When is a mom really a mom? When do we get to stand up and take the recognition being handed out in the Hallmark card aisle and the pews at church? In the newspapers and May issues of women’s magazines? In the perfume and jewelry departments? In the breakfast-in-bed rooms and brunch-serving restaurants?

In my younger-I-know-it-all days I would have answered, “When you give birth and raise that child you get the card, the flowers, the hugs and kisses.” Then life experience expanded to include miscarriages and adoption. Despite feeling just as fully a mother on those occasions, my perception of myself did not always match the outside world’s opinion of me. Indeed I would be rich if I had a dime for every time I was asked if I was my Asian daughter’s “real mother?” […]