It was the Fall of 1994 and our family was getting stale and restless. Our kids were getting very independent. We had several premonitions about our adoption. Although we did not have set travel plans we thought that foreign travel was in our future and began the process to renew (in my case) and obtain new passports. Our church has several mission trips going and we thought that maybe a foreign mission trip was in store for our family. I had been on the "Babies Can't Wait" developmental team to evaluate scores of adoptive babies for the last eight years. Although I thought the babies were really cute and the families interesting, never before was it placed on my heart that our family should adopt. Everywhere our family went we ran into families that had just returned from completing a foreign adoption.

One fateful night, the whole family went to a Stephen Curtis Chapman concert on October 27th, 2004. At intermission, a video, "Shaohannah's Hope," was shown in support of Chinese adoption. Although Steven Curtis Chapman is about our age and has three grown biological children, he and his wife have adopted three Chinese girls. After the video, my family went out in the corridor and looked at each other. We all four wanted to adopt a Chinese baby girl! We spent the rest of the 2004 year at home and in Seabrook, soul-searching, trying to rationalize and talk ourselves out of it, and praying about adoption for our family. The answer was always the same....move forward with the adoption.

In January, 2005, our next step was clear. We did some research about international adoption and interviewed at several adoption agencies. Jeff and I were both united in our quest for a Chinese baby girl. However, Jeff did most of the extensive paperwork and followed up on details of the adoption paper trail. Meanwhile, I was reading everything I could get my hands on about adoption and Chinese culture. There are many websites to peruse on every aspect and angle of adoption.

Catherine and Andrew were most excited and involved when Leslie, our social worker, came to our house to meet the family and see our home. In record time, Jeff had all of our birth and family records, passports, and fingerprints. Our paperwork was finally off to China! Our dream of a baby girl began to materialize. Our documents were "logged into China" on June 9th, 2005. Being an optimist and based on historical data, I believed that we would get our referral in January or February, 2006. Winter season came and went with no referral in sight. We knew from the websites that the referral process had slowed way down and it might be the Spring until our referral came.

In the meantime, Catherine and I shopped until we dropped. We did not know the size or age of our baby so we just bought many outfits in each size! Finally, on May 25th, 2006, we received our referral by e-mail. We were instantly in love. Carly was older than we expected, but we knew she was our baby and the one destined for the Carbery family! We are all now so excited to fly to China and meet our newest family member!

My family wanted to adopt. At first we did not know where we wanted to adopt from. There were a lot of places we were thinking of adopting from. We thought really hard about where to adopt from. Then we knew that we were destined to adopt from China. My dad started to do the paperwork. It did not take a long time for him to do that. My mom and I got red thread bracelets that connect us to Carly.

Then a lady came to our house and she talked to us about adopting. She was there because she needed to see if we were a responsible family that can take care of a baby.

Then after that we waited and waited and waited. It seemed like forever. We thought we would get her in January. Then we found out that it was getting even slower mostly because of Chinese New Year. Then we found out that we missed the referral cut off date, but we also found out that we will be getting the referral soon. We were so happy. I always wear my red thread bracelet because I really feel that I am connected to my new sister, Carly.

It all started at our first Stephen Curtis Chapman concert, when we heard about international adoption. And our family was real excited about it, so we decided to do it. And it was a really long process taking over a year to complete, but it was really worth the time and the money when we finally got to see her face. And from that we knew that Carly was the right match for our family. Also, I felt that she would belong knowing that she looked so much like the Catster! But hopefully she will not act like the Catster in fear of a time-out!

In conclusion, the adoption was an interesting process which brought by a great reward. And I hope that the future will be bright for our new family member.

By Andrew