Avery Kimberlin

I grew up in Denison, a small town outside Dallas, the daughter of a police officer and medical claims reviewer. As a young girl didn have huge career aspirations. Of course, I knew I would have a job that paid the bills and gave us a few extras, but being a millionaire, CEO, or company executive was not something I dreamed about. I became a registered nurse, worked for more than 10 years in a hospital and now work for the government as a medical review nurse. My husband, Paul, has always worked in retail and retail management.

I'm proud of my work, but my life aspiration included being a wife and mother. I wanted a family, which was the main goal. I grew up in the typical American family: parents that were high school sweethearts ( still married to this day), mall town living, one boy, one girl, and we even had the dog! We weren perfect and we were far from wealthy (all of our eedsand a lot of our antswere met). Were we just us and we were happy! I guess, basically, I wanted a repeat of the family I grew up with.

At 15, I met Paul, the boy I would later marry. Immediately upon high school graduation we married (because we were grown up like that, LOL). e just knew that the babies would soon follow. After all, life was going exactly according to plan.

Unfortunately that where the story takes a turn.

The 2.5 kids that we envisioned and planned for did not come aturally. e were the first in either of our extended families to face infertility (or at least talk about it) and we honestly did not know where to turn. After over 10 years of medical treatments, research, and heartbreak we gave up. Maybe being parents wasn in God plan for our family.

Little did we know that God had his own plan. It was a plan that would take us places we had never even dreamed of, give us relationships that will last forever, bond us to a group of complete strangers who cry tears of frustration or joy with us, educate us on a different culture, and give us the opportunity to share how Chinese adoption was the most awesome gift we never knew we wanted.

Welcome to my story!

I never saw myself traveling halfway across the world to become a dad, but then a lot of times I guess life doesn work out exactly the way you plan.

Parenting has been a roller coaster ride. There are a lot of highs and almost as many lows. Whether it wrestling on the floor with my daughter, teaching her how to throw a ball, or comforting her when she hurt, this fatherhood thing is definitely not for the faint of heart.But when I think about standing in that government office in China being handed this screaming, wiggling, bald-headed baby I would do it over and over again just to get the gift of being called addy.