old.

His subsequent documentary is available at LINK>video on demand. This can be rented from the Microsoft Store, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play Movies, YouTube, or Spectrum On Demand.

Baime shares his journey in the interview with LINK>Severance Magazine. It is this interview where I got the title of today’s blog. It begins with this background – Imagine yourself in this scenario. You tell your 92-year-old father that you want to take a DNA test to learn more about your heritage. Your father says, “I don’t want you to take that test until after I’m dead!” You ask why, and he can’t or won’t tell you. What do you do? Naturally, you take the test, and your father says, “Fine, piss on my wish,” and you spend weeks waiting for the results and wondering what’s the big mystery.

That’s what happened to Jon Baime when he was 54-years old. You might think he shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the man he believed to be his father wasn’t related in any way, that he was in fact donor conceived, that his parents had been keeping a secret from him, about him. But even if you were raised in a family that keeps secrets, as he was, where children were often told that certain matters were none of their business—and even if you’ve always known that something in your family wasn’t quite adding up—it’s always a shock to find out your identity is not what you’ve always believed it to be, that your relationships changed in the moment you received your test results, that your whole world flipped upside down and there’s suddenly so much you don’t know that your head spins.

During the four years after his DNA surprise, he used his professional skills as an Atlanta-based producer of non-fiction projects, to unravel the family’s secrets and lies -researching and scrambling through a trove of family history in the form of photos and home movies, and traveling the country to interview his older brothers (also donor conceived with mixed reactions) and his new siblings (who had appeared as DNA matches). One sees why genetic mirroring can be important to a person in the photo below.

Baime and his biological father, Harrison.

The Brave New World

It is a reproductive fact – the egg contributes 50% of a person’s DNA, the sperm contributes 50% of a person’s DNA. For donor conceived children, the mother and/or father who is raising them may or may not be genetically related to them. Often, at least one parent is but in the brave new world of creating human beings utilizing reproductive technology – a child may be raised by a single mother who is not related at all to her child – though she may have carried the child and even breastfed her baby. The truth is that one’s marriage to their child is life-long, though as in the case of divorce, a genetically related parent may not be in their child’s life 24/7 or even throughout the childhood.

I do know of families with donor conceived children for whom the donor was anonymous – this can apply to egg donors as well as sperm donors. Fact is – Anonymity — as a pragmatic matter — can no longer be guaranteed to the donors who contribute to the existence of any donor conceived person. Donor-conceived people have interests all their own. Not all donor-conceived people know about their origin, and many express an interest in knowing more about their donors, including medical and identifying information. In a group of adult donor-conceived offspring from the 256 families that were eligible to receive identifying information, 85 (35%) contacted the clinic for this purpose. Many of those who contacted the clinic did so within the first three years after they turned 18, with the most common motivation to obtain information about their donors, including who they are as a person, their reasons for donation and their medical and health information. Third, recipients have a strong interest in knowing about the health risks their future children may experience based on the medical history of the donor.

Today, a woman writes – I’ve decided to conceive through a known local donor and my own egg. The child will know this man is their biological father. We are planning on meet up at least every 2 weeks from birth and he will receive plenty of pictures. He has also agreed to donate a second time in about 2 years so that my children will be biological siblings. (my note – that is certainly what my husband and I have as sons.) My question is, is there anything I’m overlooking in my excitement that I can do differently for the well-being of the child with this set up?

There are some details that sound like they haven’t been worked out yet. Is this an informal sperm donation or is it being arranged through a bank? Will he be listed on the birth certificate as the child’s father? Have you asked for perspectives from donor conceived people? Do you have a support system to help you raise the baby if he is not planning to be involved financially or practically? Has anything been drawn up legally? If he is not on the birth certificate as the father then he has no responsibility to help, participate or abide by your wishes. Sperm donors are not treated as the father of the child by law. No matter how much you may like and trust him today, things can change. To be clear, I am not against you creating a donor conceived a child. I encourage you to work out the legal details and to really think about the what if‘s no matter how unlikely they may seem now.

One response and some additional questions was this – The most ethical way to do this would be to list him on the birth certificate as the father and actually co-parent with him, not just let the child meet up with him every two weeks. Do you really think that would work out long term ? How would you handle it if the child tells you they want more time with their dad, overnights or to live with their dad or anything at all ?

Then there was this – What about when dad develops a new relationship with a woman who wants him all to herself?? To be with her and their “real” kids? Followed by an example – I actually know someone who was in this exact situation. She did what you are hoping to do, with a man who she thought would be in her child’s life forever. He moved across the country, married a woman who was/is extremely uncomfortable with the situation, they had kids together, and now he hasn’t seen his oldest child in over 2 years.

