The other day someone finally told me that my daughter looked like me, and I found myself surprised by how pleased I was. Before she was born I’d hoped she wouldn’t inherit a lot of my features, but then when she arrived in a big, fat, red hurry she looked totally Chinese, and I felt a little sad that there was nothing recognisably mine in her features. Everyone would look at her and say ‘oh, doesn’t she look like her dad?’ but actually she doesn’t look like him either really, except for the Chinese-ness. Maybe this was her very first experience of racism (all Chinese look the same…)?

Anyway, it seems now she’s caught some look of me, perhaps by osmosis from us spending all day, every day, together. I still find it strange sometimes to think that I’m a mother, and during her first few months she has been more like a very demanding little pet than a proper person in our family.

Still, we’ve already had some interesting times together, including the whole process of finding her name. It took us a while since none of the names we’d imagined for her whilst she was a bump seemed to fit when she was out in the real world. We went through endless sessions of name testing, trying to get a positive reaction from a week-old baby.

At least her Chinese middle name was taken out of our hands (much to some people’s surprise who can’t believe I allowed my in-laws to help in the naming of our baby!) We just had to wait for Great Grandma in Hong Kong to provide the first part of her name, and then my husband’s parents gave her the second part.

In the end Rich and I chose her first name thanks to a conversation I’d had with my Nan about Bing Crosby shortly before her birth, so generations across both families had some input. And no, we didn’t call her Bing! She was registered in the lovely old book at the registry office, in fountain pen, as Leilani Quan-Wai Ng (my husband came with me so I didn’t throw in some extra un-agreed names at the last minute!)

She had her first piece of post shortly afterwards, addressed to ‘Miss Leilani Q. Ng’. We hadn’t really thought about her initials but I really like that her middle one is ‘Q’, for its Star Trek connotations but also because how many people have Q as an initial? It seems that with her naming we’re helping her along in the unusual/unique trend that she already fits into through her mixed race heritage. I’m glad that it’s highly unlikely she’ll be one of many Leilani’s running around the school playground, though I hope she doesn’t have too much trouble with having to spell out all of her name for everyone all the time.

After the naming came her one-month celebratory party. I was still podgy with pregnancy fat and grey from sleep deprivation, but Leilani seemed to have a fun time. She was handed round our Chinese family and friends for an endless evening of photographs with her wearing her posh pink frock and clutching her lucky money packets in her tiny fists, and a good time was had by all. Well, it was until everyone went home and Leilani left with her flagging parents and feeling overwrought with the excitement of it all, screamed and screamed and screamed…!

Next we were interviewed for a BBC radio show about mixed race couples and children thanks to a BBC researcher discovering one of my articles here on Dimsum. That was a fun afternoon and prompted us to think a lot about race and culture and family. She’s been welcomed into the family on both sides with open arms and gifts galore. Everyone declares her to be very cute. We already thought she was, but it’s nice to have others saying it, although there have been a couple of times when people I’ve met at the doctor’s or in the supermarket have thought she was a cute little boy…Still, she certainly seems to catch people’s attention, my funny little pumpkin.

Other than people initially thinking she just looked like her dad, race hasn’t really been an issue for us yet. There was some discussion up at the surgery as to how to describe her racial profile for her medical notes (there was no White/Chinese option) but otherwise she’s just a baby like any other. Indeed, at the new mum’s group sessions we attended there were several other mixed race babies, as well as others who were mixed cultures like half Czech or half French.

It was a lovely international sort of group, and as some of us have kept in touch I’m looking forward to Leilani growing up amongst these little babies with different languages and cultural quirks to enjoy. For now our days are filled with nappy changing, breastfeeding and prayers for more sleep.

In ‘Lost in Translation’ Bill Murray’s character tells Scarlett Johansson’s that when your children are born your life, as you know it, is gone. For all the wishing and heartache we did before she was born, I know I certainly wasn’t prepared for the journey this has been so far, but I’m looking forward to everything we have to learn together in the future.