Albert Einstein said, “Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”

Gretchen said it another way when we chatted on the phone. She and her husband became foster parents a couple of decades ago. And then they went on to adopt a little boy who is growing up with FAE (fetal alcohol effect).

She knows a diagnosis like that could frighten people who are exploring adoption. So she offered some advice: “It is a wonderful experience.”

Though their son lives with the limitations of FAE, Gretchen says he brings a lot of joy into the family.

Like other adoptive parents who grow to love their children, Gretchen and her husband couldn’t imagine their lives any other way.

Jackie’s adopted daughter with FAE brought a well of emotion gushing into her mom’s heart when she said, “Before I was adopted I was empty inside.” Now she has a family. Now she is loved.

Click here to read about a child with FAE who is waiting for parents.

The Texas Adoption Resource Exchange posts helpful information for parents who are considering adopting a child with FAE.
Click here to access those resources.

She is twenty-three years old. And though she has moved nearly a dozen times in her life, this is the first time she’s actually packed and labeled her own boxes.

At last she feels a sense of control over her own decisions.

This time she knows where she is going. She got to pick out the three bedroom house, and there is even a swing set for her own little girl. Just like other people have.

Annie recalls a trauma that was repeated again and again as she grew up. “I’d come home from school and find a bag or a box all packed up. Then I’d know it was my stuff and I was moving again.”

For several years Annie lived in foster care.

Click here to view waiting children

There are plenty of stories about how difficult it can be to adopt. But sometimes the adoption service systems interface and we all work together until we get it right.

Ted began his adoption journey in Georgia, where he completed pre-adoption training classes. Then he was transferred to a military base overseas. In Germany he attended an adoption conference where he met an adoption caseworker and obtained a home study.

Next Ted found himself at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, where he got in touch with the local child welfare agency and began searching the children’s gallery at www.adoptex.org. And not long after that Mike and Ted became a family.

Jane and Adam’s adoption journey began 35 years ago when Jane’s dad was stationed in Indiana, where her parents completed preparations to adopt. After they were transferred, a Nebraska agency placed a child in their home. The family was transferred again before the adoption was legally final. So their soon-to-be-son moved with the family to Colorado, where his adoption was finalized. Now Jane is married to Adam, and they have completed the pre-adoption preparations. They are about to adopt.

Now we all have to work together to get it right for Augustine.


Click here to view more waiting children.

No family is perfect, but most of us didn’t have to be afraid of our parents when we were growing up.

We weren’t bruised, and our bones weren’t broken when someone got mad at us. We had sufficient food to eat and heat in the winter. We weren’t called names, belittled, sexually assaulted or burned with the hot end of a cigarette.

Tonight it is not safe for 423,773 American children to go home. So they will sleep in someone else’s beds. They’ll wake up tomorrow to eat breakfast in someone else’s kitchens. And they will go to strange schools where they have no friends and the teachers are unfamiliar.

When they are hurt, they will bear it alone or turn to someone else’s mothers or fathers for comfort.

They are foster children.

Average age is 9 1/2 years old.


Eleven percent (11%) of them – 46,615 – have been in foster care for more than five years.

Want to know more about them? Click on this link.

The young people who have lived the foster care and adoption experience know it best. And they have some advice* for us.

That’s why Brittany spoke for many when she said, “Being adopted meant everything to me. Knowing you are in a loving family is what every teen wants.”

*Voice for Adoption 2010 Family Photo Album

DeWitt Jones, National Geographic photographer, noticed that most people are in a hurry. When “Old Faithful” didn’t spout at the very minute the tourists expected, some got up and walked away.

One of the keys to Jones’ remarkable photography is willingness to look around and discover what is happening in addition to what he expected. So when “Old Faithful” was late, DeWitt photographed the tourists, the sky, and the surroundings.

He stayed and he let the day unfold. Hour after hour people came, snapped the usual photographs, and moved on.

But at sunset – when the light played with the water exploding from that reliable, punctual geyser in Yellowstone, came the most magnificent moment of the day. And none of the eager tourists were there to see it. They were busy looking for the next “must-do” on their check-lists.

