My youngest daughter is having a baby. “I’m really going to need you now, Mom,” she said, when she first shared the news. “So you can tell me what to expect.”

But I don’t know what to expect. I’ve never had a baby.

I never experienced that first missed cycle, though I prayed for it every month, secretly flipping through pregnancy magazines, picking out maternity outfits I would never wear. It was our own hearts we heard beating every night. What adoptive mothers most expect when they are expecting is the phone to ring, the sound of an attorney’s voice, announcing the joyous event. But once our baby was placed in our arms, the moment our lips touched her soft, warm head, I was the same as every other mother; we were like any other family.

So I slipped into motherhood feeling content and blessed. My husband and I raised our daughters to know they were “special” and “chosen.” One day, my baby, the one who is now having a baby, confirmed our efforts during a first-grade assignment that involved telling the class whom you looked like the most: your mother or your father. My daughter confidently announced: “I don’t look like anyone. I’m adopted; I look like me.”

The teenage years came, fast and strong. My friends consoled me when she started hating me: All teenage girls hate their mothers, why should you be any different? After all, I was a mother, just like everybody else. But a reminder of my dissimilarity came the day I heard the refrain I had told myself I would be ready for: “You are not my mother.”

The declarations became more profound: “I have nothing in common with you.” “I’m not anything like you.” It was harder when the comments were replaced with silence; hardest, when my title—Mom—disappeared. In conversation, I was “her” or “she,” as if my box on the family tree had been crossed out.

“I’m really going to need you, Mom.” Her statement carries more weight than a simple request for help. We are finally on the road to reconciliation, after almost two years of separation. I barely know her husband, the boy-father of my grandchild, but I’m trying to see him through my daughter’s eyes.

So I am content with being needed. My daughter’s words echo as I stare at the ultrasound picture on my bulletin board. In lieu of my own stories, I pick and choose from the wisdom of my mother, my sisters, my friends. When she has morning sickness, I assure her it will go away by her third month, just like her Aunt Patty’s. When she worries about young parenthood and financial instability, I tell her about my mother, her grandmother, who was pregnant, alone, when my father was off at war.

I buy her What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and get a second copy for myself. I’ll be as wise as I was when my girls were younger, and both thought I was the coolest mom. “How do you know so much about everything?” they would ask. Well, I read about it. That’s what mothers do: provide answers. Now I’m trying to stay one step ahead, to fill in the blanks for myself, so I can tell her what to expect.

But, deep down, I already know what to tell her. She can expect to be loved through every stage of her pregnancy, as I loved and nurtured her in my heart during the wait. She can expect people to pamper her and treat her like the baby she still is—at least for a little while longer. She can expect me to be there for her, along with her grandparents, aunts, sister, and friends.

I’ll hug her when I tell her to expect a daughter, a beautiful, healthy girl who will surely be intelligent, funny, creative, and strong. Then I’ll lean over and kiss her on her soft, warm head and whisper, “Just like her mother.”