Our adopted daughter!

Introducing the soon-to-be newest member of the Swanson family...


Her Chinese name is Fu Ni Ying, which roughly translated means lucky, brave girl. She was born on April 15, 2006.

Amy and I started the adoption process in August 2005 through Chinese Children Adoption International, a really great agency which is located in the Denver metro area. We decided to adopt because we know there are so many children who, without adoption, would grow up in an orphanage or in a foster home. We chose China because of it's abundance of abandoned girls. We also learned that many of these kids are born with conditions that would be easily treatable here at home, but due to lack of funding and lack of availability of health care, often go untreated in China. So then we signed up for the waiting child program, which connects adopting families with children who have a variety of medical conditions. Last week, we received a call from the agency that brought us together with Fu Ni Ying, who has club feet - both of her feet are turned inward. This will probably require many months of treatment to correct, but most people with club feet, if they receive good treatment at a young age, recover completely. I understand that Mia Hamm, the famous soccer player, was born with club feet, and she obviously gets along just fine now.

So what's next? Sometime in the next 2-4 months, we'll travel to China and bring her back home with us! Until then, we'll be anxiously waiting!