The woman in the question doesn’t want a romantic relationship and so that brings up another issue – You can forgo a romantic relationship, while also not procreating with a stranger. I do not understand why anyone would have a child with a man you do not know and then give that man access to your child. It takes a level of intimacy to trust someone to father your kid, doesn’t have to be romantic.

Again, more questions – what happens if you do meet somebody and fall in love, and your partner wants to take on the role of “dad” and feels threatened by the child’s relationship with its father ? And mentioned before – What happens if the father meets somebody and falls in love and she feels threatened by it, and tells him she doesn’t want him involved with you and your child ? What happens if he gets a job opportunity that moves him across the country, or even across the world ?

A woman choosing to donor conceive really needs to seriously think through the situation and there are situations where it does make sense and can be handled well. So just some final thoughts –

Both need to be absolutely certain on how that would work. Couples that intimately know each other can struggle to communicate well enough to co-parent, even within a marriage, and even more so when they live apart. You mentioned the specific of every two weeks having visits but what do you expect the visit to entail? How will you communicate changes in schedule? Are there financial obligations? Would your expectations change if his financial situation changed? What influence would he have on life decisions such as education, religion, place of residence, activities etc. What if someone needs or wants to move? Will you be able to control who else is included in the visits? How will his family be included or excluded? How will you handle inevitable disagreements on important issues? Do you have it legally planned out if something should happen to you and you are unable to parent or pass away? Planning to have full legal custody doesn’t guarantee you will make every decision on your own for the child. Are you financially prepared to confront additional legal barriers? You also mentioned having a sibling in two years which opens a new can of worms so to speak. I have watched so many of my friends struggle to work with someone they once loved navigating these issues. Some no longer recognize the person they chose (it happened) to father their child. Parenthood fundamentally changes people and it does seem you could set you and your child up for tremendous conflict. I think I would have multiple friends and family members write down every potential question they can think of and discuss how you can legally address these questions. I would also set up a prescribed procedure that should be followed when conflict does arise. I hope that is something attorneys can legally require. I’m sure you have thought a lot about what you expect, just be certain all of the potential legal issues are addressed to the best of your ability. In my opinion it would be a mistake to cross bridges when you come to them or rely on the donor to be a benevolent actor.

And just this advice – for your own protection, talk with a lawyer first. I got a free consult with a lawyer with expertise in this area, and decided a sperm bank was a better choice. There are a lot of cases, especially in certain states, where your donor could be considered a father, and could take custody, even with a legal agreement in place. Or could prevent you from moving out of state, etc. Took me awhile to let that dream go, but it was the right choice for me.

And though there aren’t many yet (I have read an essay from one myself who recognized she would not exist otherwise, which I thought a very healthy perspective) here are some Thoughts From A IVF Donor Conceived Person (if you want to read some more from such a person’s perspective). With this one, I thought this was also a healthy perspective – “I have never doubted that I was wanted, I’ve always known I was meant to be here on this earth. My conception wasn’t down to mystical chance, I had purpose and meaning to both sets of my parents from the moment I was conceived in my little Petri dish.”

Personally, as a last word, I can relate to this as I experienced secondary infertility, I was simply too old to conceive naturally any longer, even though I did give birth to a genetically, biologically related child – “Finding that you need assistance in conceiving does not mean you have failed, and it doesn’t mean any child you conceive through assisted reproduction is in any way ‘artificial’ or different from naturally conceived children. I’m proud of both my biological mother and my mother. IVF doesn’t make them any different to other parents, and raising a child that was not her own biological material doesn’t make my mother less of a parent.”

Family Preservation

I am a huge fan of prioritizing family preservation. Today’s blog is courtesy of a comment by Ferera Swan along with the graphic image I share.

Sometimes there’s an assumption that advocating for family preservation means “forcing a mother to parent” when that’s not what it means at all. Family preservation means keeping a baby in their families of origin even when a mother is unable or unwilling to parent.

There is plenty of available research and shared lived experiences to support that permanently separating a baby from their mother causes lifelong trauma. Extending that separation to maternal and paternal family members compounds that trauma. Adoptees also often grow up without genetic mirroring and in racial/ethnic isolation, fundamental factors that contribute to mental/emotional health and development.

Biological relationships are the birthright of every human being and should be prioritized and preserved over the interests of others.

Mother/child separation, if necessary for whatever reason, should never be a permanent decision made for the child (unless made by the child) and reunification should always be the first priority.

In the event a mother does not wish to parent, all efforts to keep the child within their families of origin should be made.

