Many will ask if I ever just sit and wonder about what my girls' lives would have been like had they grown up in China.  My honest answer to that question is no.  They are my daughters and on a daily basis I don't even think about their adoption.  I am more consumed with being their mother.  However, one afternoon this week I sat and watched as MK swam freestyle and backstroke up and down the pool for swim team practice and it hit me.  It hit me that she would have NEVER been given the opportunity to shine to her best potential in China.  In China, her cleft lip and palate would have defined who she was and who she was to become.  Here, at home with her family, her cleft is just a mere part of her story, a blip on the radar as she journeys through life.