old post #2

All I ever wanted

I grew up thinking i"d be the momma some day. For a while I thought, "It will happen, just .... later." It never did. For reasons much too complicated to explain, there was no child.

I'll never be completely easy with my decision. I tell myself I'm still a mom (a stepmom), a nana (stepgrandmother). Being a stepmother means being reduced by society and your family to something less than, instead of. Your opinions count but they don't. Your family is yours but it's not.

Regardless of the absence of a blood relationship, those moments holding Nessa are the most peace I have ever felt. Holding her while she dozes in my arms, I love the weight of her, the way her hair feels, the smell of her. I never want to put her down. I want to cry with happiness every time I give her a bottle and listen to her grunt her way through it, her little hands clasping the side of her face in complete relief.

I'm tired of people asking about my decision. I'm tired of other mothers judging me by my unused uterus. If you say "you were never a mother, you don't know, " I become a little smaller, a little less relevant. Not just to the person that said it but to the larger world.

Childless women are often viewed as selfish. Yet not having kids was the least selfish thing I ever did.

http://childlessstepmoms.org/content/view/2/1/