Adoptees are at least 4x more likely to attempt suicide than those who remain with their biological families. Please listen.

#adopteevoices #adopteerights

DNA Matters

My apologies for not writing blogs recently. I’ve been out of it with an illness for 5 days (that’s how long since I last shared a blog).

Over the course of my becoming informed, one aspect I had not considered the importance of is genetic mirroring. Really, I should have known sooner. When my niece found us (she was given up for adoption by my sister shortly after birth), she was troubled the most by body image issues. In that situation, she and my mom discovered they had something in common. Our family’s natural genetic inheritance came from stocky, big boned women. Both my mom and my niece were adopted by thin, stylish women. It is only natural, they were never going to look like their adoptive mothers.

Today, I read this –

Something that makes me so mad as an adoptee is when people say “biology doesn’t matter” or “DNA doesn’t make a family” or any other version of that statement. Yes, to an extent we create our own family, and we can choose who to have in our life. But do you know how f***ing PRIVILEGED you (general you) sound when you say “DNA doesn’t matter?” It doesn’t matter to you because you have the choice whether or not to have your biological family in your life. But for adoptees, former foster youth, and donor conceived persons, we don’t have a choice. DNA and biology mean so much more to us BECAUSE we were robbed of it as children, when we had no say in the matter.

It’s also really easy for you to say “biology/DNA doesn’t matter” when you have never had to worry that the pain in your breast could be breast cancer in your early 30s, because you know nothing about your family medical history; or when you have never had to worry about what hereditary diseases you may be passing on to your own children; or when you’ve never had to put “adopted, history unknown” on an intake form for a doctor’s appointment. It’s easy to say “it doesn’t matter” when you’ve never had your children ask why none of their cousins look anything like them. It’s easy to say “it doesn’t matter” when you aren’t having to explain for the thousandth time how your siblings could be so much older than you. It’s easy to say “it doesn’t matter” when you don’t have people asking if you’re actually your mother’s grandchild when you’re standing up at her funeral, because you’re so much younger than all her other children. It’s easy to say “it doesn’t matter” when you’ve never felt like a stranger in your own family.

So please, next time you find yourself about to say “DNA doesn’t matter,” think about how that sounds to people like us, who didn’t get to choose whether we grew up with biological connections. It f***ing hurts when people are telling us that the one thing we can’t have, and the one thing we want more than anything else, “doesn’t matter.” Trust me: DNA MATTERS. And if you didn’t have access to your own genetic mirrors, you would realize that.

It helped my niece when she understood that her body was exactly as her genes intended it to be. Among the many ways adoptees are expected to be something they are not, it is to fulfill some idea the adoptive mother has that she can remake the child’s physical presentation into what she wants it to be. Clearly not a realistic expectation but you would be surprised at how common it is.

When I saw the photo of my maternal grandmother holding my mom for the last time at surrender, I understood that her Scottish farm girl body was the whole reason we were built like we were. Learning who my original grandparents were (both of my parents were adopted) has brought me so much peace with my appearance. Too bad my parents never had that opportunity. Seeing people who look like you, because they share many of the same genes makes such a difference in a person’s life. Seeing how much my paternal aunt looks like my dad or how much my dad not only looks remarkably like his father but they even shared the same interests in life, somehow – these all make everything make so much natural sense.

My sons are donor conceived. At the time we chose that path to parenthood, inexpensive DNA testing was not a reality. Fortunately, being as ignorant as we were about issues I’m so much more informed about now, somehow we still made all the best choices given our circumstances. Our egg donor is known to us – not intimately but well enough. Of course, the boys have had their father as an important male genetic mirror. However, from the beginning, I could see the donor in my sons faces and especially similarities with her biological children. It always made me smile as a reminder of the gift she gave us. Fortunately for the boys, they are 100% genetically related.

Recently, the oldest half-sibling got married and the youngest was the best man. Though my sons are fully informed about their origins and the reason they were conceived in the manner they were, I literally forced them to look at photos of these half-brothers and current photos of the egg donor. One seems more interested than the other but I made them look anyway. True we have been in the donor’s presence more than once but not of her children. But time passes. I want them to know what these people look like – at least. They have direct access to her and the one that recently married through 23 and Me without my involvement – if they want to communicate privately. So far, they don’t seem to need or want that but its there if they did.

I know families in my personal donor conceived circle (we’ve been collected together as a mutual support group of 20 families for 18 years now) who made other choices not to be honest with their conceived children. I won’t judge their own choices but I have been forever grateful we have handled our own choices the way that we have – with total transparency and honesty. It was so much more important than we ever imagined at the time we were doing what felt ethical and correct to us at the time.