New York, New York

This past weekend, we drove up to visit my sister, Sherry. Smart lady that she is, she just bought an apartment in New York City, the best place in the world.

It has been 7 years since we moved away, but every time we come back, it feels as good as slipping into a pair of loose sweatpants after eating too much dinner. Even the smog smelled good. Ahhhh...

Sherry, Craig, Andrew, and I hit up some of our favorite haunts in the East Village and Union Square. We grabbed omelettes at a diner, loaded up on pastries at Veniero's, bought way too much smoked kielbasa from J. Bacynsky's butcher shop (location of the world's best kielbasa this side of Poland), and troubleshot a flat tire, which we discovered right before we were set to drive back to Pennsylvania.

Sherry also blessed Andrew with some truly knockout Chinese New Year gifts: a dragon marionette, a traditional Chinese drum toy, a hong bao with - what? only a weird piece of green paper in it?! - and a mandarin hat with a long braid on it, too small for Andrew's large noggin but just the right size for William's. I can't wait to try it out on him. The two-foot braid will balance out his baldy baby head with charming effect.

Xin nian kaui le!

The Not-So-Feathered Nest

If William were to come home today, here's what he'd find in his nursery:


Tonight, we finished painting the cut-ins. Tomorrow night, we roll. Then, all that's left is to do is to paint the trim, move in the furniture, and accessorize. We hope you like it, little guy.

Warm and Well-Fed

My oldest sister, Diane (a.k.a., "Eben") is the runaway winner of the best present-giver award in our family. Take a look at what we received for William yesterday. If I had to pick a theme for all the items she sent, it would definitely be "Warm and Well-Fed."

Warm: Those black and white Robeez-type shoes make me want to bust out a trombone and holler, "Oi!"

Well-Fed I've said it before and I'll say it again: the inventor of the Baby Bjorn bib should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Having this bib around when Andrew was a younger, sloppier eater certainly helped keep the peace in our household.

Thanks, Eben!

A Thief in My Own Home

Twenty-five days until our departure, amidst all our travel preparations, I find that my mind is constantly returning to William's birthmother. While this time is largely full of excitement and anticipation for us, I have to imagine the birthmother is passing these days in sorrow and dread, counting down the time until her child is taken one very wide ocean and a continent away from her.

If I knew that in twenty-five days, I would no longer have access to Andrew, I can tell you that I would be a broken, disconsolate shell of a woman. That is putting it quite mildly. Yes, it is true that the birthmother made the difficult choice to place William for adoption, believing it to be in his best interest. Certainly, we will be able to provide for William in ways that she could not. And yes, it is also true that if we didn't adopt him, another family would have.

Still, a part of me can't help but feel like a thief, like I'm stealing another woman's child. That same part of me feels guilty for usurping her ability to savor her child's first steps, to delight in his first words, to rejoice during each of his birthdays. Mother's Day will forever be bittersweet because I know that halfway around the world, there's a young woman with a broken heart and that, in some convoluted way, I bear some responsibility for it. That the birthmother has visited William several times while he has been at St. Lucy's is a scenario better than any I could have hoped for. But at the same time, it is one more thing that makes it harder for me to bring him out of the country without feeling a little guilty.

I don't know if we'll get to meet William's birthmother in Taiwan - I really hope we can. In either event, we bought her two gifts, a photo album for the pictures we'll send on each of his birthdays and a Tiffany's heart pendant. When she wears the necklace, pehaps she'll think of her sweet Szu-Chuan and remember not the heartache that comes from making the hard sacrifices that love sometimes demands, but the joy in knowing that her child is safe and well-loved by not one, but two families.

Stick It to Me

Yours truly just returned from the doctor's office, where for half an hour I became a human voodoo doll.

In preparation for our travel to Taiwan, I received Hepatits A and tetanus shots and had two vials of blood drawn as part of my routine checkup.

All together now: "Ai-eeeeee!!!"

Chubbalicious!

Hooray! We received the latest update photos of William today. If the date stamp on the bottom of the pictures is correct, they were taken just two days ago.

This is the first time we've ever seen full-length pictures of him. Upon reviewing them, all I have to say is, "Hoo-whee!" At 6 1/2 months old, he is 19.6 pounds of lovable chub. He measures 28.3 inches and has a head circumference of 16.5 inches. His height and weight put him somewhere the 95th percentile on the Chinese boy growth charts and not much further behind on the Western child charts.

Happy baby = happy mommy.

"Mommy, you should have sent me matching socks in my last care package."

"But at least you're coming to get me soon."

William's big brother, Andrew, was also a tall baby, but he was and still is all lean, mean muscle. In light of that, I have to admit that I'm really looking forward to having a pudgy baby with squishy thighs.

Ooh! And all that the extra baby bulk might just mean I have an excuse to go out and buy some different clothes for William! Shh... don't tell Craig.

Offering an Adoption Option

While hitting the stores over these past few days, I have been consistently reminded that the American marketplace is not quite yet an adoption-friendly realm.

Consider this: I was browsing the greeting card aisles looking for cards that would welcome three adopted children I know into their new families. Two of the kids are around the 1 year-old stage and one is approaching 2 years old. All of the cards I found made reference to "babies" and "bundles of joy" and came illustrated with bottles, prams, and booties - you know, newborn stuff.

On my quest for the right formula for William, I have begun registering on formula company websites in order to get substantial coupons to use towards their products. This morning, on the Carnation/Nestle Good Start website, I was asked all sorts of questions such as whether I planned to work outside of the home during my baby's first year to the name of the local hospital in which he was born.

While browsing online for photo announcement cards with which to herald William's adoption, I hit a similar roadblock. My usual photo product standby website, kodakgallery.com turned up zilch, though there were some blank card options that were tweakable.

Just as I was beginning to despair of finding adoption-sensitive retailers, the tide began to turn. Tonight, as I was filling out the Similac website's questionnaire, I noticed a field in which parents could indicate that their child is adopted. In addition, I was pleasantly surprised to learn from a friend that Babies 'R Us has now added an option to their registries that asks if the child is adopted. And of course, there are the wonderfully gifted adoptive parents, such as Sarah W. and others who harness their talents to create products that meet the special needs of adoptive families.

So, I suppose the American marketplace is slowly creeping towards becoming adoption-friendly. Perhaps in a generation from now, it will be commonplace for companies to offer adoption options in their products and services where necessary and appropriate. With the adoptive population in America generally surging forward, they would be wise to do so.