Blending a Baby into a Blended Family

If you are a stepmother who has gone on to have additional children with your spouse or significant other, what has been your experience, not only with the ex but with your stepchildren as well? Was it met with more or less conflict than you thought?

In our case, the ex completely ignored it when I started sporting maternity clothes. If she didn't acknowledge it, it didn't exist (kind of like if she didn't acknowledge me the last 13 years plus, I didn't exist for her either). Let's be realistic, she still ignores my existence as well but that's OK. My stepkids' maternal aunt, on the other hand, seemed quite indignant if her behavior was anything to go by. However, my stepkids were happy over each additional sibling, though my stepson had mixed feelings when he found out he was only going to have one brother out of five siblings. He really wanted a second brother. The boys are outnumbered 2 to 4.

Bringing a baby into the world should be a time of joy (with a little anxiety all moms feel thinking about child birth, etc.), but when you bring a baby into a stepfamily, it can open the way up for a whole new set of resentments. I recently came across Stepfamily Network where stepmoms can chat with other stepmoms and get the low down on handling the ex's response to your pregnancy, as well as having a wealth of knowledge on the day-to-day of pregnancy like maternity clothes, morning sickness, hormones, and anything else that arises. I find other moms to be great sources of information. So if blending a baby into the stepfamily is a hot topic for you right now, I'll bet there are women there who would understand.