His adoption was turned down. Darren decided not to fight the rejection saying the legal battle would leave the little boy in limbo for years. But a short time later, social workers from the county came to him again with the prospect of adopting a sick baby...

Darren: He was born three months premature, but he had no health problems. But they did say he was a high risk because his mom had drugs in her system as well as alcohol and they labeled him with fetal alcohol syndrome. Again, that did not frighten me because of my background at the hospital. The doctor basically wrote, "Potential parents should be very aware of this child because he will probably be mentally retarded and have severe developmental delays."

This time Darren was successful with the adoption and he reports his now 5-year-old son Christopher is healthy and especially smart. Like Darren, Debbie and Olga, a gay couple from Willoughby, sought first to be foster parents out of a sense of need. And for the same reason, to adopt, says Olga...

Olga: I believe that all children need to have some permanency in their life. They need to have a family.

Olga's partner Debbie already had a 15-year-old birth son and she felt the greatest need was from teenage boys...

Debbie: When we got into foster care, I really felt that teenage boys were really treated unfairly. Nobody wanted to touch them. There's no way they wanted to deal with their issues, what they're going through or anything of that sort. I really felt they got a raw deal. They have feelings, they have rights, just like everyone else.