" Marriage and adoption have legal implications, but they are more than only a legal reality. Marriage and adoption are meant to be a lived reality, a lived attachment [...] ‘But the marriage is for the sake of a life together, and the adoption proceedings’ for a life together.
And it’s true too: from the moment I first held her photograph and looked into Shiloh’s eyes under that starry Texas sky, I knew she was mine and I’d die for her. She was sealed in my heart as mine long before my hand signed on any dotted line. "
― Ann Voskamp , WayMaker: Finding the Way to the Life You’ve Always Dreamed Of