I have six children, now teenagers and young adults, who have given me incredible challenges throughout their lives. When he was a toddler, my son was diagnosed as autistic and retarded, and pronounced incurable. One of my three adopted children was seriously malnourished when he arrived from a South American orphanage. Another had been severely abused by his father at the age of two and a half, just months after the death of his biological mother. For the next three years he remained in an orphanage, where doctors viewed him as justifiably traumatized. I have faced many challenges with these children, yet at the same time, raising them has been among the easiest and most comfortable experiences of my life.