Etges bounces her on his knee while he sings a song in his native German. She sings along with glee, crafting her native Chinese speech to match his pronunciation. Blue-eyed Swanson, a South Coast native, looks on and laughs.
The scene is delightful, and miraculous: Continents were crossed and journeys of the heart risked when the Etges adopted Jessi from a Chinese orphanage.
 Kate Swanson, left, and her husband Peter Etges, right, with their daughter Jessica, 7, in their Montara home Thursday. Jessica was adopted from China in July. |
Parenthood “is more demanding than living by yourselves, but more satisfying,” said general contractor Etges, 48. “I feel like I have a complete family.”
Jessi was born YuanYuan, the third child of a rural family in the Szechwan province half a world away. In China, the outlook for girls — especially those born into families that already have the one legally allowed, preferably male child — is often bleak.
Jessi told orphanage officials she could not remember her surname. Her strict mother beat her for mistakes in her Chinese characters. She worked the fields early, and bears a scar on her neck from the leather strap on her hoe.
When she reached school age and her existence would reveal that her family had more than one child, her mother took her into the industrial city of Dongguan, sat her down on the sidewalk across from a government office, told her to wait — and walked away for good.
A passerby took her to police. When officers couldn’t find her parents, she was officially declared an orphan, placed in the Dongguan orphanage where they gave her an official birthday of Dec. 1 and put up for adoption.
Around the world, the Etges had their own dilemma. Both wanted children, but medical issues precluded Swanson from becoming pregnant. So they looked to the many needy children and efficient adoption procedures in China.
Some discouraged them. One “even asked, how could we love a slant-eyed child?” said Swanson. “We were pretty shocked.”
Instead, they embarked on a quest of joy, frustration and more than a little patience.
In China, said Swanson, new rules stipulated that adoptive parents be married at least five years, be within age limits, have neither high cholesterol nor diabetes and not be overweight. Beginning in May 2007, the Etges were grandfathered into relaxed earlier rules, but they still had to have an FBI background check, be fingerprinted, provide financial statements and see a social worker.
It all was streamlined but maddening. The Etges were told to expect waits of 12 to 36 months. Faced with delays in fingerprinting, they successfully appealed to U.S. Sen. Jackie Speier.
They had a guardian angel: facilitator Norman Niu, who matches parents’ and children’s personality profiles and shepherded them through the process with an ultimate $25,000 in costs.
“We were going into this with a positive attitude,” said Swanson. “We thought, It might be difficult, but it will work out.”
Friends urged them to consider adopting a baby because “you want a child you can make your own,” but “I didn’t want to be 40 with a newborn,” said Swanson.
So they perused files of older children. One shy-looking, scrawny girl of 6 caught their eye: YuanYuan, an outgoing, caring, bright, mischievous child, but classified “special needs” because she was older.
“I started crying,” said Swanson. “I just knew she was the one.”
When Niu called to say the child was theirs — and they had to leave in 10 days for China — they sent ahead photos of themselves and, on July 8, met their daughter.
“She came right up to me and said. ‘Mama?’” said Swanson. “Peter was in the restroom and when he came out, she said, ‘Papa?’ Then she said, ‘We are family!’”
She wore a yellow dress and clutched a keepsake photo album. “I never want to see that yellow dress again,” said Swanson. “It was all she had.”
The excited little girl did not sleep on the two, four- and nine-hour-long flights to San Francisco. On July 19, she came home.
Surprises awaited her: her own room, a bed with a canopy and pink Hello Kitty pillows, new Barbie clothes. She liked the new name, Jessica Josephine her parents suggested. And they supported her when she said her birthday was Dec. 11.
A big surprise was a bike from new maternal grandparents, Debbie and Bill Howard of La Honda. “She looked past it,” said Swanson. “Then my parents said, ‘It’s your bike,’ and then she got happy.”
She turned up her nose at her first bite of pizza but loved fruit and her grandmother’s baked potatoes with cheese, Swanson said. Her parents went to work on her table manners, switching chopsticks for a fork. “If you tell her it will make her strong, she’ll eat it,” Etges said.
With help from a handheld electronic translation device and Coastside residents Ling Ling Ko and Ernest Wu, who speak Mandarin, Jessi is rapidly picking up English words and phrases, though she can readily recite ancient Chinese poetry. She is endearing herself to Coastsiders, having shyly sung “Happy Birthday” at Senior Coastsiders recently. She will start second grade at Farallone View Elementary School, with a little language help, having chosen an American school over an immersion Chinese setting.
Though her arrival spelled change for her parents — “Now I have responsibilities,” said Etges; “I can’t imagine life before her. There’s more laughter in the house,” said his wife — they changed “date night” into “family date night,” said Swanson. “And we always have a family hug.”
Having come from Germany as an adult in 1987, Etges is not unaware of the similarities between himself and his daughter.
“She jumps into a total unknown,” he said. “I had a hard time imagining what it would be like for her. But as a kid, you see things differently.”
Jessi has good and bad ties to her past. In the orphanage, she made friends with little Anna, who was adopted by a Chicago couple, and the girls talk by phone every week. But she worried once when Etges, in his German way, absently shook his forefinger while making a point, Swanson said. And every now and then, she gets a pondering, sad look on her face.
“She’s obviously thinking back,” said Swanson.
Polite and affectionate — she makes her bed before her parents are up and blows kisses and hugs to people when she gets to know them — Jessi is giving free rein to her lively nature. “She’s happy,” said Swanson, as her daughter romped giggling around the room. “She’s just really, really happy to be here. She says, ‘I love America!’”
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