She is my fourth child and my third daughter. She holds a special place in the order of the family.  She is my last child. The others are grown or grown enough to be out of the house. She is the child I long to be closer to. She is the child who pushes me away and the child who needs me the most.

In 1981, I gave birth to my son. I was 23 years old and single. In 1995, I married and at 48, in the prime of mid-life motherhood, I traveled to China to bring home my third daughter. Mei Mei means little sister in Mandarin. I traveled with my two older daughters, also adopted from China. We were a fearless bunch maneuvering our way through Hefei, the city where my third daughter is from; all speaking Chinese together and attracting a crowd wherever we went. […]