I was 27-years-old when I found my daughters.  I wasn’t looking for children, I was actually on a date with a guy I had been cast alongside at a local theater.  I knew he had four kids, his boys lived with him 50/50 and his daughters lived in Virginia.  That was about all I knew about the kids and honestly I wasn’t looking for a long term relationship so when he asked me out I agreed because it sounded fun.

When I first saw the picture of two tiny little blond girls dancing and smiling I knew they were my daughters.  If you ever want to feel like a crazy person, have this experience.  You will interrogate your sanity like the Riddler after a seventh cup of coffee.  It wasn’t until after I met other adoptive parents that I learned my reaction is not an uncommon phenomenon.  Many parents know that is their child(ren) by looking at a photograph.  The main difference being the other parents, the “good moms”, were in the market for a kid, whereas I was tipsy and wearing a low cut blouse.

The girl’s bio-mom abandoned them when they were six-months and two-years old.  Their dad couldn’t handle the responsibility, so he sent them to live with their maternal grandparents over 1,700 miles away.  I met them only a few weeks after I saw the photograph, they were four and five-years-old.

When I got to the house, I stood on the porch for about 10 minutes before walking in.  I knew I was about to meet my daughters for the first time and I was terrified.  When I finally walked in my youngest bounded at me with an enormous smile on her face.  My oldest hid at the top of the stairs and peered down at me though the railing.  I have a picture of the two of them on that night, they are dressed like princesses.  I keep that photograph in a locket, a moment frozen in time.  The moment the three of our lives changed forever.

When they came to live with me they had the clothes on their back, a couple of stuffed animals and lice.  They had been kept alive, but they had not had a good life.  They had never had a haircut, never woke up to presents under a Christmas tree and they had never had a mom.

Their father and I were married after dating for 9 months.  This was a terrible idea! He literally called me at work and asked if I wanted to go get married.  He and I were happy then and he knew I’d fallen head over heals for the girls and wanted to adopt them.  The fact that I was able to adopt them is one I still ponder.  It took three years and lawyers in two states to make it official.  The girls and I celebrate “Gotcha Day” every year on June 27th as if it is everyone’s birthday, Halloween, Christmas, New Years and Flag Day all rolled together into one giant love burrito.

If I didn’t tell you my girls were adopted, you would never know.  They are my daughters and I am their mom.  But it is important to understand this relationship and history, because it is a part of us.  I stopped telling people my girls were adopted a few years ago. Mostly, because people are idiots and would often ask me, “do you ever think you’ll have children of your own?” Or, once they knew, they would constantly find ways to mention my daughters’ bio-mom, a woman who hasn’t seen them in over a decade, and refer to her as my girls’ “real mom”.  Let’s clarify two things right now:

1. I do not need to have children “of my own”. I have children and they are all I will ever need
2. I AM THEIR REAL MOM

I may be a bad mom, but there is nothing about what I do that is fake or artificial.  When they are scared at night because they think the invisible flesh-eating-bugs (Vashta Nerada) from Dr. Who are under their bed, I’m the one flopping around on the floor pretending the bugs are eating my arm.  I’m the one who tried to resuscitate “Athena” the gold fish when she went belly up. I’m the one banging her head on the table after 3-hours of math homework with my oldest.  I’m the one who sat at a completely cleared dining room table every single night with my youngest until she finished her dinner.

I noticed while at the Children’s Museum one day that the other adults all looked happy but exhausted.  Then I realized that’s how I look, all the time.  Real parents look this way, fake parents look two-dimensional because they’re on TV or in a magazine.

The weirdest part of being a mom, is you’re not a mom until you are one.  Which sounds on the surface like the sort of obvious statement that doesn’t need mentioning.  Except it is SO true.  When you first become a mom, you worry about everything, you second guess everything, essentially you become a total paranoid and neurotic nutcase.  But you don’t really become a “mom” until you figure out what kind of mom you really are.  Eventually, you find your own rhythm and you have done enough trial and error to know which all-natural stain remover actually removes stains and exactly how many grocery bags you can carry in addition to a screaming child.  That’s when you are really a mom.

It is the best and worst feeling in the world being a mom.  You love more than you ever thought your heart was capable of loving but that “worry” you start off with never truly goes away it just morphs into a sixth sense and gains squatter’s rights in the pit of your stomach.  Being a mom, a real mom, is different for every woman.  Unfortunately for my girls, I am a bad mom.  The kind of mom who will absolutely help you get your coat unstuck from around your head…I just need a photograph first.