First published: On May 9, 2012

This will be an interesting Mother’s Day for me. You see…I’ve been a mother for 20 years now, but this will be my first Mother’s Day with my child.

I placed my daughter Megan for adoption in 1992, so I’ve spent a long time where Mother’s Day was one of the most painful days of the year for me. Society tends to ignore birthmothers after the adoption is complete because it is hard to face that someone’s happiness is built on another’s pain. Never mind that I chose adoption–it was the best thing for my daughter and myself at the time–it still hurt an amazing amount every year to NOT be acknowledged as a “mother” simply because I chose a different sort of being a good parent. Most birthmothers, by the way, have 2 days of profound sadness every year: their child’s birthday and Mother’s Day.

Last October, I gave birth to my son Lannister after many years of dealing with infertility. As I write this (one-handed, hunting and pecking), I am holding him and enjoying the weight of him, and the smell of baby-right-out-of-the-bath as he drifts to sleep in my arms. I realize that in so many ways, this is my “first” Mother’s Day. I’m excited and looking forward to spending it with my family and being Queen for a Day. I’ve never been happier in my life than I am now, but I will still shed a few tears this Sunday for my “lost” daughter, the one that I gifted with new parents all those years ago, and I hope she has a small thought for me that day.

The love I have for each of my children is very different from each other, but I will celebrate my two different kinds of motherhood this Mother’s Day, and wish a Happy Mother’s Day to ALL of the mothers out there: biological mothers, birthmothers, adoptive mothers, stepmothers, foster mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, and all of those women who are mothers without a special word for it.