June 29, 2006, Dave and I finished our Guatemalan dossier and over-nighted it to our adoption agency. This was the culmination of a six month paperwork chase. I have never been so happy to hand something to the FedEx man!

At the time, our agency had a 12 week wait for the referral of a healthy infant girl. Our best guess was that we would receive the referral for a baby girl in October.

Less than a month later, we received THE phone call on July 27th. We were presented with a one week old baby girl. 8 lbs. 8 oz., 21.25 inches long. I remember our adoption coordinator saying that this baby was as healthy as they come. We were shocked and ecstatic because we thought we had months to wait for a referral. I asked our coordinator why there was such a short wait and she said, “We must have caught up on our waiting list.”

That evening, I sent an email to our adoption agency’s yahoo group, a group set up for adopting families to ask questions and receive support from each other. I was excited to announce our new baby girl. A short time later, I got an angry email from another family waiting for a referral. This family knew they were ahead of us on the waiting list and were irate that we had received a referral before them.

I called our agency back to ask why we had been presented with this baby girl when others were ahead of us on the waiting list. Our adoption coordinator said she couldn’t believe what had happened. She had accidentally entered our dossier completion date incorrectly, which bumped us way up the waiting list. She said that in all her years as an adoption coordinator, she had never made this mistake. Once she figured out — after presenting Carmen to us — she and others at the agency discussed what to do and decided that God must really want this child for this family.

The day we found out that Carmen had Tay Sachs, I flashed back to this discussion. I am very thankful that God made it so very clear that He wanted Carmen in our family. In the darkest of times, I have clung to that assurance.

It is no secret that international adoption is a tough process. It is expensive and can drag on and on. Only certain personalities (mostly Type A!) would choose the international adoption path and endure the ride. It requires a bit of hysterical perfectionism to get through the seemingly endless paperwork. Every paper, stamp and signature must be perfect. And then there is the waiting and waiting and waiting.

Dave and I accepted one-week-old Carmen’s referral on August 1st (our anniversary). From reading every word I could find on the Guatemalan adoption process, we fully expected a rather lengthy ride before Carmen could come home. The most unpredictable part of the process was PGN, the Guatemalan court system. Once you were “in”, you never knew how long you might have before being signed “out”. There did not seem to be any rhyme or reason to who got out when and certainly no first-in, first-out rule.

From August to December, Carmen’s case moved through the various processes including the biological mother interview and DNA testing. We decided to travel to Guatemala and meet Carmen in early December. We had not been notified that we were even “in” PGN yet so we fully expected that we would have months more of waiting before Carmen could come home.

Dave, Lauren and I flew to Guatemala December 8, 2006. Meeting Carmen for the first time was an amazing experience and one that we will always cherish. We had a wonderful, wonderful time in Guatemala.

Despite how much we enjoyed our trip to Guatemala, I couldn’t stop thinking that we might not bring Carmen home for months, even years. Every adopting family we talked to had been in PGN for months. We met several families in Guatemala whose cases had been in PGN for years. Dave and I prayed that Carmen would come home soon.

We flew home December 13, 2006. When we arrived home late that night, I decided to check my email quickly before going to bed. I sat in the basement and could not believe my eyes. The first email I saw was from our adoption agency saying we were OUT of PGN! The day we said goodbye to Carmen in Guatemala, her case was signed off and she was legally ours. Not only were we in PGN, but we were OUT! Carmen’s case stayed in PGN 9 short days.

I ran upstairs, yelling to Dave that Carmen was ours. He had the biggest smile on his face. He told me that on the flight home, he was praying when suddenly a warm and bright ray of light landed on the side of his face. He looked out the plane window and noticed that it was the only ray of sunshine that made it through the thick clouds in the sky. He felt total peace that Carmen would be home soon. I got a little mad that he hadn’t shared that with me earlier!

I still get chills thinking about that day. Apparently, our agency tried to contact us in Guatemala but we were already on the plane. They were just as amazed and excited as we were.

Less than a month after first meeting Carmen, we flew back to Guatemala and brought sweet 5 month old Carmen home. God knew that this precious little girl needed to come home quickly. He gave us several months of enjoying and loving Carmen before the Tay Sachs’ symptoms started progressing.

First meeting Carmen in the Guatemala City Marriott baby room, December 8, 2006