My friend's a mom now. Wow.

This is a special Mother's Day for me, because I got to send a present to one of my friends.

Sure, I know people who have kids, but this is the first year one of my close girlfriends, one of my "Sex and the City"-type girlfriends, has become a mother. And she -- I'll call her Madre -- has taken on a challenge that I think is scary, yet awesome: She's in the final stages of adopting a foster child.

Many of my friends want to have kids, but they're waiting until they're in a committed relationship or married to do so. And Madre, who's a couple years older than me, used to feel the same way. But she really wanted a child, and although she dated energetically and with purpose, she just wasn't meeting the right guy. After much consideration, she started the process of adopting a child through the California foster care system. Almost two years later, she now has an adorable 9-month-old girl.

Madre called me recently while she and her daughter were out for a walk. I could hear the baby cooing in the background. The joy in Madre's voice brought tears to my eyes ... and pain to my heart, because I'm not there to be one of the baby's many doting "aunts." I also want to be there for Madre because what she has undertaken won't be easy. The baby was born to drug addicts, so she had cocaine and pot in her system. Madre said when she first put her daughter on the floor, the baby didn't know what to do; Madre suspects that the previous foster parents, with four other kids in their care, never let her crawl around. Add to that the extra stress of being a busy professional who is also a single mom.

But if anyone can handle it all with good sense, patience and humor, it's Madre. I admire her for starting parenthood when she was ready, and for not letting the prospect of raising a child alone stop her. That baby girl is going to have one of the most fun, most loving, most well-rounded upbringings a kid could have.

As one of the doting aunts I've started doing my part. My Mother's Day gift to Madre? The CD "Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Metallica." Like me, Madre's got a little headbanger in her. Might as well start the kid off right!