Children who are adopted from orphanages come to their new families the same way a newborn does: they bring nothing with them. Or so they say.

My daughters were almost eleven and fourteen when we adopted them from a detsky dom, Russian for children's home: an orphanage. They brought with them memories, lots of them. They were fully formed people. It was, of course, to be expected.

I'd always wanted to adopt. Not a baby but a child. When I told people we were adopting two, faces fell. Disappointment reigned.

"But then you can't influence them from Day One," people said. They didn't mean influence, though, they meant control. By people I mean: friends, family, and yes, pregnant moms. They said, "Who knows what you'll be getting?"

They acted like they knew what they'd be getting. At least that's how they made it sound. They got What to Expect When You're Expecting, subscribed to Baby magazine. They framed pictures of the ultrasounds, listened to the baby's heartbeat, and registered at Babies "R" Us so they could sign up for what they wanted.

When I said we'd be doing a Russian adoption they hinted about the orphanage exposés on 20/20, the hidden cameras reports on Dateline and pressed if we knew what we were getting into by asking:

"What if those children have been chained to beds?"

"What if they've never been held?"

"What if they never bond?"

It happened so often my husband, Jon, and I grew to expect the comments, to welcome them even, in a perverse I'll-bet you-five-bucks-so-and-so-brings-up-the-Dateline-story kind of way. I liked to think we were prepared.

But there are things no mother can prepare for. For every mom those things are different—but only nominally. Let me explain.

Who loved them.

They were orphans. Who thinks of that?

Not me. I never fathomed it. I didn't think motherhood would be this way—not being able to fathom things, important things. Even if you don't admit it, isn't fathoming a mother's job (translation: fantasy)?

We'd planned—picked Russia to find kids whose parents had relinquished their rights. Ha! I didn't think I'd find this instead. Fact: This mama got blindsided.

It's kind of comical now, or maybe it's ironic but nine years later (our girls are now 19 and 22), I can say being blindsided made me dig deeper than I ever thought possible. It made me move beyond the mama I thought I had to be and find the woman I was always meant to become. This is what my column "What Mama Didn't Think Of" will be about. I'll be writing about things I never thought we'd have to deal with regarding our kids, and how dealing with those situations changed me. I don't mean issues we never hoped we'd have deal with, but that which never crossed our mind.

No matter how old your kids are, maybe we share similarities. In fact, we probably do. These curve balls hit every mother sometime, transcending everything that makes us think we're different, better, worse. Another fact: We moms simply cannot know all and will soon learn we were never meant to.

I hope you find something here to keep with you on your journey.