Brides 2 Be with Babies??

Good idea starting the post! My story is a little different, but here goes.....

I have a 5yr old son from my previous marriage of 8 yrs and we share custody of him. I have him for a week and then he goes to his dad's house for a week. It works really well for all of us right now. Not sure how it will work in the future, but Im taking it day to day.
When Riley and I were dating he wasnt sure where our future would be bc of my son. He never saw himself dating someone with a child and wasnt sure if that was the life he wanted. I couldnt fault him for that, bc I really didnt want to get involved with anyone that had children of their own either. Double standard, I know. But I just didnt want to add more possible drama then I already had. So I understood what he was feeling. His mom chatted with him early in our relationship - bless her heart - and told him that Logan and I were a package deal and that if he really wanted to be with me, then he had to take everything that came with me. Riley was very uneasy initially due to the fact he hadnt been around a lot of kids and wasnt sure what he could and couldnt say to my son. It was hard for him...of that I am sure. I made sure that Logan understood that he needed to listen to Riley and slowly Riley become more comfortable stepping in when required. Dont get me wrong, most of the discipline comes from me, however Riley does step in when he needs to or when Im not around. Riley has slowly come out of his shell of being guarded due to the tricky nature of our situation, and Logan loves to spend time with him. Riley is a "mans-man" not like my ex, and my son loves that. We have been living together for almost a year and although it has been tricky at times, we are a family unit. The only thing I have to work on is getting Riley to bring down his guard enough to let logan get closer to him. Riley finds it hard to get cuddly with Logan, probably bc logan is a boy and also bc its not his child. Doesnt want to step over any boundries?? I dont know. But Logan can be a cuddly kid sometimes and I have seen Logan try to get cuddly with Ri, and Ri tells him to get down. Not sure how to get this going, maybe he needs his own time.....I have spoken to him about it...so we will see how things progress.
On a side note; Logan has been asking Riley for a really long time if he can call him "Dad". (Ok and some of you are going into shock right now saying" I would never let my child do that when he already has a dad" - Ive heard it all - but the circumstances are different. - Logan calls his step-mom - "mom" when he is at their house and refers to her as "aimee" at my house. So it would go both ways at either house. We figure if this is something he wants, then who are we to say no. He is 5....if this helps him through our divorce - then so be it). And Riley has been saying "not yet buddy" which really bothered logan - actually to tears sometimes...but they had a convo on the way home from daycare the other day and to my astonishment, Logan asked Riley again and Riley said that if that is what he wants - then he is free to Riley, Riley or Dad. What ever he wants and feels comfortable with! Yay!!!! Thank god, bc I didnt know what else to tell my son every night at bedtime when he would ask me that same question...."when will Riley be my dad....I have a mommy and daddy at my dad's house, I want a mommy and a daddy at your house".
Its definietely not an easy situation to be in bc now you dont have 2 parents but 4 and not that the newly added parents dont have a say in child rearing, but it makes things sometimes 4x more difficult bc everyone has a say and opinion. Becomes especially hard when your ex and his fiance take one side and we are on the other.....good god! Luckily for all of us, we usually agree on most things and rarely have disagreements.
I just hope that in all of this Logan turns out okj, bc now he has doubled his parents, grandparents, cousins, and family and now he has double the love. What a lucky little boy.
As for kids....we are NOT having anymore. Riley is selfish as am I. After getting used to having logan (which I never really get used to, but I adapted) a week on and a week off, we now enjoy our alone time and dont want to loose that. We enjoy what we have and we love to have the one on one time with logan. I dont want to add another child to the mix and make things more confusing for him. But thats only my situation.
We are really happy and love the time with Logan. We make the most of our time together each week and miss him when he goes, but I keep reminding myself of all the people that now love him too. He never asked for this, but in the end I think he may have come out on top.
Thas my LONG story....sorry ladies....
Thanks again for posting this thread.....ahhhh...feel so much better now.....

Great thread idea! I'm sure there has to be others out there like us :-)

Well, I have been with my FI for almost 7 years..saying that sounds crazy. I was never one to want children or get married for that matter. I never had some huge dream since i was a little girl to have a huge wedding, and I was probably the last one anyone would expect to have children. I like kids and all, but as an only child I just didnt really know what to do with them ;-) I did figure that at sometime we would have children, but didn't think too much about it. Anyway, so my friend got pregnant and my FI (bf at time)and I were discussing when we might have babies. Marriage before wasn't super important to us. He said oh, maybe in a year or so we start trying (this was around Jan of 0. Well, what do you know, in March i find out i'm pregnant! I was pretty freaked out, and just like SuzyQ, my FI (bf at time) handled it much better than me. Babies mean growing up, and I just didnt know I was there yet...mind you i was 31...really, how much more ready do i need to be??! Next thing you know, I'm engaged and we're having a baby. So, fastforward through a pretty good pregnancy and last November I had a little baby girl (which i was *sure* was going to be a boy), and we named her MacKenzie (kenzie). It was a pretty crazy and stressful first few months getting adapted, but we got through it. Nobody tells you about the hard stuff, just how great it's all going to be....liars. JJ, we love her to death :-) We had 3 ultrasounds during the preg. and everything was "fine". However, when she came out she had a cleft lip which was pretty shocking since I wasn't expecting anything to be wrong, and she wasn't my "perfect" baby. Looking back, i know now that it is not a big deal and we could have been given a much harder scenario to deal with. She was perfectly healthy and that's really all you can ask for. At 5 months (march 09) she had her surgery to get it repaired and all that's left is a small scar from her lip to her nose. it's supposed to fade as she gets older, which i hope does happen for her. She is our gorgeous little bundle of energy that provides endless entertainment!

Finally about 3 months ago we decided we should do something about this engagement thing and we decided on a DW and started the planning!
She is almost 1 now and i go back to work in 3 weeks...so sad (yayy mat leave!). I dont know how i'm going to balance my new internet addiction and work ...haha. It's been great having so much time to preplan, but most of the work wont' be done until after rsvp's anyway I guess. This forum is great though, i'm so happy i found it!!
Congrats to all you mommies!!

My fiance and I have a 2 yr...and she's a real handful...good thing is...she's gonna be our flower girl in 2011!!!

Ladies...any idea what causes a cleft lip??

Cheers your way too!!!

Theres a few of us on this forum...
You should check out the thread on the BDW get togethers, a few of us are planning a meet sometime soon! you should join us

Ooooooooo, I will be there with bells on and Drink in hand!!
As long as future Hubby is home to babysit!! lol I was checking out the get togethers but didn't realize there was going to be one in Calgary...thought only in Red Deer or somewhere I've never been! lol
)

OMG!!! Jennybell!!!
I have so much to say! Logan is a very special LOVED little boy 4 times over , and it brought a tears to my eyes about the whole "will you be my Daddy" to Riley. FI and I have had many conversations about "What if's" ugh, so much to say - but my little guy just woke up so I will be back after supper!! lol
BTW love the name Logan, not to mention I'm a HUGE geek and love Wolverine...and for those of you who do not know what I'm talking about you'll have to google it!
Gotta go make supper and grab my baby!!
Chat to you in a bit!! )