If you do get pregnant, it’s a time to celebrate and to prepare. You pick out which room in the house the baby will sleep in. You choose furniture and start collecting pacifiers and cuddly little blankets. But there’s more to do when you welcome a baby into a stepfamily.
First, you and Dad have to tell the kids you’re pregnant. Then your husband has to reassure his kids that he won’t love his new baby more than he loves them. And you will have to make an effort to do things with your stepchildren so they don’t feel left out.
These are the same things that parents in first families have to do with a firstborn child when a new baby comes along. You might have to deal with some flare-ups with the kids, but your child won’t be an only child. Yours will have older siblings to play with or look up to. Which is wonderful, and can help a stepmother feel more connected to the family.
“Having my daughter made me understand there is no ‘them or me.’ When you have your own child you really deeply understand, right to the core, that love is not a zero-sum game where because you love your child you can’t love someone else,” says my stepmother, Nancy, of having my little sister.