Is It Time For Another?

My younger son is 3 years old. I think that is the signal for friends, coworkers, and strangers to ask me if I am planning to have another.

Another what? Nervous breakdown?

I am at the point where I feel I need to make a decision as to if I would like another child.

And no, society is not pressuring me to make this decision. I feel that if I were to have another child, I would like them to be less than 5 years apart. That means my husband and I better get moving.

My husband is open to another one, but I know he would prefer to keep our family the way it is, especially since we both work full-time and already get stressed with just the two kids.

For me, I have always wanted two kids. But...and don't take this the wrong way....I want two of my own.

I have been with my stepson since he was 2 years old. However, after having my birth son, I can't lie and say my love is the same for both of them.

Being a stepmother comes with a variety of expectations. One of them is that I am expected to care for a child who I did not give birth to and who does not call me mom. He spends more time with me than he does with his birth mother. After spending day after day with him, I have grown to love him.

When he was in kindergarten and first grade, he would sometimes draw pictures of his family and proudly show them to me. There would be three people in the picture. I would ask him who they were. He would say, "That's my mom, my dad, and me. I had to use brown for my mom's hair because I didn't have yellow." I have brown hair.

No one understands how those small conversations can hurt so deeply unless you are a stepparent who loves their stepchild.

After he would go to the other room, I would lock myself in the bathroom and sob. None of it would make sense. I show love to him in so many different ways, both by my words and my actions, and I can't even be included in his "family"?

I am the woman who is always there for him and has never let him down. Yet, he thinks this lady who never calls him and can't even spend 5 minutes of one-on-one time with him is his idea of a "mother"?

This is where my love for my birth son is different than my love for my stepson.

My birth son has been a part of me since his cells began dividing inside my uterus. I could tell you 5 million ways how I love him and it would never be enough.

The moment I felt him moving inside of me, I knew my love for him was different than the love I felt for my stepson.

There is never a question as to if my birth son loves me. I know he does. When I go to wake him up in the morning and he is just lying there, smiling at me. When he comes up to me and just puts his arms around me to give me a hard, long hug for absolutely no reason.

There is uncertainty, however, with my stepson's love. I think he loves me...think being the operative word. I know he probably feels torn because I am well aware that his mother tells him that I am not his "real" mother and that he shouldn't love me. Has anyone ever seen a "fake" mother?

Actually, come to think of it, I have...it's her.