If Karma is a Boomerang.....

My mind wanders this morning. I've been thinking about the message that is sent by the mix of the various message boards I belong to and post at on a relatively regular basis. There are the trying to conceive after loss boards. The trying to conceive after age 40 boards. The weight loss boards. The survivors of suicide loss boards. And the step family boards. Who would ever have thought that this would be the mix of my life at age 41?

I'm focused on the step parent part of my life this morning.

The joys of it....the fact that I have these two awesome little gifts in my life ... aged 7 and 9. I call them Frodo and Mini Me because that's who they remind me of when they are with their dad. Mini Me has stolen my heart. His quick smile. His total giving over of himself once his dad and I got married. Prior to that, I used to whip him into good behaviour by threatening to "smooch" him. He couldn't imagine getting smooched by me. Now he arrives at our home for his regular visits, runs in and throws himself around my waist for a big hug, and says goodnight to me with a big kiss...a "smooch". And I treasure each of these because I know that they are hard earned and given with total honesty from this seven year old being's heart. Frodo is a bit more like his mother's side of the family. Nice, but guarded. More into the "gimmes...what can you gimme" than he is into honest relationships. Typical nine year old stuff in many ways, but in other ways both his dad and I can see that he is adopting more and more of his mother's behaviours and ways of looking at life.

Which brings me to "her".

They had a 12 year relationship, seven of those years in marriage. They brought out the absolute worst in each other, and although both are good people in their own right, they were like oil and water together. I wouldn't pick her as a friend or even an acquaintance, and yet she has this presence in my every day life. We are tied to her because of these two awesome beings we share.

And truth be known, I am jealous of her some days. Like today.

I sit here with my aging eggs, wondering if I can ever carry a baby to term, or even conceive again. And she ... the one who has the perpetual knot in her forehead ... has given my husband the one thing we want more than almost anything. Children.

My logic (which I have an overabundance of by the way) tells me that this means nothing. My husband tells me that this means nothing. That he sees more of me in the boys than her. I have been in their lives since the very early days, and I know that my way of living...my values...my humour...my gifts...rub off on them. I see them taking on some of my characteristics. And yet, they are not biologically mine. They share her genetics.

When he told her that he had met someone, her response was "she can't be better than me". My husband, incredible diplomat that he is, responded with "she's different than you".

Different.

Different in many good ways. I don't have a knot in my forehead from frowning at people all the time. And my nose isn't pinched from looking down it at the rest of the world.

But also different in that apparently I don't work the same way fertility-wise as she does.

When we became pregnant with our baby boy, she didn't want us to tell the boys. I was almost six months pregnant, and had gained 30 lbs (I know...way too much!) and we were saying "ummm time to tell the boys". She was content to tell them that I was just getting fat. So the boys never knew that they had a brother.

And when we lost the baby, she sent them over on the weekend of the loss with a potted plant.

Of mums.

That died.

And then said to me "I hope you don't think I'm not just as upset about your baby as you are, because I am you know".

It just doesn't seem fair to me, that this woman...who openly admits that she likes no children but her own gets to have children.

My rant for the day. To quote Wil from Big Brother 5...."if karma is a boomerang......."