This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star and the American people.

To search for the Our American Stories podcast, go to the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast. Jill Dugger and her husband, Derek, are here to share their

story. The unedited truth behind TLC's hit television show that captivated the nation 19 kids and counting.

Their story has become a New York Times instant bestseller with a memoir called Counting the Cost.

Let's take a listen.

Hey, so I am Jill Dillard.

I'm Derek Dillard.

Jill and Derek Dillard here. I used to be Jill Ducker, and I was part of a family with 19 kids and counting.

You may know about us from the reality show TLC had for a long time running

17 kids and counting, 18 kids accounting, and then 19 kids and counting on. So they probably should

have renamed it 19 kids and counting down once it started 18 because I think there's only three

kids under 18 now. so that it could have been

like counting 18 kids and counting 17 kids and people would wonder though what was happening yeah

could be sound very violent but anyway I grew up in a family with lots of kids and so we recently

wrote a book counting the cost that talks about our journey.

So I really felt like growing up on reality TV, my story was always going to be

continued to be told really for me.

And so in writing a book, I felt like if the story is already going to be told, I would rather be the one telling it.

So, yeah.

Our story, though, goes back to, I grew up, I'm the second daughter in the Dugger family, fourthborn.

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