Laura Christianson (www.laurachristianson.com) is a journalist, educator, public relations professional, and most importantly, an adoptive mom. Her book, What's So Great About Adoption?, will be released in mid-2007. She founded Heartbeat Ministries, a Seattle-based support network for infertile couples and adoptive families. An award-winning adoption blogger, Laura's passion is to help adoptive parents communicate their feelings about adoption with their relatives, friends, and co-workers. She lives in the Seattle area with her husband and their two sons.

My name is Kris. I am the mother of 4 adopted "special" needs children. Matthew age 10 and Bryana age 5 actually are very typical, Angel age 10 has Down Syndrome with a pacemaker, and Tony age 8 has FAE, DD, Reactive attachment, ODD, and seizues. I've been married to Dave for 13 yrs. We live in Ohio. We volunteer for Adopt America and have since 1999. I also volunteer for our school district as a Parent Advisor for the special ed. dept. The kids are involved in baseball, soccer, wrestling and horseback riding so we live a very full and busy life but would not want it any other way.

Beth and her husband became foster parents to their sons' (then 6 and 10) favorite babysitter, "Carl," in the spring of 2000.  They provide permanent foster care to teenagers for whom both adoption and reunification with birth family have been ruled out. 
 
Though they had initially intended to provide care only to Carl, they learned from their experience with him how desperately GLBT youth need foster families who are supportive.  Since 2000 they have been permanent foster parents to a total of three young men.  The third, and current placement, is also a recovering codeine addict.  They also do respite care for other foster families, which has brought another dozen children into their lives for varying lengths of time.  Beth is also involved in training other foster parents who have bio children ("children who foster") in the home.
 
Beth maintains a blog, Thoughts from a Fostering Family, in which she shares candidly the daily struggle to parent all her children.   Because she must protect the confidentiality of her children, she remains anonymous.  She can be emailed at: pflagfostermom@earthlink.net.

Phyllis, in northern Michigan and her husband are both Registered Nurses and were foster parents for over 20 years. In the past 12 years they have adopted 8 "special needs" children with a variety of medical challenges.

They emphasize that our kids are kids first and foremost--they just have some challenges. They focus on what they can do, and not what they can't do. While they accept each child at their particular level of development, they do encourage them to reach their fullest potential.

In addition to volunteering with the Adopt America Network she is on the Consumer Advisory Committee for their state's Children's Special Health Care Services and a member of the Michigan Foster/Adopt Support Network. She is a support resource for other parents of children with medical challenges throughout the state.