The Firstbrook Five

Two years ago today

Two years ago today we were stalking DHL . . .
two years ago today we were hovering over our phone . . .
two years ago today we were still waiting . . .
two years ago today we were wondering what it would be like to have a daughter from China . . .

two years ago we received the call . . . finally . . .
two years ago today we experienced one of the greatest moments of our lives . . .
two years ago today we were emailed the face of one of the cutest little girls ever . . .
two years ago today we celebrated the miracle of adoptive birth via the internet . . .

It has been a hard, wonderful, and surprising two years.
We've been to China and back.
We've become a family of five.
We've watched our hearts break, expand, embrace and endure.
We've fallen in love with our Katie Mei again and again and again.

A-T Tour Cure

Our family has a very special friend, Cathryn Achilles . Cathryn is the daughter of our pastor, and over the years she has become a very important and sweet part of our family. When we first moved here Cathryn would come over to visit with her mom as we all became friends. Later Cathryn would come over and "help" with Emily as part of a life skills class. Just this past year Cathryn gave us a beautiful hand-made quilt for our Katie Mei when we came home from China.

None of this may seem extraordinary or very special to you . . . but all of this is very special to us because Cathryn has been afflicted with Ataxia-telangiectasia. A-T is a rare, progressive, degenerative disease that has been slowly taking away Cathryn's abilities. From the A-T Children's Project :

A-T is presently incurable and unrelenting. If they are lucky enough not to develop cancer, most A-T children are dependent on wheelchairs by the age of ten, not because their muscles are too weak, but because they cannot control them. Later, A-T patients usually die from respiratory failure or cancer by their teens or early twenties. A few A-T patients live into their forties, but they are extremely rare.

Every day for Cathryn is a gift . . . and she is a gift to all around her. We love her like crazy around this family and want to do anything and everything we can to support her and others like her with A-T.

That's where you and I can come in. Right now a very amazing and gifted man, Tim Borland, is running 63 marathons in 63 days . . . yup, you heard me right. He is running the A-T Cure Tour in hopes of raising awareness and research dollars. As he runs a documentary is being filmed to record this momentous feat. Daily video blogs are posted to keep up with the tour.

Please take a moment to watch this video that gives a synopsis of this amazing cure tour, Tim Borland and A-T. Watch for a glimpse of our sweet friend Cathryn:

After you watch the video, I'm sure you'll want to check out the video blog to see past days of Tim's run or to continue watching him run across the country. To watch the Cure Tour, you can go to:
A-T Cure Tour

Maybe Tim is heading your way and you might be able to support him at a tailgate party. Maybe Tim is heading towards a friend or family member - tell them about it. Perhaps you've never heard about A-T before . . . well, now you have and you can tell others about it!

Thanks for hanging in there with me until the end. Cathryn is too important to us to let this opportunity to help pass by. I hope you are blessed by the courage and dedication of Tim Borland and all those helping make the Cure Tour a reality!

Sweet Summer Review

Wow. I'm back. Betcha didn't think that would happen . . .
neither did I.

But I've received complaints, encouragement, snide comments, begging, and finally, some serious "pushing" from Ron to get this blog caught up.

It's not that I don't want to, it's just that, well, um,

I have Katie.

Enough said.

Moving on to our summer in review . . . it was a wonderful, glorious, sun filled, fun filled, family filled, summer.

At the end of last summer, when Kelsey and I looked back at the previous 10 weeks and realized that we had spent 7 of them in bed with mono, we immediately began making plans for the Summer of 2008. Big plans. Lots of them. Involving the beach and friends and family and food and fun. And what do you know - it worked! The best laid plans really did come to pass - nothing short of miraculous!

Here's a quick recap of how we spent our summer vacation:

Emily turned seven and we celebrated with a tea party!

