I dont see "Text Message Forwarding" to be able to send msgs

If you have an iPhone - and both iPad and iPhone are signed-in to iCloud with the same AppleID, to send SMS/MMS messages from your iPad you must explicitly enable Text Message Forwarding for your iPad on your iPhone...

On your iPhone:

Settings > Messages > Text Message Forwarding - set to ON - and explicitly enable your iPad from the list of devices.

Also ensure that Messages in iCloud is enabled on both your iPhone and iPad:

Settings > [Your Name / AppleID] > Messages - set to ON

That is correct. Read the above linked article very carefully. Text Message Forwarding appears only on your iPhone.