My mind had returned to an encounter with a woman who noticed I was reading Adoptive Families, a magazine. She had all the usual questions of someone unfamiliar with adoption. Where were my two daughters from? How old were they when they arrived? What did I know about them?

"I don't know how anyone can give up a child," she said. "Do you know why their real mothers gave them up?"

I've always responded to such questions lightheartedly. "I feel pretty real," I said, leaving the next move to her since such queries provide an opportunity to educate.

"I mean the birthmothers," she said. "Why would they give them up?"

"I'm so glad they made adoption plans," I said. "It was the answer to all my dreams. All I know is their birthmothers were very great women and I thank God for them everyday." I also explained that the girls' adoption stories were theirs to share, and, were they with us, they probably would because we are very proud of our family history.

I've been a mother since 1991 when I brought Alexis home from Romania at the age of 14 months. Like many women in this decade, I became a mother on my own. At 39, with no marriage on the horizon and my career in place, I realized there is nothing more important than raising children. Unlike many "Murphy Browns," I wanted parenthood without pregnancy.

Adoption was, by far, my first choice because pregnancy did not look fun. Delivery looked even less fun and I had no special investment in my genetics or in the pregnancy experience.

I also knew how deeply I could love a child when I met my nephew Matthew at two weeks old. He showed me what I was missing.

I also knew any child I adopted would be my own regardless of how she joined the family. Alexis's sister joined us in 1993 at the age of five months. Three years younger, Brooks came from the Bolivian plains and had the golden glow and almond eyes of the descendants of the Inca.

My life since then has been that of a fairy tale coming true. I am amazed that I am able to have two such wonderful little girls. I am amazed that if I had called central casting and asked for the perfect child, Alexis would have come marching through the door ready to party. I am amazed at the differences in Brooks, who curls herself into my lap whenever she has the chance.

I am amazed at their beauty in body and soul. And I am especially amazed when I hover over them each night whispering our good night ritual and feeling them pull me down for a big hug. I always walk away in wonderment that dreams can really come true. Do people who birth their children have such appreciation of the gift they've been given? Can their more traditional path to parenthood make them take having children for granted? Can they possibly love their children as much as I love mine?

What few realize is that our paths to parenthood are not that different. While they grew a life within them, we grew a mountain of paperwork and researched the way we would build our families. We went through medical procedures but also had extensive home studies. We rearranged our houses in middle-of-the-night nesting rituals. Our emotions rose and fell wildly as we waited - waited the long months for our assignments and then more months before a precious picture or shaky video turned into someone who could fill our aching, empty arms and hug us back.

Others have described real to me in terms of chores as if toiling over homework, diapers, sick children and soccer games somehow grants us an entitlement to be called Mom or Dad. It is not chores nor persevering through the similar stages of pregnancy or adoption that make us real. There is much more to it than that.

Real is a tiny hand in mine as we cross the street. Real is as light as a baby's touch. It's planting flowers and jumping in puddles. It's catching a running youngster as she jumps into your arms in the evening. It's mastering roller blading and ice skating. It's listening to kids pound down the stairs on Christmas morning, their feety pajamas swishing along the bare floor toward their prizes.

Real is lifting a crying child into your arms and nursing a bloody knee. It's secretly watching a two year-old sing lullabies as she lovingly lines up her baby dolls and covers them for a nap. It's passing on the family traditions as your child takes your place at your father's side to become the official Thanksgiving turkey taster, her small hand reaching up to remind him she's ready for her job. And real is letting go of the bicycle and little hands at the classroom door.

Real is, quite simply, the thrills all parents get from just being a parent. My thoughts turned to my favorite passage from The Velveteen Rabbit.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day.

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

Real is also when you get lucky enough to have a child to love.

Kathryn Creedy is an adoptive mother. She also serves on the Executive Committee of Celebrate Adoption, a national group that works to dispel the misperceptions and stereotypes surrounding adoption through education and media advocacy.