Introduction

Hello, everyone. My name is Rachel, but most people just call me Rach. It feels comfortable and I answer to it. My best friend calls me Rea, and she's pretty much the only one who calls me that. I am 26 years old.

I am not like most people my age. As a toddler, I was diagnosed as being mildly developmentally delayed. I do not own a car, or drive, I do not live on my own yet, and am still learning how to function as a regular twenty something. It's not always easy and can be very frustrating at times. I also have experienced things and events most people will likely not experience themselves, but these things have only made me a stronger person.

I was put into foster care at the age of five weeks old. I was fortunate to have stayed with the same family from that time until present day. My birthmother terminated her rights when I was 3 and a half, and my adoption was finalized the next year.

I consider my adoptive parents my real, true parents. They are the ones who raised me, loved me, and made me who I am today. My birthparents, I believe, were just tools to help bring me into this world. My parents were about 20 years older than everyone else's parents were, (everyone else meaning my peers) and had already raised 6 children of their own, so they knew what they were doing. My dad used to work in the maintenance dept. for the school district as a dispatcher, while my mom was a homemaker. They were foster parents to 75 children from 1981-1996. At the time I was placed, they were taking a break from foster parenting because of an illness in the family..I wasn't even originally supposed to go to that home, and look at what happened! Makes you wonder doesn't it?