I Didn't Want to be a "Step Mom"

The title of this post may seem alarming. You might judge instantly or start feeling bad for my “step” children.

Just keep reading. I’m a good person, I swear. And, I am obsessed with all of my children.

The night I went into labor with my son it was Super Bowl Sunday. We had just gotten home from our friends house. I got 3 littles into their bed and said good night.

Then?

I picked a fight with my husband. I don’t remember what it was about. At all. But I was overwhelmed.

I was supposed to be induced at 6:30 the next morning. It was 9:00pm and do you wanna’ know what I was doing? Hiding behind the garbage cans in my garage. Naturally.

What was I doing behind my garbage cans?

I was crying.

Bawling, actually. On the floor. All of the sudden I had all of these emotions coming up that weren’t expected.

I am an emotional person. As in, I feel all the emotions. I feel your emotions, my emotions, their emotions. All of them! And boy was I feeling them all.

As I was crying and starting to understand what was overwhelming me. It totally caught me off guard. Like…a “What the freak?” kind of moment.

I was crying because I was about to have a baby. A baby who was conceived by a different dad than my other children. My babies were going to have different dads.

Does this mean that I wanted to have more children with their dad? Certainly not. The situation just felt messy.

I was overwhelmed at the thought of having different baby daddy’s for my children. I was overwhelmed and sad at the thought that I had to put a “Step” in front of half of my kids. Kids who I love dearly.

I was so overwhelmed that I cried until I couldn’t stand.

So much crying that I started having contractions.

So many contractions that I went into labor.

With each step after divorce there has been a learning curve for me. Something different to accept about our situation. About our life. About our circumstances. It hasn’t been a walk in the park that’s for sure.

Blending families is tricky. I can see in each of our children times when they have felt left out, or needed more attention from me, from Jeremy, from us as parents. I have seen as our children have been hurt by the love, time and connections that each of us have experienced with each other’s children on both sides.

Choosing to bring another child into the mix didn’t make everyone jump for joy initially. It took time to process. It’s all just part of it.

I get asked all the time if our children all get along. I can happily and thankfully say that they do. Do they all feel like siblings? I can’t say that they do just yet. Not all of them, anyway. But I do feel like they feel like family. And that’s all I can ask for right now.

We have all had to sacrifice to make this work. We’ve all had to put in a little more effort, a little more patience, a little more understanding, and a little more love. All of us.

It seems as though even the most simple of questions spark an entire life story. “How many kids do you have?” Or for the kids…”How many kids are in your family?” Its not comfortable at times to answer.

So.

After about 15 minutes of crying my eyes out…my husband found me. He came looking for me.

To hold me.

To grab my face and make me look at him.

To tell me that this is exactly where he wants to be. In this mess with me. To tell me that he couldn’t wait to bring our son into this world together. To parent together. To learn together.

To remind me that even though all my kids won’t have the same baby daddy that he is an amazing baby daddy. And that he feels lucky to have the chance.