Angelina Jolie never thought she’d be a mom before becoming a mother to six kids. She went from adopting three to having three biological children in Shiloh Jolie and twins Vivienne and Knox Jolie. But after she gave birth to her first biological child Shiloh, she had very different feelings toward her than her adopted kids. Although Shiloh had just been born, she was already living a different life than her brothers and sister — all who came from harsh environments.

Angelina Jolie felt Shiloh was going to be the outcast of the family

Jolie formed an instant connection with each of her adopted children. After meeting Maddox in a Cambodian orphanage, she adopted her first child in 2001. A surprising little-known fact: Billy Bob Thornton was Maddox’s first dad. After Thornton and Jolie divorced, however, Jolie raised him as a single mother. She adopted Zahara in 2005 from an orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Zahara only weighed 9 pounds when Jolie first took her in. The little girl was immediately hospitalized because of a salmonella infection that could’ve turned fatal.

“She didn’t know what the answers were going to be. She was really afraid that the baby wouldn’t get better,” Dr. Jane Aronson, who helped treat Zahara’s food poisoning, once told People about Jolie’s reaction.

Her third child, Pax, was adopted after Shiloh was born. He was the only healthy child in his orphanage at the time. Given the backgrounds of her adopted children, all abandoned by their families, the circumstances surrounding Shiloh’s birth were already much different than her siblings. Shiloh was born healthy, well-fed, and surrounded by a family that deeply cared about her. She’d also look different than Jolie’s other children. Initially, she grappled with the luxuries that Shiloh naturally received when compared to her adopted kids.

“She looks like Brad. It’s funny because she’s almost going to be the outcast in the family because she’s blonde and blue-eyed. I felt so much more for Madd, Zahara, and Pax because they were survivors,” Jolie once told Look (via NZ Herald). “Shiloh seemed so privileged from the moment she was born. But I’m conscious that I have to make sure I don’t ignore her needs, just because I think the others are more vulnerable.”

Additionally, in a 2007 interview with Elle (via People), Jolie felt she connected with her adopted kids more because they were all survivors.

“Shiloh seemed so privileged from the moment she was born, I have less inclination to feel for her. I have to do the opposite from what I expected! I met my other kids when they were six months; they came with a personality. A newborn really is this…blob [the interviewer suggests]…! But now she’s starting to have a personality,” she said.

Angelina Jolie can’t speak of pregnancy to her adopted children

Jolie’s ex-husband, Brad Pitt, convinced her to have biological kids. When he first brought up the topic, Jolie rejected the idea, and Pitt didn’t press the issue any further. Later, Pitt’s actions convinced Jolie to get pregnant more than his words.

“He stopped talking about having other kids in the other way,” she once told W. “So I suppose in my heart I realized that he was happy with them as his children completely. I knew he would never see them as different and that gave me a certain peace. Then I suppose I just looked at him and loved him and just felt open to [getting pregnant]. I suddenly wanted to. It’s one of those things you can’t explain.”

Jolie couldn’t connect to her children when it came to talking about pregnancies. But adopting children offered as much of a life-changing experience, although very different, than having kids traditionally did. Combined, all of her kids would help Jolie find herself during some of her roughest times.

“All adopted children come with a beautiful mystery of a world that is meeting yours. When they are from another race and foreign land, that mystery, that gift, is so full. For them, they must never lose touch with where they came from. They have roots that you do not. Honor them. Learn from them. It’s the most amazing journey to share. They are not entering your world, you are entering each other’s worlds,” Jolie once told Harper’s Bazaar.