So I think the biggest thing that I have been stressing about lately is what I am currently missing. At the time that we made the decision to have our child, the age that we initially wanted to request (16-24 months) just felt right to me. Ironically, a younger age felt right to Karen. She wanted a baby. Perhaps it's yet another good example of how we balance each other out. Fortunately we had more time to discuss this before we formally made our request, and settled on an age fitting nearly between our initial thoughts.
In hindsight, I still have no regrets for our selection, and I struggle to even mention that, as it should never need to be mentioned. There is no other child for us, and I believe that our discussion period was influenced by a higher source anyhow. We will now have the baby that we were meant to have.
We received Cady's story when we signed the referral papers, though it was in Mandarin, and we had no idea what it said. We recently received the translated version, and, as much of this has been recently, it was both thrilling and sad.
I will try to sum up several pages, though this is still to be long.
Cady was born on October 26th, 2004. She was found in front of the entrance of Hui Shin community village by a village resident. (Karen and I have been searching all over to see if we can identify where this is, but have had no luck so far)
2 months old: Showed interest in her surroundings.
3 months old: Played with her hands after eating.
4 months old: Smiling, moving about her crib, touching her crib's hanging toys.
5 months old: Roll from supine to prone position, and could sit when held.
6 months old: Would turn to face someone who called her name, and could hold her toy with one hand.
7 months old: Able to sit alone for some minutes.
8 months old: Able to stand for a short time while holding onto something.
9 months old: At times she would wave her hand to say "goodbye".
10 months old: Plays with other children.
This is the point in which the history ends. I am certain that she continues to advance, and I suspect that she may already be walking, or will be by the time we get to her. This hurts a little. It's great to see how she has developed, and I'm thrilled to see that she is growing on par with a healthy child. On a down note, this document kinda feels like a "neener neener this is what you have missed" log.
I really want my chance at the "Daddy moments" (Karen can find her own mommy moments) that I've never been able to experience, and walking seems like one of the most significant ones. I'm going to miss that one. In discussing this with a coworker, he smiled and said "You'll get plenty of others, including one of the best ones". I stood there for a moment, trying to think of what could surpass the first steps, and things like high school graduation, marriage, becoming a grandparent... He could see the gears spinning, so then added in "When you get to help her learn to ride a bike."
Wow.. That would be a big moment.
I was relaying this to Kris, my closest friend at work, and she looked at me in surprise and said something to the order of "How about when she first says Daddy?"
Ok so I've been looking at it all wrong. Sure someone else gets those early moments, but I get all of the rest of them.
