We always have many more children needing adoptive families than we have families waiting to adopt, so recruiting potential families is a constant challenge for us.
Voluntary adoption agencies have nearly 300 approved families waiting to adopt children, despite record numbers of children in care.
The couple had been waiting to adopt a child since February 2002.
In recent months, families waiting to adopt from Cambodia have engaged in a passionate letter-writing campaign to Congress.
"There are so many families waiting to adopt," he added, offering an alternative that crisis pregnancy centers and others are increasingly promoting.
The couple, who had moved from Manhattan while waiting to adopt their first daughter, welcomed a neighbor's invitation to services at St. George's Episcopal Church.
Staying down the hall from them at their hotel is Jeana Bonner from Salt Lake Valley, Utah, who is waiting to adopt a 5-year-old girl, also with Down syndrome.
But under the new law, second parents who have been waiting to adopt their partners' children will be able to do so, making courts more willing to terminate parental rights of biological, but absent parents.
In another long-trailed announcement, the new bill will stop local authorities in England from delaying adoptions in the hope of finding a perfect racial match for the child if there are couples waiting to adopt.
