[julie23]

22 years ago i had a baby girl..... and ever since then, i have said different things about that... depending on what i was told about what i did.... does that make sense?

at first... i gave my baby up for adoption.

then.... i placed my baby for adoption....

more recently, i relinquished my daughter...

and i have struggled along with many others.... of how what to call her... bdaughter... biodaughter... birthdaughter... relinquished daughter... placed daughter...

as well as how to differentiate her from the three i am raising... my raised daughters... my kept daughter...

and tonight... at this adoption class i was at.... because we are planning on adopting.... i heard the legal words for what i did 22 years ago....

I relinquished my parental rights and consented to the adoption.

now... this might just seem like semantics to a lot of people... but to me... this was like a light bulb going off in a dark room... really.. an aha moment...

i relinquished my parental rights... i did not relinquish my daughter... that doesn't say i stopped being a mother... that doesn't say now i am only a birthmother... all it says is i gave up any parental rights i had to the baby...

and i agreed to allow her to be adopted by her adoptive parents.... i gave my consent for that to happen...for them to parent her...

this sounds dumb, i know... but now i know what she is to me.... and what i am to her...

i am just her mother.... and she is just my daughter... and i have decided to post like this... when i am speaking about her, i will post, my daughter TIDNR*... and when i talk about my other daughters.... i will say my daughter TIR* and just assume everyone who knows me knows what i mean... or they can check out my new signature....

i am still mulling this over... and those of you who know me, well, you know what that means....

j