canon beach

a year ago

year ago this week i was in southern china, getting to know my new baby. it was hotter than you can imagine. so hot that i had a sheen of sweat constantly and i kept a handkerchief handy for wiping my brow. so hot that the minute you stepped out of a building your clothes were damp. so hot that bottle of “peachy” and water were in constant presence. so hot that a mid day break in the a/c was a must, even though there were more adventures to be had.

china is a place of such juxtapositions. on the one hand: exotic, beautiful and full of new things. on the other : filled with grinding poverty and pollution and smells like nothing you can imagine. i loved my time in china both trips. both what i call the “real china” of rural hunan and fujian - eating street food, being a foreigner or “big nose” as we caucasians are called, as well as the adoption disneyland that is guangzhou and the white swan. i looked forward to each trip with joy and excitement, and i was equally excited to board the plane for home.

in this year i have gone from a mom focused on one wonderful child, to balancing the needs of two fabulous kids. the beginning was hard. ok it was hell. but the rough stuff lasted only a couple of months and with the support of my mom and my friends i muddled through it. i am not sure when it happened but one day i realized that i was doing it , and doing it pretty well.

hazel has added a dimension to my life that i could not have imagined. she has lightened me up and made me laugh loudly and heartily. she has kept me up at night wiggling and squirming, woken me in the morning with a cheery “hello mama” and kissed me “goo night”. she has gone from a quiet baby to a loud and happy toddler. she has a sense of humor and a lovely smile. her heart is healed.

this morning we walked to the post office, me pushing her down the dusty “bumpy roads” of our neighborhood. i was hot and sweaty and thinking of china with a bit of longing, wishing i had another trip planned there.

one year as a family

ruby's 5th birthday party

ahh summer

cults

after i graduated from college, i worked for multnomah county outdoor school (also known as ods), an outdoor education program in portland. every kid in the public schools in 6th grade heads off to a local summer camp that it shuttered for the season. they spend a week learning about natural resources and singing camp songs. for many kids it is a sentinel event. it was for me, when i attended trout creek outdoor school in 1976 with my teacher mrs albers and my 6th grade class. i have a lot of vivid memories of that week. it was spring and it rained everyday. we had such fun.

it was a job that drew lots of like minded 20 somethings, and i made some deep and lasting friendships. i also drew some of the people from other chapters of my life to work at ods. my buddy valerie came from wyoming. we met in 1984 while working together as naturalists for the jackson hole ski corps. we wore patagonia uniforms and took tourists from all over the world on hikes in the alpine wonder of the tetons . i convinced her to come here to spend a few falls and springs wearing rain gear and teaching public school kids about the natural world and protecting our resources. we had a great time working together. 20 years later we still laugh at the stories.

people who love ods, REALLY love ods. valerie and i had a joke about ods, in fact we even made t shirts one year that said-
”outdoor school, it’s not a job, it’s a cult.”

i seem to have collected multiple experiences over the years that would qualify for cult like status. there was my brief ( and somewhat embarrassing) foray into deep-ender churchdom in my teens, followed by whitman, where something like 70% of graduates marry other graduates and all you have to hear is that someone went to whitman to feel instantly bonded to them. After that is was ods, then midwifery, then golden retriever rescue and finally chinese adoption.


all of these passionate enterprises have brought me interesting experiences, fresh insight , new friends, and broader horizons. i am thankful for each cult-like experience that i have been drawn to . i’m grateful for the rich and varied group of friends and experiences that have resulted. so i guess today i could make my self a t shirt that says “( fill in the blank) is not a college/job/hobby/route to parenthood it’s a cult.

Q and A , Sarah

my friend kate is a magazine editor in new york.she has worked for several parenting magazines over the years, including parents , and currently , american baby. i have served as her nurse midwife consultant for numerous articles and Q & A pieces. she’d call me up , ask me a bunch of questions and then viola in the next issue, there was i was in black and white.

i haven’t had much time for writing lately, which is too bad because i really enjoy it. its very therapeutic for me to contemplate and tap tap on my lap top. since i am time limited and haven’t had time to write much the last few weeks today's blog is going to be a Q and A, ala kate.

Q: who is sarah?
A: sarah is ruby’s biological sibling from china.
Q What??
A: we know that most adopted girls from china are second daughters, so many of our kids have bio siblings still in china. some have siblings also adopted internationally. a few are lucky enough to connect and figure it out. we are one of those few.
Q: how did you find out?
A-long story, but the girls are from the same orphanage, share a birthday, and looked very much alike as babies. after making contact with the ross adams family and sharing a lot of photos as well as talking about the girls personalities, we decided to do dna testing.
Q: so are they twins?
A-its possible they could be twins but we think they are half siblings who share a birthfather. the dna testing gives them a 93% chance of being half siblings and a 26 % chance of being full siblings-which in their case would make them twins.
Q: wow.
A: yep.

we traveled to new jersey in june 2005 to meet them. at age 3 the girls had some eerie similarities- voice, laugh, smile, eyebrows, dimpled cheeks and many expressions. sarah and her mom came to visit us last week and the similarities at age 5 are not as striking. they look very different these days, with only a fleeting glimpse of the other now and then. sometimes they look nothing alike and sometimes there is something that you can't quite put your finger on.

there is further dna testing we could do to decide the twin question. mitochondrial dna is passed only via the mother and mutates very slowly . if they were positive for mtdna, they are twins. neither family feels compelled to do mtdna now. technology will only get better. so if and when the girls want to know, we will do mtnda. for now we are forging the bonds of an interesting relationship as we go.

the girls had a great time together. we mom’s had fun too.

silks

sarah and ruby