China Families Reunion!

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a reunion with the families with whom we traveled to China to get our daughters. All three girls are from the same orphanage and they were all born within days of each other. Abby is the oldest followed by McKenna, who is one day younger, and Caroline who is three days younger than McKenna. We had a blast getting together with them. McKenna lives in the same town we do, but Abby lives about 2 hours away so we try to get together twice a year. We all feel it is important for the girls who have such a shared history to keep in touch with their China "sisters". We are pulling for Abby's family to move closer and they are looking into doing just that! Yay! The girls had so much fun running around McKenna's backyard, playing dress up, opening Christmas gifts early, running around inside, playing on the rocking horse, putting on play aprons and baking us pretend cookies, and just all around having way too much fun! Abby is by far the tallest, followed by McKenna, and then Caroline. Abby is so smart, she is already reading at 4!

We love getting together with these families. The closeness we shared during our experience of a lifetime is something that is impossible to describe. There's something sacred about the creation of a family, whether it's marriage, the birth of a baby, or meeting your baby in person in an office somewhere in another country. Those who have been through the adventure and nervousness of traveling halfway around the world to meet your baby, all in the same "waiting room", all of you holding your child for the first time...it's just a miracle. We were all in different stages of parenthood too: McKenna has 3 older teenage siblings born to her parents, we had a 5 year old adopted son waiting for his sister-his only sibling, and Abby is the first child for her parents. I was so happy to be able to be one of the first to say, "Congratulations Mom and Dad" to her parents.

We were also in survival mode. All of the girls were in different stages of being sick. They were all a bit traumatized by being put into their parents arms not knowing who we were or what languange we were speaking. We were trying to figure out their eating and sleeping habits (remember they were a year old!), how to prepare their bottles, diaper issues, and general personalities of the girls. We were trying to do all this out of the comfort of our homes and what is familiar to us. A hotel room is not the most convenient place to take care of your new baby's needs. We did not know how to get to the nearest Wal-Mart and certainly couldn't read Chinese. We survived by sharing what we had: Extra baby food in exchange for extra diapers, disposable bibs, extra wipes, tissues. How many taxis do we have to flag down for our group? What should we tip our guide when we leave China? What do we want to eat for dinner? Anyone want to try the pigeon? It's kind of like being on "Survivor", but with a baby in your arms...and there's not a competition because we all already received our "treasures."

We survived and the girls thrived! To see them now, it is nothing short of a miracle that we were given the most precious bundles to love and care for and see them grow into lovely little girls with such personality! Beautiful.

Abby's mommy is also an uber-talented seamstress and has made clothes for the girls over the years. No pattern, no measuring the girls, just dead-reckoning about the sizes and creates clothes from her head and makes them! She made the white dress Abby is wearing from tablecloth material given to her and put beautiful silver lace overlay on it. She made pjs for McKenna and Caroline that are so soft and snuggly that Caroline wanted to wear them immediately! She matched Caroline's pj's with the colors in her room (picture below). Last year she made Chinese dresses for them, again without any pattern and estimated their size and was dead-on correct! She is absolutely amazing.

Traditional Red Couch photo, White Swan Hotel, Guangzhou, China. March 2005

L-R McKenna, Caroline, Abby.

The "Mama-razzi's" insist on a photo-op whenever we get together. Our traditional "red couch" photo courtesy of McKenna's family couch. L-R McKenna, Caroline, Abby

Caroline, Abby, McKenna. The white dress was made by Abby's mom. The picture doesn't do it justice! It was stunning.

The three pretties little bakers in the world.

Just how many girls can fit on one rocking horse?

Caroline gives 2 thumbs up for her new pj's. Don't they match her room perfectly?

Just for fun, this is last year's red couch photo with the Chinese dresses Abby's mommy made. Aren't they beautiful?