Fears

Fears have no place in the serene.  Tonight while visiting some friends I was confronted with one of my greatest fears and experienced a great sense of loss.  In their home was a three week old baby.  She was so beautiful and so precious.  She started to cry and I asked if I could pick her up.  When I picked her up and laid her on my chest she immediately stopped fussing.  At that very moment I felt the intense fear and sense of great loss.  I knew that was the most precious thing in the world.  I knew there was so much joy in that moment, and that will be a moment that will never be mine.  I always ask my friends if and when they have babies if I can be there with them.  I want so much to experience that, but never will.  I am trying to live vicariously through others.  I almost feel as though I am stealing.

I have made my choice.  I will never have that exact experience.  I do not want to feel envy and loss when I am around babies.  I want to feel joy and happiness for they are perfect wonderful gifts.  Sometimes I say negative things about having children.  I say these things, I now believe, as a defense.  I am deflecting my real feelings about it.  In order for me to step through this I must face it.


I am going to be honest about my feelings about making a choice to never give birth and never raise children I have given birth to.  I do feel a sense of loss.  It does hurt me to hold someone else's child and know we do not share the same DNA.  It does make me envy the mother that has that natural bond with that child.  But I believe in admitting that, I can further explore why I feel that way.


Why is DNA important?  Is it just the experience that I am hurt about loosing?  Has it just been ingrained in me that I need to give birth to a child to be an actual mother?  Has that been ingrained in society?  Do I envy the fact that a mother or father can look at a child and say they belong to them?  What defines the belonging?  


When a child is born, they are aware of their mother and father and grow up knowing that is a fact.  I have three beautiful, wonderful children, two that live with my husband and I full time.  They are his children and I am their step-mother.  I have been with them for the last seven years.  I love them with all of my heart and my soul.  There is not a thing I would not do for them.  I am honored that I have been able to help raise them.  They love me because I earned their love.  I am very proud of that fact.  They did not have to accept me, but they chose to.  I am truly blessed.


In order to step through this fear, I need to see the positive that surrounds me every day.  I have recognized the hurt and loss.  I need to embrace why I feel that way in order to recognize it and step through it.  I have experienced many things in my life, and I am grateful for each and every one.


I guess what I am trying to say is we all cannot experience everything.  We are individuals with individual experiences.  I am here.  I am doing what I am doing.  This is where I am supposed to be.  There is no other place on the earth I would rather be.