Family Ties

I once told the doctor that I was falling in love with his children. And its true. I adore them. The older one is a bit on the spoiled side, but sensitive and emotional. I can relate. The younger is a firecracker, and cute as a button.

I'm really not the sort of woman who saw her primary role in life to be a mother. In fact I detested just those sorts of women. In fact when Jennifer Garner, declares in the movie Juno " I was born to be a mom" I just about threw up. But somewhere in my early thirties all baby-hating went out the window and my stance on mommyhood softened.

I began to look longingly and mothers cradling their newborns. I would smile at fathers carrying infants in backpacks, or pushing pink-cheeked toe-headed toddlers. I wanted to hold them and smell their little baby smells, and when I heard their little voices calling mommy, I secretly fantasized about my little one, climbing in my lap and calling for me.

Don't think this wasn't shocking. And it was nothing if not purely biological -- but regardless of the origins of my sudden designs on motherhood, I could not deny they existed and growing stronger.

In fact, they were one of the primary reasons I left my marriage. I could not fathom making a family with this man - and I desperately wanted a family.

One of the things I find most attractive about the Doctor is his sense of family - and a paternal aptitude that is off the scale. He loves those little girls with just the right amount of tenderness and firmness. They result is they are well-behaved and well-adjusted and know in no uncertain terms that they are unconditionally loved. The way he is with them - his skill as a father - is one of the things I most admire in him.

But there is no doubt, that being around those little girls has done nothing to quell the burning need for children of my own. If anything, my constant interactions with them have made the problem worse. They hug and kiss me goodnight, we read books together, and they crawl in my lap and cuddle. During our recent trip to his hometown, the older of the two told me that since I would probably be her step-mom, that made me sort of like her mom, and then proceeded to call me mommy at every opportunity, in front of everyone. The younger enthusiastically joined in.

Of course, I was mortified. Not that she would actually want to call me that -- I found that flattering actually -- but that the Doctor and his parents might think that I had encouraged this. And truth be told, I probably had some guilt about it, because I secretly liked it. It tapped into all my deep and hidden longings to be called mommy.

He had a talk with them -- and in no uncertain terms told them to stop. How would their real mommy feel to hear that? He asked.

I confess that stung a bit. Their *real* mommy. I was just the fake mommy. The stand in mommy. I was just for fun and games and make believe. I wasn't real.

This is one of those moments when you know someone is right but that the words hurt to hear. Because even though I never had any intention of attempting to take the place of the *real* mommy, I had begun to feel that I was wearing the mommy role, and that I deserved to be recognized. We were making a family, and if I wasn't part mommy, then what was I?

It also reminded me how badly I wanted to be someones real mommy. I wanted a real baby to grow in my belly, and I wanted that baby to suckle my breast and coo at my voice, and tug at my leg and crawl into my lap and call me mommy. I wanted it so bad it hurt.

But after the doctor's youngest was born, he had had a vasectomy. It was a hasty decision because of a medical problem that made it to risky for his wife to have any further children. She should have had her tubes tied, he told me once, but she couldn't be bothered and so he did the responsible thing and took care of it.

The responsible thing that robbed me of having his children, and is a source of anguish for me every day.

As it turns out, vasectomies can be reversed, but it's expensive and delicate surgery. And it's not always effective - less and less so the longer you wait. If I had my druthers he'd be on that operating table right now taking care of it. But he has expressed reservations at going under the knife again, and financially - if his insurance won't cover it - it is a burden we can't bear right now.

So when he asked his daughter how it might make their real mommy feel, inside I was screaming, "who cares how she feels? Because of her I may never get to be a real mommy to your children, and If it makes her feel bad to hear her children call me mom, then I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."

Now I suppose that's just hurtful retaliation on my part, But what can I say. The woman took his sperm, and she has ham stringed him financially so he has no other options. She gets to be the sole bearer of his progeny, which I am certain pleases her greatly. My resentment oozes out from ever pore in my body.