Grief over the loss of Motherhood

I wrote this two years ago and thought I'd never share this publicly. And I've shared a lot of personal emotions publicly. But this...this is just too raw. It makes sense when people mourn the loss of a child, but what about mourning the loss of the children I never get to have? I'd rather have a child and lose it! But would I really? Probably not. It just seems like the better option in my position.

It really really really really sucks knowing that I will never be a mother. That Mother's Day will come and go every year, and every year I will still just be....a dog mom? That I will raise and love children that will never be mine, that will never call me mom. It hurts that I won't get to be there for my daughter's first date, or her first high school dance. That I won't get to sit by her side in the temple when she gets married.

I want to be a mom more than anything in the world. I want to be there for my child's first steps, their first words. I want to teach them to read and to be like me. I want to dress them and decide when they get their ears pierced. I want to decide what extracurricular activities to make them try. I want to take them to school and pick them up from school. I want to be annoyed that I have to be a mom 24/7 and that I can never go to the bathroom alone. I want to wish I had a night off for a date night. I want to hold a baby that I know I get to keep and love and raise. I want to be called MOM.

Why don't I ever get to be a mom? Why was I put here on this earth and told that motherhood is next to Godliness and then have that taken away from me? I don't understand and I know that I will never get those questions answered in this lifetime. I have never had the "Why me?" question run through my head. Not when I was diagnosed with cancer, not when I went through a divorce at 22. But now, for whatever reason, I have thought the fearful and faithless question of "why me?". I know I shouldn't. I know that it means that my fear is greater than my faith. But why. Why do meth addicts get to have children. Why do mentally ill people that try to commit suicide while pregnant get to have beautiful healthy babies and keep them to raise? Why do people that don't want kids get to have them? And why not me? Did I do something wrong? Am I being punished? Could I have done something different years ago so that I could be a mother? I didn't know. I didn't know that I'd even want to be one this badly. I didn't know that I would get to taste the joy of Motherhood, but not actually get it. I didn't know how much it would hurt.

Being a stepmom isn't anything like being a mom. "Mom" may be in the title, but a stepmom is hardly anything like a real mom. I don't actually get much say in how they are raised when they aren't with me, in what they are involved in, in what schools they go to. Will it be different in the future as I've been in their lives longer?? Maybe. But what if its not? What kind of expectations should I have? Will they love me? Will they see all the sacrifices I made for them and the time I spent being LIKE a mom, but not being mom? Will they understand how much it hurt every time I got told when and where I had to drop them off back to their MOM? When I was told I don't count as a parent? Will I ever get over these feelings??

It hurts to hear my parents say they kind of get to be grandparents, but not really. It hurts to see that they feel like my dog is more their grandchild than my husband's children. It hurts because I feel the same way.

I'm terrified to be in a family ward at church. Where everyone is a mother and a family and can talk about their kids and raising kids and their frustrations. Because I don't fit in there. I can't relate. I'm not a young married couple going to have kids someday. But I'm not a mom. I'm a ..... semi part-time step parent. It's a role I've never learned about. It's a role that I don't know where it fits in. Where is my place in this parent filled world??