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When I was growing up, my parents took in foster children. From a young age, I learned that there are a lot of children in need.

I have spent a lot of time with foster children over the years - kids for whom I have not necessarily acted as a foster parent.

As an adoptive parent myself of foster children, I have seen firsthand the glaring problems of the system currently facing this Nation.

Many children in the foster care system are often in the midst of a family challenge.

I'm not proud of this, but I had a lot of misconceptions about American foster care. To me, foster care meant that a child would be placed with you, then taken away. I didn't want to go through all of that.

I think that the hardest thing about working with young people in foster care who've been through this kind of neglect and abuse is really to convince them that they are worthy of being loved. And I think because often they don't feel worthy of it, that's why they push people away.

I was worried if you adopted a foster child, someone from the birth family could still come and take her back. I was afraid that any child in foster care might have suffered such trauma or neglect that she would be impossible to reach. I'm not proud of these fears. But I understand now when others ask me the same questions.

Many foster children have had difficulty making the transition to independent living. Several are homeless, become single parents, commit crimes, or live in poverty. They are also frequent targets of crime.

The process of open adoption is not discussed in the way it should be. Everyone I know who has adopted domestically has at least one tragic story. It was important to me to be able to describe those situations.

There are so many kids in this world, and in this country, that need homes. And so we're perfectly content to look into adoption one day, if for some reason we aren't able to have a biological child.