Nia Vardalos, star of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” and the upcoming “My Life in Ruins” became a mother for the first time last year when she and her husband adopted a 3-year-old girl. In a People.com essay that ran on Saturday, the actress wrote about the joy of becoming a mother–literally overnight.
Shortly after the adoption, Vardolos’ priest asked if he could bless the child. Vardalos writes:

So, that Sunday we headed to church. Our daughter silently took in the chanting and the smell of incense as the sun shone through the stained glass windows.
After the service, the priest softly gestured for us to join him at the front of the church. He began to read. But I wasn’t hearing a standard blessing. This was new to me. It was a special prayer for … adoption.
The words and ceremony were a beautiful acknowledgment that some families are created in different ways, but are still in every way, a family.
The priest said the words, “Today you have given birth to your daughter,” and I began to cry. It all poured out. All the grief, all the anger, all the angst at the difficult and long journey to parenthood. And that outpouring of tears was quickly followed by a peaceful gratefulness.
I held my daughter in my arms and thanked God for bringing her to me. If the standard route of creating a family had worked for me, I wouldn’t have met this child. And I needed to know her. I needed to be her mother. And in that moment, I knew why it had all happened this way: So I could meet this little girl. She is, in every way, my daughter.

To read the complete essay, visit People.com