All alone, Jones witnessed shades of gold and blue and purple behind the sparkling eruption. His photograph of that moment became one of the most published and re-published pictures in its decade. Some people liked it so much they bought the shower curtains that were made from the photo.

That day a lot of impatient tourists came close. They had a great time in Yellowstone. But they missed a magical experience because they were too busy trying to get their expectations met.

If I could offer a suggestion to waiting parents who are distressed about the adoption that seems to not be happening, I’d suggest something simple. But it is also very difficult. Stop for a moment and drop your expectations. Look around you at what is really happening – allow yourselves to see the child or teen whose eyes stare silently back in the photographs. Maybe, just maybe, something or someone even more remarkable than what you’re expecting is waiting for you to discover its possibilities.

To caseworkers who’ve received multiple inquiries but no family seems like the perfect fit, I’d suggest the same. Stop for a moment with your hopes for the age of the parents, state of residence, or number of other children in the family. Stop and look around you at what could happen.

It is so simple. And it is difficult.

It isn’t an either-or kind of thing. Adoptive moms and dads are parents. So are birth parents, or first parents. But in our temptation to categorize things that are a little fuzzy for us, we’re tempted to try to figure out who the real parents are.

Someone recently said that moms and dads can love more than one child, and likewise a child can love more than one mom and dad. I don’t think it’s possible to be loved by too many people.

Some may disappoint us, or even hurt us. But adoptees resist our expectations that they choose sides. Love doesn’t discriminate. It just is.

A child can love her adopted parents without giving up her feelings for the first people she ever loved and trusted.

All of those parents are real.

It must be frightening and wonderful when parents give their children the space they need to simply love – and blossom. And those parents are not diminished in any way.

One adoptive parent expressed it this way:

Not Neal. When asked, he can’t immediately remember the number. He stops and counts before he answers a question about how many of his children are adopted.

Likewise, Betty completely forgot to raise her hand when the speaker asked who in the room had adopted a child.

She has no photographs of her son’s first years because she wasn’t there. She has no record of his first smile or those beginning, tentative steps because she adopted him from the Kansas foster care system.

When the meeting was over I asked, “Why didn’t you raise your hand to indicate you’re an adoptive mom?”

She looked surprised for a moment and then she said, “Oh, that’s right, I am!”

Someone very much like my friend Neal and my sister Betty wrote this poem.

Parents don’t like waiting while the wheels of adoption grind along. They know that with every month that passes, the children they wait for are growing up.

These parents long to be the ones who wake during the night to sooth their children after their nightmares. They want to spend their evenings at parent-teacher conferences or at the kitchen table helping their children with their homework.

It’s really difficult to wait while the faceless and unknown persons in county and state offices meet, read files, review documents, prepare reports, and eventually take action.

The holiday season is a particularly difficult time to wait. Moms and dads want to carve pumpkins and begin building memories. They want to go holiday shopping and wrap presents with their children.

Yes, that means they are eager for the challenges as well. They are ready to love beyond the anger and hurts of their children. And they’re ready to love beyond their own fears and imperfections.

It is so, so hard to wait, when you’re ready to share your life.

If I could, I’d ask waiting parents to do these things: Live your lives. Stay engaged with your friends and community. Find things to laugh about. And be tenacious. Don’t stop reminding us that you are ready. And above all – for the sake of the children – don’t give up. Please don’t go away. Please, please don’t quit waiting.

Sitting in the back seat of the car three days after joining her adoptive family, Sarah voiced her certain fear.

“My heart is broken in millions of pieces and no one can ever fix it. Not you. Not the therapist. Nobody.”

Then she spent the next several years proving in every way she could that her heart simply could not be put back together.

Months have passed. A lot of love, structure, tears, therapy, conversations, more tears, and more love. Week after week. Month after month. One year following another.

This summer Sarah quietly told her mom, “It’s in two, now.”

“What’s in two, Sarah?”

“My heart. One part is my birth family. The other part is my adoptive family. Two pieces. Thank you.”