[Gemme]

Originally Posted by stephfromMIT

Anyone here start a family after coming out/partnering? If you weren't the gestational parent, how did you deal? If you were, how did your SO cope?

When we have kids, Amanda will be the gestational mom (I lack the body fat % to sustain a pregnancy)

Well, I came into the game late. Luv's baby Luv is in the double digits now, so I was far, far away when the creation and expulsion of the munchkin happened.

However, I can tell you this. I deal well, most of the time. I am a very private, personal person and I do miss having more 'me' time, but at the same time, I don't. I like the kid. The kid likes me. I like Luv. Luv likes me. It all works. On the few occasions when I'm about the blow, Luv takes care of it...of me...of us.

I cope and/or deal as any other step parent would, I suppose. I was the one to pull Baby Luv's brand new, fresh from her TA assignment teacher to the side to explain our family dynamics and why our child might address her parents as pop and mom, instead of something else. I am the one to take the munchkin shopping (except when I drag Luv along too). I am the one the lil one scrunches up to on the couch while we watch TV at night.

I didn't birth her, but that doesn't make her any less mine. I lay down the law and am listened to and respected just as much as Luv is. We got hella lucky; she's a good kid. So, we don't have to worry too much about this stuff. Yet. The teen years have yet to come.

So, I guess maybe my response doesn't really fit with what you are asking, but it's my experience. If you're a step parent or 'other' parent or half of the parenting force or whatever else you prefer to call it, you do what you need to do. You put your own shit aside and put the kid's first. You suck it up and put your big girl/boy panties/boxers on and do what needs to be done. You act like what you are: a parent.

And, if the parenting team is fractured for whatever reason, the kid will see that. And then things get hairy.