The Firstbrook Five

I love me some bows!

OK, are those some cute bows, or what?! Of course, having them on such a crazy cute kid doesn't hurt any!!
Katie's hair has been a little dilemma from the start . . . what we thought were her bangs, really aren't. That hair you see being clipped in every picture, that hair starts way back at the back of her head . . . so if we cut them like bangs - well, that wouldn't be so cute.
So the solution . . .
we clip.
And if you are going to clip, you'd better have cute clips. Colorful clips. Clips to match specific outfits. Clips just because.
And we've finally found our supplier of clips . . . we've looked long and hard and now I've discovered Punkinhead Hairwear . This gal makes the most beautiful bows . . . and she's been a treat to work with! She has a gazillion different colors, patterns and shapes of bows . . . she has bows of the month, Gymboree colored bows, french clips, alligator clips . . . seriously, it's bow mania over there! :) I bought Katie a bunch of the baby bows - these bows are on alligator clips and they work amazingly!
OK, enough about the bows . . . but I couldn't help sharing these too cute pictures with you!
Be watching for a St. Patty's Day picture . . . and of course, Katie will be wearing a matching green bow!!!

Gotta read this . . .

I received this article through my adoption agency's yahoo group . . . you've just got to read it! I hope it makes you smile and laugh, and yes, even tear up, just as much as it made me! :)

Enjoy!!

The Baby Game
How do you know when you've bonded? Ker-Pow!

By Jeanne Marie Laskas
Sunday, November 20, 2005; W31

"Let's not stack all the gifts in one place," I'm saying to my
daughters. "I don't want it to look like we went overboard." I don't
think we went overboard. Stuffed toy rooster, farm quilt, farm-themed
bowl and plate and cup and spoon, plus baby riding outfit featuring
actual jodhpurs and vest decorated with little embroidered horse.
It's a theme. It's a farm theme, because we live on a farm, and Robin
and David and baby Amelia are coming to visit, and maybe we can dress
the baby in the riding outfit and hold her next to our pony for a
picture.

This is so exciting. My girls are drawing pictures, already
envisioning Amelia as a very stubby creature with vast cheeks and
curly locks. "Welcome to America!" Anna writes on one picture. And on
another, "We all came from China!" She's taping the pictures to the
front door. "Am I going overboard?" she asks. I tell her, no, of
course not. When it comes to welcoming a new baby, you can't go
overboard.

And when it comes to welcoming a baby from China, well, look out.
It's my thing. It's the best thing I ever did with my life, and I did
it twice, so I can easily get caught up in sharing the love. Ker-pow!
Woe is the person who even hints at a desire to adopt a baby from
China. Ker-pow! I'll hit her with my love story, insist it will be
the best thing she ever does with her life, and soon enough I'm
passing along phone numbers of adoption agencies, and, yes, I happen
to have an extra immigration form if you'd like to get started right
here, right now, today. Robin and David never needed my convincing,
but they were kind enough to let me participate with celebrations of
each paperwork milestone, and soon enough their dossier was complete,
shipped off to China, and they hunkered down for the nine-month wait
for the referral of the baby who would be assigned to them.

"I just don't know how I'll make it through this wait," Robin said to
me on the phone one day. She asked if she and David, who live in New
York City, could come visit us for a weekend, and maybe they could
ask us some questions.

That was a year ago. Robin had a notebook full of questions. Most
centered on the one so many prospective adoptive parents face:
bonding. How could they make certain it would happen? I remembered
this one so well. Somehow, you get all twisted up in the thought that
just because the kid didn't grow inside of you, you're not going to
be able to connect as a parent should to a child. Or, the baby won't
with you. So how do you facilitate bonding? Robin had been reading a
lot, and she had cooked up a number of plans. She was going to forbid
anyone but herself and David to hold the baby until she knew the
bonding process was complete.

"How will you know it's complete?" I asked.

"Well, I have no idea," she said. "How do you know?"

I told her that with Anna, I felt connected the moment I touched her,
and with Sasha the process may have been a milli-second shorter, or
longer, I couldn't remember exactly. "It was all more or less
instantaneous, " I said. "It's your baby. You're the mom. You bond." I
told her not to worry about it, knowing that nothing I could say
would quell her private fears.

Then my husband, Alex, piped in with the embarrassing story of what
he blurted out on the bus one day in China shortly after we got Anna.
We were with eight other couples, all of whom had likewise just
received their babies. "So," Alex yelled. "Does everyone think they
got the best one?" It was so crass and so true, and we all fell into
uncomfortable laughter. There we were, adoring our babies -- even
feeling a bit sorry for others in that they were not blessed with the
privilege of parenting this princess, this empress, this most amazing
creature to ever grace the planet -- and there, as it turned out,
everyone else was likewise entranced with their own little burp
machine. "You'll see," Alex said to Robin and David. "You'll see."

So here we are, one year after Robin and David's first visit, and
now, finally, they are pulling up our driveway with baby
Amelia. "They're here!" I shout to Alex. I tell the girls to please
scatter the presents a bit more so it doesn't look like we've gone
overboard. I'm so excited I might explode. I hope it's all happened
for them the way it happened for us, so instantly, so profoundly, so
mysteriously: a family.

They're walking up the path. Robin is carrying Amelia. I'm on the
porch going up and down on my tiptoes. Amelia has apple cheeks and a
crazy ponytail on top of her head. Robin is jiggling her, and David
is juggling bottle, formula, bib. Robin sees my eyes welling up, or
maybe I see hers. We are about to lose it, and I am wishing someone
would make a joke. I open my arms for a hug, and Robin loses it
first. "The best one," she says. "Oh my God, we got the best one."

She chose life.

A year ago, post referral, I felt so many unexpected emotions - sad, confused, excited, nervous, and most of all . . . overwhelmed.

You see, that long awaited for referral picture brought so much more with it than a name, a location and a face. Yes, it brought relief and joy and a sense of "knowing" who our child was. But it also brought along with it unbelievable grief . . . every time I looked at that little face, all I could see, all I could think about, were her birth parents. It was unexpected, it was overwhelming, it was confusing.

For those first few days post referral I think I was in total grief for Katie's birth parents. I knew in my head that our gain came at someone else's great personal loss . . . but seeing that picture, falling in love with that face, it all became such a stark reality. That sweet little girl, those eyes, those pudgy cheeks, that crazy hairline, they all came from the union of two people who we would never know. And those two people made a decision for life . . . specifically, Katie's birth mom chose to carry a child to full term and give birth. Then she chose to give her child a chance for life beyond what she could offer. She had other options . . . harsher, life ending options. But she didn't choose those . . . she chose life.

And those first few days when I first saw Katie, all I could think of was this woman who gave us a gift . . . the gift of Katie. I wondered about her. I wondered about her looks. I wondered about her personality. I wondered about her everyday life. And I especially wondered about her grief.

These were unexpected emotions after such a long wait, to be sure. But I'm thankful for the struggle of these emotions. I'm thankful that after a year these emotions aren't ever very far from the surface. I don't think a day goes by that I don't think of Katie's birth mom. On our hard days, I wonder what temperament Katie inherited from her parents. On our good days I long for this unknown woman to know how happy and content and loved Katie is. She is never far from my thoughts, and she is always in my heart.

I am thankful for Katie. And I'm most thankful and grateful to her China Mommy . . . to the woman who chose life so that we can raise and love that little life . . . our Katie Mei.