Katie got a new swimsuit and she just knew how darn cute she looked:

Emily and Kelsey were in a dance recital. Emily performed a tap routine while Kelsey did a ballet number with her best friend. The girls did great and we were sooooo proud:

We went to the beach . . . alot . . . with friends and without . . . alot . . . and it was great . . . every time:

Katie was busy looking cute:

We celebrated the 4th of July:

Daddy read "The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear" to Katie about a bajillion times:

Ron changed jobs this summer, so we took advantage of a couple of days off and headed for a quick vacation down to Pismo Beach. We hadn't gone away like that in aaaaaages, and boy, did we have a crazy good time:

Katie "learned" how to bowl:

Emily continued her obsession with skirts and leggings:

The girls practiced doing hair on Katie:

We watched High School Musical 2 with crazy and fun friends:

and I learned how to scrapbook digitally . . . just what I needed, I new hobby:

Whew. If you hung in there 'till the end, you must really love our family (or really think Katie is super cute - which she is!!!).
Thanks for sharing our summer memories with us . . . we're so grateful to God for providing us health and a wonderful place to live where we can enjoy all He has created!

Gotcha Day Revisited

It was a year ago . . .
I woke up at 4am, tossed and turned, got up at 5am and wrote this:

"Six yours people . . . did you hear that? Six HOURS, not months, not weeks, not even days. Six HOURS. Freak Out. This is it . . . Katie Mei Day. Can't wait to meet her. Can't wait to be her Mommy. God is good."

By 8am our entire group was down at breakfast. I'm not sure we ate anything, but we were together. We regrouped after breakfast in one of the guys rooms and looked at eachother, called homes, emailed loved ones, and just tried to pass the time.

By 11am we were all loading onto the bus and driving across town to the Civil Affairs Office in Nanchang. We entered the office and paced floors, sat around, and almost hyperventilated.

I have endured labor twice - once without drugs - but I've got to say, sitting in a hot, muggy room in China, waiting for your child to arrive and be handed to you - it rivals even the most intense labor I've ever experienced!

Finally the moment arrived, the girls were here! There was only one screaming . . . and she was in the back of the line . . . and she was ours . . .

The next 30 minutes or so are a blur. I know we tried in vain to comfort her . . . no amount of cheerios, toys, singing or rocking would calm that big bundle of screaming down! Katie was so hot, so confused, so terrified, so sad . . . it was almost unbearable.

We know now she had just endured a 2-3 hour drive from the orphanage in a car with 2 women and 4 babies. We know now she was dressed in 2 layers in 90+ degree heat - the top layer being wool. We know now she had spent the first 9 months being loved and spoiled by her foster mommy and had just spent the last 3 months screaming and fussing at the orphanage. We know now that she must have thought this was the absolute worst day of her life.

But she was wrong.

What she thought was intended for her harm . . .

God meant for her good . . .

And not just for her good that first day . . . but for every day there after . . .

May 18, 2006

June, 2006

July, 2006

August, 2006

September, 2006

October, 2006

November, 2006

December, 2006

January, 2007

February, 2007

March, 2007

April, 2007

May, 2007

Psalm 68:6 . . .
"He sets the lonely in families . . . ."

God is good.
Very good.

A year ago today

Can you believe it . . . a year ago today we were on a plane, heading to China?!?!

OK, I realize you don't want to look at pictures that not only were taken a year ago, but you've also already seen them!

Please, stop the harassing emails . . . I know you want to see more Katie . . . I know you want to hear all about how cute and smart and funny she is.

We've been busy. Very busy. Seriously busy.

Three kids + homeschooling + working from home + tearing out linoleum and carpet + installing hardwood + painting trim + painting walls + occasionally cooking and cleaning = no blogging. Sorry. Something had to go. And this was it.

But we're back. And I've got stories and pictures and more to share.

For now, let me just share a few cute pics of Katie to hold you over . . . I'll try and come back tomorrow with house pics and stories galore . . . trust me, you won't want to miss any of it!

There, are you all happy now?!?!  :)

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.

One year ago today . . .

we were waiting by the phone . . . pacing the floors . . . praying . . . tracking DHL online . . . eating junk food . . . crying . . . waiting . . . surrounded by friends . . . .
and then this happened

The long awaited phone call . . . a name . . . a location . . . an age. All those months of waiting culminating in one very brief phone conversation.

And then the waiting began again as we watched our inbox . . . more tears . . . more pacing . . . more friends arrived . . .
and then we saw this

I wish I could tell you some kind of profound words came out of my mouth when I first laid eyes on that little face . . . but I'm pretty sure the conversation went something like this:
"Oh, look at her, look at her, look at her!!!!"
"I think she might need a comb over - check out that hair!"
"She has little Yoda ears, don't ya think?"
"Oh, she's just adorable . . . so cute . . . crazy cute . . . right . . . I mean she is cute, right, it's not just me? Please someone tell me she's as cute as I think she is!!!"

