I’m going to begin a short little series on some of the things that may arise and that you may have to deal with in your adoption situation.

One of your rights as a mother is to name your baby, even if you are making an adoption plan, naming your baby is still your right. The adoptive parents then have the right to re-name the child. In some open adoptions nowadays, birthparents and adoptive parents will discuss the child’s name before hand and come to an agreed name. In other cases where the birthmom names her child, adoptive parents may keep the first or middle name you chose and pair that with a name of their choosing.

But what’s a birthmom to do when her baby’s name is changed from the name she chosen to the name the adoptive parents have chosen? What does she call her child?

Technically and legally there is nothing you can do about it. As I said above, it is one of the adoptive parents’ rights. I personally think (this is my own opinion folks!) that it would be disrespectful to the adoptive parents for the birthparents to not address the child by the name they chose when in their presence. Not to mention super confusing for the child!

For me personally, I did not choose to name my son because I wasn’t sure if A and S would keep any part of it as his name and I was afraid if they didn’t keep part of his birth name that I might become resentful later on down the road about it and that’s not healthy.

I asked fellow birthmother R. if she had any tips to share on how to deal with the name change.

“There is nothing you can do about the name change so you must do the best you can to accept it and not create problems. For me when I think of my daughter or am missing her I think of the “Baby K” (name I’d given her). In my heart she will always be Baby K but whenever I am talking to her about anyone else, I refer to her as Baby L (name the adoptive parents gave to her).