"Why, yes, of course." I took a breath and embarked on a mother's love affair with her newly acquired child. "Of course I want you."

The years passed with challenge after challenge and yet I never knew if most of the challenges were regular mother daughter challenges or challenges specific to adopting an older bi-racial child.

"Mom, that girl asked me what I am?"

"Well, you know we were told that you are Puerto Rican and Irish, right?"

"She said, 'Are you black, Chinese, Indian, or what?"

In my mind it didn't matter; but to an adopted daughter who we already knew was bi-racial living in a family of boys born to me; living in white neighborhoods growing up; it did.

She dated black guys and white guys. She had friends of all races. And yet she still didn't know exactly where she'd originated from.

One day she called me up and said, "I know how to find my birth parents!" We had been helping her do that for several years, but had had no success.

Wow! I thought, how exciting! I figured that if I had been adopted; I would have wanted to know, too.

The year that followed brought bittersweet results. Our daughter found out that she is Puerto Rican, as we were told, and also Polish and Native American. We were never told that both her birth grandmothers are Native American.

It was thrilling to begin to meet her birth relatives. My daughter seemed happier than I'd ever known her to be. It seemed that it was because the things she wondered about had been answered and she felt freer. I was happy for her.

Then she went to visit her birth relatives and did not return, and my life changed dramatically. Now I was the one who wondered. I was the one with many questions.

Would she ever return?

Did she ever love me?

What do I do now?