A Punch in My Belly

When we adopted our daughter, the advice was blunt: “Say the word ‘adopted’ until it no longer hurts!”

Yael was a vision of improbable beauty—dark hair which would soon turn blonde, and sea-blue eyes. Her face was a tiny triangle of curiosity, as she turned toward me, brow furrowed as if to ask, Do I know you? You seem kind, but who are you?

It was love at first sight. She was perfect—almost impossibly so. We welcomed her with the full force of our hearts and, in our own quiet way, tried to forget the "A-word."

But the advice lingered like a shadow. “Face it. You are an adoptive family. The bonds are real, but they are different. How your daughter will feel about her adoption depends, in part, on how you feel. If you’re comfortable, she will be too.”

Wise words, no doubt. But who wanted wise words when we could pretend to be ordinary? We took the suggestion literally, playfully parroting phrases like “Hello, my sweet little adopted baby,” hoping that if we rehearsed the part, the story would settle into something simple. And at first, it did. Yael embraced the word ‘adopted’ as casually as she did ‘Mommy,’ ‘Daddy,’ ‘dog,’ or ‘cat.’ All was well.

Until it wasn’t.

As Yael grew, so did her questions. At three, while other mothers told their children, “You came out of my tummy,” I found myself explaining that Yael had come from another woman’s womb—her biological mother. We learned quickly that telling her she was adopted was only the prologue.

“But why didn’t I come from your tummy?” she asked, her nose wrinkling like rubber.

“Where is the other lady now?”

“Why did she give me to you?”

Her questions forced open doors we hadn’t yet dared to unlock—about biology, sex, morality, and love. We couldn’t rely on fairy tales. “When a mommy and daddy love each other…” rang hollow when, from what we knew, Yael had been born of neither love nor a lasting union.

We’d believed that telling her the story of how we chose her would be enough. But our daughter, even at five, had her own inner narrative. And the figure who haunted it wasn’t us, but a spectral presence—her first mother—who loomed large in her imagination.

“What did she look like?” Yael asked one day while I chopped lettuce.

“Where does she live?” she wondered aloud in the cereal aisle.

“Why doesn’t she visit?”

And then, in a quiet moment on the toilet, she asked with heartbreaking simplicity, “Didn’t she even give me any clothes when she went away?”

Being adopted meant she was chosen. But it also meant she had first been given away. That contradiction gnawed at her.

We told her that her biological mother was young and unready. But Yael, with the clarity only children possess, wanted to know: Is she ready now? Will she come for me? And when she realized no one was coming, she drew the only conclusion a child can—There must be something wrong with me.

She didn’t think her mother had done something bad. She believed she must have been the problem.

Her inner world reflected this loss. She staged endless scenes of abandonment. I was cast in every role—mother, child, stranger—and followed her imaginative lead, grateful for these glimpses into her psyche. But some roles left me raw. She made me rehearse her pain with her, and it took everything I had not to break character and plead, Tell me you love me.

The bath became our confessional. She’d chatter as the water splashed, and one day, she called me on her imaginary telephone to deliver solemn news: her mother had died.

“Oh dear,” I said. “Tell me about her.”

She described a beautiful, gentle woman with golden hair and ocean eyes. She said she might have to live in an orphanage now, where food came in small portions and love even less. She’d seen Oliver Twist.

Then, casually, she said a couple wanted to adopt her. They had a house like a castle, with a swimming pool. What do you think? Should I go live with them?

I swallowed hard. “Do you think they would love you?”

She shrugged. “They’re all right. But they don’t look like me. They’re fat—like Oompa Loompas.”

I nearly laughed — was that how she saw us?

Eventually, she decided they weren’t the right fit. Maybe another lady, one who looked like her real mother, would be better.

I felt the sting. “Well,” I said, “you keep looking for the right parents.”

Part of me wanted to stop the game, to drag us back to reality. But her play gave her power, freedom. And in time, she chose to stay with the “Oompa Loompa” couple who were, in fact, already hers.

Yet not all her questions came during play.

One afternoon, with six rowdy preschoolers in my car, Justin leaned forward and asked, “Why did Yael’s mommy give her away?”

Silence fell. Yael stared at me, waiting.

I panicked, then deflected. “What do you think, Justin?”

He shrugged. “Maybe she had no food.”

Martine piped up, “Maybe Yael cried too much.”

My chest tightened. I squeezed Yael’s hand.

“No,” I said. “Babies aren’t given away for crying or being bad. Yael’s other mommy probably loved her very much. She gave her up because she believed it was the best thing she could do.”

There. I’d said it. Named the other woman. Called her Yael’s mommy.

“How do you know?” Martine asked.

“I don’t,” I admitted. “But she asked a lot of questions. She made sure Yael would be safe.”

Yael mashed her sandwich and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Yuk,” she said. “Can I go play at Justin’s?”

Later, at a dinner party, a man studied Yael and asked, “So, how did you two end up with a blonde child?”

We froze. Yael was seven and listening. Sam and I had well-worn lines for moments like this, but the man wouldn’t drop it.

“She doesn’t look like either of you,” he insisted.

I smiled, tight-lipped. “Yael’s our surprise package.”

I could’ve said, “She’s adopted,” and let him squirm. But his tone left no room for grace. It wasn’t curiosity. It was intrusion.

As Yael grew, she turned her fiercest questions on me. Sam remained untouched—perhaps because she assumed, even after learning the facts, that he was hers without complication. But I was the one she challenged, the one she tested.

She loved me. She also mistrusted me.

She needed me. She also resisted me.

Sometimes, the tension boiled over. She would rage without warning, lash out, fall into tantrums. I became her emotional punching bag. Until one day, it came to a head.

She was eight. We were fighting—again. I tried to retreat, but she followed, wild with fury.

“I hate you,” she screamed. “I wish you weren’t my mother!”

Something inside me cracked. “Fine! When you’re like this, I wish that too!”

Then she delivered her sharpest blow: “I wish you hadn’t adopted me. I hate being adopted!”

Her face crumpled, wet with tears. “Why couldn’t you be like other mothers? Why did my real mother give me away?”

I was hollowed out. I reached for her, but she pushed me off.

“I know you hurt, Yaelly,” I said. “But I hurt too! Dammit, I hate being your adoptive mother sometimes. I wish I had given birth to you. I hate that someone else gave you away and broke your heart.”

She fell into me then, sobbing. And in that painful, raw moment, we built something honest—an emotional bridge forged not in fairy tales, but in truth.

Yael is a woman now. The turmoil of her early years has mostly quieted. That outburst, devastating as it was, marked a turning point. Through adolescence, the grief of her origin retreated like a tide. But sometimes, when we are distant, I feel it lingering in the corners. A soft shadow waiting to rise again.

 Adoption didn’t just shape my daughter’s story, it reshaped mine. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that love isn't about erasing difference, but about holding space for it. In the shadow of that difference, beneath the bridge we built from pain, we found a family.