as a teen manually spent years in state care and group homes. That's where she met her caseworker leah paschal Itis. She told me what she was going to be doing and help me out with my case. I didn't like her, she'll tell you that. But over the last five years the two formed a special bond. She was very motivated and she had aspirations for the future and I wanted to help her continue to have that. And so I knew that she just needed support. She gave her all the support her job would allow. By the time money was a senior in high school, she was doing everything alone and realized she wished she had a mom to help her my senior year when I went through like a I didn't want to do it anymore. I'm done. She picked back up and told me like I got you pretty much over there, don't do it. That's when leah stepped up. She had always said like I wish you could adopt me, I wish you could adopt me, couldn't because of the job. And then I was watching a documentary where the person had been adopted as an adult and I had never really heard of it. So they filled out all the paperwork and over a zoom meeting in front of a judge. The 19 year old gained a mother and leah, a daughter. I never thought I would be being adopted, never, especially not as an adult. So my thing is don't give up in bradenton, Wendy Lane abc Action News.