“If there was one thing you could do again in life, what would it be?” asked my nine-year-old daughter, unexpectedly putting me on the spot, as children do. Of course, I was also rushing home in traffic from her judo class, distractedly planning how to get dinner finished and a kid bathed before an Adoptee Voices Writing Group session. Naturally, I said the first thing that came to mind: “Exist.” I paused. I could not believe I said that.

“Why?” my daughter asked.

“Because as an adoptee born in South Korea, I think about how different life would be if my birth family had kept me or if I weren’t your mom,” I explained.

“Oh, yeah, because your birth parents didn’t want to keep you?”

“I don’t know if it was a matter of wanting to keep me or not. I’m not sure.”

“How was your birth family able to keep your sisters but not you?”

“I’m not sure,” I said again. The conversation trailed off into silence.

As a parent, I often admit to my children: “I’m unsure,” “I don’t know,” “I don’t have the answer to that.” It’s usually followed up by an enthusiastic “Let’s ask Google!”

Unfortunately, some questions can’t be answered by Google. During my daughter’s blunt questioning, I realized how much personal growth I have achieved. For one of the first times in my life, I did not flinch, cringe, or feel like my heart was poked by a sharp object when she inquired about my birth family. I am unsure if it has gotten easier to handle being adopted, but I am managing it better and more appropriately.

Having children changes people. I had children young, probably younger than was responsible considering all the baggage I lug around. Raised by an adoptive mother who could not carry a pregnancy to term, there was a lurking fear that I would not be able to physically have children myself. Fear can be a strong motivator. However, while planning my family, I never considered the impact of the unknowns of my origin story and how it would affect my theoretical children.

Pregnancy brought about difficult feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty. To be frank, I was not one of those women who relished the joys of pregnancy. I believed it was my own version of hell with no fire. 

Physically sick for the majority of both of my pregnancies, I often thought of my birth mother and her experience of being pregnant with me. Did she struggle with being sick 24/7 for months on end? Did she feel any special connection with me? Did she whisper all of her hopes and dreams to me late at night when she couldn’t sleep? Did she rub her growing belly and hum songs she couldn’t get out of her head? There were many questions I wished I could have asked her, especially since I could not ask the mother who raised me.

Unlike many mothers-to-be, I did not feel the typical bonding with my babies in utero. But the instant their screaming, shaking bodies were gently placed on my chest after hours of labor, I felt the bond click into place like a key turning into a lock.

Intertwined with the intense feelings of maternal love is the guilt I feel for having children before I felt mentally and emotionally ready. This combination of love and guilt is complicated by the little history I know of my biological family, as well as my mental and physical struggles with pregnancy. There were societal and familial pressures and expectations, and the checklist of accomplishments I felt compelled to complete by age 30: graduate high school and college, start a career, buy a car, get married, get a pet, buy a house, and have 2.5 children. I did it all and am joyful with the outcomes I have accomplished.

Even so, I mention these pressures and expectations because they were hard to manage at the time. Sometimes, they still are. I should have been grateful that it was easy to have children, especially since my own adoptive mother couldn’t, but that is not the way I felt then. I remember watching MTV’s Sixteen and Pregnant and feeling just like the young teenage girls—scared and ill-equipped. I would cry along with each girl as their pregnancies progressed. They felt so relatable to me. I shouldn’t have felt that way. I had a college education, a stable career in a growing field, a supportive husband, two fur babies, planned in-home child care, and a new-to-us home. But I still felt I wasn’t enough.

Guilt also makes me wonder about what kind of future my children will have dealing with what I call my “bucket of bullshit.” Maybe it won’t matter that they do not have a whole side of their family tree. Perhaps it will. My dream as a mother is that, in the future, my children will have access to an amazing support system like I have now but with other children of adoptees. 

Parenting is a crapshoot, and I don’t know if my adoption issues will leave an unwanted legacy for my children to navigate. Yet, I am trying my best. In the years that come, I hope they will remember that and continue to feel my love.

Now that time has passed, the answer to my daughter’s question remains the same. Although life has been a struggle for various, complicated reasons with many low points, I am ok with existing in the here and now. I will likely never feel like a “blessed” adoptee, but I acknowledge the privilege of being raised by white Americans, even though that privilege has not saved me from dealing with the harsh realities of a Korean American adoptee’s life. There are some hard days when the thought of my death brings me peace with its finality. Nonetheless, if I was not an adoptee, the course of my existence might not have brought me to surprising, cherished moments, such as honestly answering random questions posed by my nine-year-old. 

I will accept all of the low points to have an innocent conversation with a curious mind.