Birthday Thoughts

Today Camille turns 1!!!! It is hard for us to believe that she is already one year old. It feels like time flies by even faster with your second child. A lot has happened to our sweet Mei Mei in just her first year of life. She has lived in three countries...Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. She survived a brown recluse spider bite. She has officially become a monkey girl after being initiated by her older monkey boy brother. She has caught up quickly on all of her developmental milestones. She has melted the hearts of many with her bright smile....actually an award wining smile. See this month's Adoptive Families Magazine where her photo is one of the winners of their national photo contest or peek at their website.

One thing that I didn't expect was to feel such a mix of intense emotions on her birthday. On Noah's birthdays I always think back to his arrival and the flood of emotions I felt when I first heard his cry, when I held him for the first time, and when I watched Adam sing to him in the delivery room. But on Camille's birthday I don't have those memories. In fact, I don't even know what I was doing on November 7th, 2005. I have looked back at last year's calendar but there's nothing to note. According to her adoption paperwork she was born by c-section in a hospital in Taipei, Taiwan and she was named Tzu-Hsan. Having spent time with Camille's family on both of our trips to Taiwan, I am sure her birthday was a very bittersweet day for them. Her family is an amazing, loving, close knit family and they wanted to do the best they could for her, but I know the adoption was not an easy decision for them. When we met them for the first time Camille was three months old and they proudly presented a book to us which contained her umbilical cord and her first tiny footprints. It still makes me cry to look at these precious ties to her birth family and to her original birthday. I know her family is thinking of her today half way around the world in Taiwan and that makes me smile and feel sad at the same time. Soon we will be sending her family a package with photos of Camille but I want to do more for them. On her birthday, they gave us one of the most precious miraculous gifts we have ever received and we will forever be grateful and connected to them. How do we ever really thank them for that gift? The gift of life. The gift of a beautiful daughter.