The title and picture say it all. I have wanted to start a family for years now and it has never worked out for me.
It's a rough topic, really. I don't get misty-eyed often, but this is definitely a sore spot that makes my heart feel soft and weak.
It started a long time ago.....I was in another marriage, it was unstable and volatile and it wasn't until the end of the marriage when I started feeling like I was ready to have them. No matter how bad I wanted to have children, it was toxic and I just couldn't do it. Going through the divorce process was terrible and I felt crushed because although I knew I didn't want to have children with that particular man, the lost opportunity upset me.
Then I found "M" {yes, we are both "M's"}. He was amazing and sweet and very good at his job. And he had 3 kids with his ex-wife. Now, I don't want to sound cliche when I say I'm not the jealous type, but it's true. I have no reason to be. If you don't want to be with me, don't be with me. Period. But I felt jealous (and still do, actually). The person that I'm crazy about had 3 children with a woman who is completely ungrateful of the fact that she got to have those children with this amazing person. It makes me feel bitter.
I'm sure someone could intervene here and say "But you're a step-mom now, love on the children as if they were your own." And that's true. To a point.
With my job I don't get to see the kids, and neither does my husband, unfortunately. We can't just go and see them. Heck, we can't even get to see one another. There's also the point that the mother moved her and the children away to another state far away a long time ago, so they aren't even in weekend-visitation-range. I know them but I don't really know them. And neither does my husband, as heartbreaking as that is.
We talked about kids, M and I, and he really wants to have one with me but we never get to see each other. My Facebook is lit up with newborn and pregnancy pictures and I scheme about how I could make this all work, but it couldn't. I couldn't do what I do and have a baby alone. Heck, with my job I might get sent away without being allowed to bring the baby with me and have him/her sent to a relatives house.
And as I try to plan out a time when having a family might be good, the years pass by and all I can see is the number of my age going up. I have already been on birth control for 12 years, how many more years until my body decides that birth control has made my uterus into a steel fortress where "None shall pass"? Has it already?
I'm also sure that step-mom-dom has amazing qualities, but I'm also sure that mothers who have given birth to their own flesh and blood can attest to the fact that there is no other experience like it on earth. To watch the transition happen to you over 9 months, to experience birth, to have that very first moment of holding the person that you have made and getting to meet him/her for the first time.
I want that, too. But I get really scared.
I get scared that I can't have the same experience that most mothers have. That I won't get to be with my husband during all the excitement. That we won't get to nest together. That he won't be there for the birth. That I can't have kids after all these years on medication. That we won't have time to have kids because we are never together.
I never had an opportunity to have kids and he never had the opportunity to really know his kids. And now we don't have the opportunity to be even a family for just the two of us.
It all really weighs heavily on my heart. What he and I do is important, but sometimes it feels like we give up so much. Too much, infact.
When I sit here and see the sheer happiness and love that people have by creating a family I go to work hoping that my husband and I will get to do the same. That like all the rest of you, we will get to have our own pride-and-joy. Because that pair of shoes, like the ones on the top of this page, will be filled with with our little bundle of happiness, just like everyone else's.
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