My wife Nancy and I met in the spring of 1991 and were married in May of 1996. We knew we would spend the rest of our lives together shortly after we first met, but I was going through some physical problems at the time, so we decided to wait for me to get past these problems before we got married and started a family.

I had a kidney transplant in August of 1996 and my doctors that the initial kidney disease that I developed in my early teens may have contributed to the fact that Nancy and I could not have any biological children.

From the time that Nancy and I met, we knew that we wanted a family. Our siblings have a combined fifteen children and we adore every one of them. They were our surrogate children for a long time for us.

As many adoptive parents have done, we went down the infertility path. We wanted a child so badly that we would do just about anything to make it happen. We went through 4 IVF's. Nancy did get pregnant on the second time, but miscarried. On the three other attempts, there were no pregnancies. As many of you know it was tough to deal with.

I think sometimes around the second or third IVF try, a former college roommate of Nancy's was also experiencing trouble trying to conceive. They decided to go down the adoption path. They shared their news and excitement with us but I guess we just weren't ready to take the same path yet. Hindsight being 20/20 I sure wish we had chosen that path back then. It took us a couple more body blows than most to start exploring new avenues.

Within hours of finding out Nancy wasn't pregnant after our fourth IVF, we dove into adoption headfirst. We needed to do it and we were finally ready.

Surprisingly, we didn't do a ton of homework. Friends of ours had adopted a little boy from Korea, so we attended a meeting about that program through their agency. It turned out that the program was so busy that you had to get on a waiting list. That information combined with the fact that your child would be delivered to you made us decide to look elsewhere. Call us strange, but we really wanted to travel to the country of our future child's origin. That and the fact that we wanted a baby yesterday made us move to another adoption agency.

Nancy's former college roommate had used Adoption From The Heart's China program, so we gave them a call. We were hooked with the Vietnam program. We loved the age of the babies, the short time frame, and the choice of a boy or a girl. Although it didn't matter if were blessed with a boy or a girl -maybe somewhere down the line we may want to choose with a second or third child.

We signed up and away we went. We tried to do everything as quickly as we could. Our adoption process was very therapeutic for us it helped with all the leftover sadness we were feeling from our failed IVF's.

While we were excited with every step we finished our families were just as excited. It made us feel good that everyone wanted to know if we were getting a boy or a girl and when, especially all our nieces and nephews. They really couldn't wait.

We attended our first informational meeting in April of 2001. On October 16, 2001 (Nancy's birthday), we received our referral. We were getting a little boy, Le Hoang Dao, born August 27, 2001. We couldn't believe it was finally happening to us.

A week later, we met Sandy and Paul at the travel meeting. Could they have given us more or better information? I don't think so. We just looked at the two of them as saviors. The two people that were responsible for us getting the little boy in the picture that we clung to everyday.

Two weeks later, we were on our way to Ho Chi Minh City to visit our son. We had orders from home for lots of pictures and video, I think we certainly achieved that goal.

We arrived in HCMC and just couldn't believe we were there. We certainly never imagined in our wildest dreams that starting our family would mean traveling to Vietnam.

We were there and all we wanted to do was see our son, Christian Dao Dzema. Although we almost missed the bus to the orphanage in the morning (don't ask me how) we made it and we were on our way to Tam Binh. This was the best nervous excitement we'd ever experienced, as many of you know. The hour that we spent with Christian was priceless. He was real. We had a son. We were able to lay him down in his crib when we left (he was sleeping) and kiss him goodbye. We left a toy and a picture of us in the crib. It was goofy, but we thought that maybe he'd look at us and get to know our faces. (Especially daddy's goofy mug.) We stared at him for a couple more minutes until we were told the bus was leaving for Somerset. This was the happiest and saddest day for us.

We were told in HCMC by Sandy and Paul when our group would be traveling back to Vietnam to pick up our children for good. And of course unless it was the next week it was too far away. January 12th, 2002, (57 days) sounded like a lifetime.

We were split into two groups and we were scheduled to leave a week after the first group. We were disappointed, but we ended up traveling with a great group of people and parents.

We were now home from HCMC and counting the days. We put a post-it note pad on our computer and numbered the days from 57 to 1, peeling a page a day really helped.