Profound. Deeply profound, don't you all agree?

Last February 28th was an amazing day. It wasn't just amazing because we finally saw our Katie Mei, it was amazing because we were surrounded by so much love and laughter. We received gazillions of emails that day by friends near and far . . . from email buddies, family friends, friends of friends, you name it. Our house was a constant stream of friends here in town, all wanting to catch a glimpse of the long-awaited, long prayed-for, Katie Mei. I can not even begin to express what a treat it was to share our day with so many . . . and that so many wanted to participate in the day with us.

We recognize that Katie belongs to God first . . . He created her, He has sustained her, He has loved her from the very start. And now Katie belongs to us through the miracle of adoption . . . we worked for her, waited for her, prayed for her. But Katie belongs to all of you, too. So many of you held our hands, watched our kids, prayed with us and for us, knit scarves for kids in China, emailed us, called us and most importantly loved Katie and prayed for her, right from the start.

She really belongs to all of us . . . she is a blessed child indeed, to be so wanted and so loved by so many.

Happy New Year!

It's the Year of the Pig . . . and we've been celebrating all week long! Geesh, in China, they celebrate the new year for an entire week - and so we decided to stretch our celebration out over this past week as well! :)
We started out by visiting Chinatown in San Francisco last Monday. We loaded up the SUV, packed water bottles, a stroller and lots and lots of jackets and headed 2 hours north. We made it to SF before noon and soon realized that we would need to shed most of our layers - it was a beautiful day! The streets of Chinatown were littered with red paper scraps - leftovers from firecrackers the previous night. We wandered in and out of shops, ate lunch, even watched a traditional "lion dance" go up and down the street. It was just as we had imagined and hoped! Katie seemed totally content and unimpressed were her "familiar" surroundings. As long as we kept popping in fortune cookie rejects purchased at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory - we were good to go!

Kelsey and Emily completely enjoyed their first Cable Car ride . . . Kelsey even stood on the outside while we were traveling across town! :) As we would climb up a hill, Emily would remind me, "make sure you hold your hands up when we go down!" And sure enough, as we headed down a hill, up her hands would go - just as if we were on a roller coaster! Fun stuff! I don't really have great pics from the day . . . I decided I would just sit back and enjoy that day, rather than watching from behind a camera. I'm glad I did!

Today we headed down to Seaside to celebrate the New Year with other families with children from China. We've been meaning to connect with this group of adoptive parents, but just haven't made the time to do so - until now! We all met at a Chinese restaurant and the chaos ensued! :) It was great to reconnect with my friend Shannon, who brought her daughter home through All God's Children, as well. Shannon and her family are now getting closer to bringing home their next daughter, Phoebe, from China! We also met tons of great families - seriously - everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming and it was so amazing to see so many beautiful China daughters!

One of the highlights of the day was meeting Stacey and her family - including cutie patootie Ryleigh from China! Stacey emailed me early on in our paperchase for Katie and we've emailed off and on since then. They only live 45 minutes away, but again, we've just never made a big enough effort to meet them - until today! I'd post pics of Katie and Ryleigh together - but trust me - Katie was not cooperative!

And that brings me to this . . .
you know how in every crowd, at every social function, there's always that one child. You know what I mean - that child who is crying and clingy and whiney and obstinate and annoying. Well guess what?! That child is our child. It's Katie. I'm serious. I'm thinking Katie just doesn't like a crowd, but if I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times today, "Boy, Katie sure does have attitude, doesn't she?!" Um, yes. You could say that. Thankfully we also heard, "Oh, Katie is so cute!" and "Oh, she sure does love her Mommy, doesn't she?" Those words helped. But not so much when your kiddo is screaming about being fed by a fork instead of a spoon and refuses white cake because she sees her sister eating chocolate. Attitude. And opinions. Lots of them.

Good thing she's so cute . . . as you'll soon see:

And lest you forget we have THREE super cute kids . . . for your viewing pleasure: