This winter gold medalist, Scott Hamilton was asked by an ice skating Olympian competitor how he stayed at the top of the competition from one year to the next.

Hamilton’s answer was “Focus every single day. You have to be determined that there will be no shoulda done this or woulda done that or coulda maybe done something else. You have to do absolutely everything you know to do every single day without fail.”

For twenty-seven years everyone connected with The Adoption Exchange has done their very, very best every day, evenings and weekends.

Some years are easier than others. But that isn’t the point.

Nothing less than that is good enough for the children and their families.

My mother’s youngest sister was living in our home before I was born. We didn’t give a name to the arrangement, but in my heart this aunt has always been my big sister.

Indian child welfare wisdom encourages us to recognize customary adoption* and other legal options that create permanent and safe family bonds without terminating all legal rights of birth parents.

In 2010 the adoption community is treating this as a new discovery, though the established Indian culture has endorsed it for many generations.

There are lots of families of many ethnicities who do this. Some have arrived at formal guardianship arrangements. Sometimes the families simply do it themselves, without arrangements ceremonially established by a tribe or government leader. Aunts and uncles step forward to help raise children who are victims of parental neglect, dug misuse, or incarceration of their parents.

Sometimes close friends of the family who feel like relatives are the ones who step forward to raise the children – as their own, but without denying the ties to birth family.

Many people in their fifties and sixties are raising their grandchildren. A recent news article reported 6,000 such families in Montana alone.

According to the Chicago Tribune, 4.7 million children in the United States were being raised in households headed by their grandparents.

Customary adoption? Modification of parental rights? Co-parenting? I don’t care what we call it. I just think we should allow for cultural and legal avenues that encourage us to do whatever the children need for us to do.

Adoption itself isn’t sad. But the circumstances that lead to the need for it break our hearts.

Like all changes in life, the process isn’t without pain and loss. As adoptive parents come to love their child and are confronted with the devastating consequences of that child’s losses, they are haunted. “I wish I had been there to be his parent in those first years. I wish I could have protected him from all of those experiences that left these scars.”

Suzanne recently looked back over her years as an adoptive mom. This is what she said:

When we let it, adoption transforms every one of us who is involved.

Kenni was eleven when she was adopted after years of neglect that often left her without food or a warm place to sleep. She was left alone for long periods and felt the only one who cared about her was her dog. She said, “I now know that a Mother and a Father are not [people] who give birth to you – it is someone who loves you and takes care of you.”

As they arrived at our office with their parents, I bent down to get acquainted with Grace and Reilly. I told them my name, and I asked each of them about their names, which they were happy to tell me.

A pleasant man was holding Reilly’s hand. “Is this man your daddy?” I asked. Both of the children nodded.

“What is his name?”

“Papa!” proclaimed Reilly.

I looked up in time to see Marco’s face break into a happy smile.

Isn’t that just about the very best name you can imagine?!

Some fabulous fellows adopt. Other wonderful men help to make it happen and step forward to encourage and support adoptive fathers. Happy Father’s Day to Marco and all of you awesome dads who make life safe for the children and give them love.

I was very blessed to be raised by both of my parents, even though I lived in two separate homes. Times were not always easy and there were obvious challenges along the way, but LOVE surrounded each and every moment.

My association with adoption takes me back to the pivotal years of growing up, when the love from my family grounded me and allowed me to grow. I have two amazing parents that, throughout my childhood, did anything and everything to put us kids first.

My mom decorated special cards for us, sent us to various camp, introduced me to the piano, took us to the beach and on other vacations, challenged us to use our imagination, helped us do well in school, restricted us from watching too much television, encouraged us to grow and she us loved unconditionally.

My dad never missed a softball game, walked us home from school, braided my hair, tucked us in at night, cooked breakfast and packed lunches with a creatively drawn snoopy on the front of the bag, challenged us to be ourselves, restricted me when I pushed the limits, supported us no matter what we wanted to do in life and loved us unconditionally.

I think about the 123,000 children waiting and longing for how I grew up. Their situation is no fault of their own and my childhood is one every child deserves. It was not perfect, and yes there were bumps along the way, some I even made, but the bottom line still remains the same: there is always a safety net when I fall – a safety net made of love. There is always someone to call, someone to tell me they love me.

It breaks my heart to think about the children who do not have this kind of love in their life. Love is something we need to survive in this world, like water. And without it, well I simply can’t imagine what that feels like.

But what I do know is this – our nation’s waiting children make me work harder. They are the reason I find the energy to pull through when days are tough because these children are depending on me.

We, The Adoption Exchange, are a few of the only people working diligently to find the love that only comes from a family for the 123,000 children waiting in foster care. Our jobs will never be done until EVERY child has a home filled with love.

So you ask how adoption has changed me. I am THANKFUL, so very thankful for the family that has continued to love and support me through each chapter of my life. And I am also committed. Committed to making a difference in a child’s life so they too can feel what it is like to be fulfilled and surrounded with unconditional love. The children who wait deserve nothing less.

The experience of adoption is hard to put into words. But I asked some of our staff to try. This is what Margot said:

I would not have the life have had it not been for the courage of a young woman to know that she could not do what she hoped I could do.

My daughter is a gift from the universe…two or more lives intersected from different countries with one common need LOVE.

Adoption has made my soul whole.

The world of adoption is a sacred place that the few who go to [even] once know what it takes and feel the sense of community.

How has adoption touched your life?

There are a lot of viewpoints on transracial adoption.

When a reporter asked James about what he thinks his adoptive family might be like, James said this: “I’d like a Hispanic family, like me. Or a black family. Or a white family.”

Twelve year old Isaac recently drew a picture of what his hoped-for adoptive family will look like. He put four people and a dog in the picture. He painted himself in a bright red shirt. And he wanted us to know that his mother will be wearing high heeled shoes. There are a variety of skin tones represented in the family. What Tom, the news anchor noticed, was that the dad Isaac created for himself has very large hands. “That’s because he is reaching out to hug me,” Isaac said.

Isaac is still waiting for the dad to hug him. You can see his captivating smile and find out what he thinks about girls on Wednesday’s Child if you click here.

A young man in CA named Max was a boy without a legal, given name until the age of 20. After he left foster care he discovered he couldn’t get a job because he had never been given a first name. Last year an attorney provided pro bono legal services to file the forms and obtain the needed Court ruling to give Maximus a full, legal name.

Children lose so much when they grow up in foster care.

When I met her, I wondered how Zena IV got her middle name. I thought maybe she was the 4th generation. After all, I know a family with three generations named Polly, and I have a niece named Dixie. And of course there are lots of men who put III or IV after their names.

Zena was in foster care for several years before she was adopted. When her birth certificate was re-issued to her adoptive family the matter was cleared up.

Some anonymous someone in some office somewhere reversed the letters of her middle name, Vi. For years her medical, school, and social service files followed her with that error – and there was no mom or dad to set the records straight.

Children without parents lose so very much.

They lose years of learning, loving and growing. Innocence and the chance to just be a child are gone. A child’s place in her family disappears, as does the power to access the adults who make life-changing decisions. Judges, adoption supervisors and caseworkers are frightening strangers that hold the power to direct her future.

The children may be separated from siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Friends, schools, church or temple, personal belongings, photographs, and….eventually…. memories disappear.

Then when they grow up there is the whole issue of that original birth certificate, which in many states is permanently withheld from them after their adoption.