We passed our time by getting ready for the little fellow to come home and by constantly watching the video and looking at his pictures. We literally had done nothing to get ready for Christian because we were superstitious. But now that we've seen him it was time to start moving. It was also a great way to pass the time.

During the time between our first and second trip, we were asked by the Hallmark Entertainment” channel if they could follow us on our journey. How and the bigger question was WHY they chose us, we will never know, but we loved the idea. They also contacted Sandy and Paul and they generously gavetheir time. It was a wonderful experience and Christian has a tape that he watches frequently that shows exactly how he came to be our son, yea, I am the big goofy guy that is Christian's dad.

Well we're now close to traveling back to Vietnam and our families are still asking why can't we just ask the Vietnamese government if we can get Christian a few days earlier so he can be home for the holidays. My mom wanted us to ask the Vietnamese officials if we could just bring him home on the first trip. We love her. I don't know if anyone else still wonders, but why two trips? I'm not the only one am I?

Well after baby showers, painting, buying stuff, packing, and watching videos it was finally time to go back. Christmas and New Year's were a bit hard, because we sure wanted to be with him, but with all that behind us, January 12 was finally here! Unbelievable!

We were ready. We flew to Dulles from ABE and met the rest of our group there. Talk about pumped. I am not sure if we could have been any more excited. Everyone was bouncing off the walls. I stayed up all night so that I might be able to fall asleep on the flight but I just couldn't. Although Nancy and “Uncle” John from Hallmark claim I did.

1:30a.m.on January 14th we were in Ho Chi Minh City. On the way back to the Somerset, we were told the bus would be leaving for the orphanage at 8:15 a.m. We weren't going to miss this one. (Don't ask.)

We got to our room at the Somerset and saw the crib. What a reassuring and surreal feeling! This was it! We would be parents in only 8 hours.

Of course we didn't sleep well, but we were in the lobby by 8:00. The feeling came upon me on the way to Tam Binh that I'd always thought I'd be on the way a maternity ward to pick up our child but what we were doing felt so right.

We're at Tam Binh sweating and waiting to see our little guy and then he comes around the corner with same caregiver who brought him to us the first time. Before she puts Christian into Nancy's arms, she gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek and smiles as if she understands what is happening in our hearts. He was ours. I was so happy and I looked at Nancy with tears rolling down her face with Christian in her arms and I felt even happier for her. She was a mommy and I knew she'd be a great one. We were finally a family. Something we thought might not ever happen for us.

Now back to the Somerset and calling everybody to let them know that we have Christian in our possession and we weren't going to let go this time! We couldn't wait to get home to have everybody meet him. Everybody was so anxious to meet him especially our four -year- old niece Avery. She didn't understand why we had a baby's room, toys, clothing, and even a picture of a baby, yet no baby! “Where is he?” she would always ask us?

Although we couldn't wait to get home, we loved and enjoyed our time in Vietnam. We fell in love with the place and the people. The Vietnamese people couldn't do enough for you. Try asking a waiter/waitress in your town to hold your 41/2 month old while you eat your dinner. It probably won't happen.

Paul, Sandy, their children and of course, Spanky made the whole trip a joy. The adoption process was a breeze. I'm sure Nancy and I were in Paul and Sandy's room dozen times making sure we did everything right and they never seemed like they minded. We also witnessed the “Naked Dance” but I won't get into that.

The trips and sightseeing and of course the eating and shopping in and around HCMC were awesome. The money sure goes a long way over there. Who would have ever thought we'd be crawling in the Cu Chi tunnels or on a boat ride down the Me Kong River. It blows my mind. All that was just icing on the cake, we had our son.

We came home to ABE airport in Allentown on January 24, 2002 to a welcome home party of about 50 family and friends. A moment we won't ever forget. Our niece Avery was the first to greet Christian. We watched as she ran past the National Guard officers and planted a big kiss on him. Our family and friends couldn't have been happier. Christian was passed along from one person to the next with each person who was holding him not wanting to let go. We were all so thankful he was home safe and sound.

Christian is now a happy, healthy and sloppy 26 month old and we thank God for him every single day. We also hope to someday go back to Vietnam and give Christian some siblings. We want to keep Paul and Sandy very busy.

Some people say that Christian is a lucky little boy, and we respond by telling them that WE are the lucky ones to have been blessed with him.

What an experience! I'd recommend it with all my heart to anyone.