They Had Sex

Well, it's been quite a journey, and here we are: 12 weeks pregnant and ready to share the news.

I remember when I was younger seeing pregnant women and wondering how they could just go about their business in public and not be too embarrassed that their big bellies announced to the world that THEY HAD SEX to get where they were.

If you see me waddling down the street in the next six months, know that it wasn't just PJ and I getting it on that led to where we are. Since my miscarriage we have had dozens of helpers.

Cards, juicy ripe fruit, positive affirmations, vitamins, notes and books left on our doorstep, gifts of foot massages and healing crystals, offers to do my grocery shopping, emails and text messages of love, lifts to places when I was too tired to walk or bike, and from Z's mum, a voucher for three sessions with her chinese doctor.

There was once a time that I saw stepparenting as the more communal act, but now I see how communal an effort pregnancy is too.

Pink Blossom

I went to the toilet then I wiped. There was blood. Ordinarily, and once a month, not such bloggable news. But on this afternoon it was, as I was 11 weeks pregnant.

It wasn't until I became a stepmother that I discovered how adept a woman can become at holding her tongue. And it wasn't until I had a miscarriage that I realised how much goes on in women's lives that doesn't get talked about openly.

What are we hiding? What are we afraid will happen if we assert a new kind of openness?

It's funny that what prompted me to blog about it is what one man said and what another man sang. Maybe funny's the wrong word.

PJ wrote a poem about losing our baby and our dear friend Anthony Petrucci put it to music.

Here it is: the sadness and the wonder of it all.

Family Trees

It's National Stepfamily Awareness Day today, a day whose aim is very close to my heart.

It seems fitting that today is also National Tree Day, as both days celebrate biodiversity, familial extensions and new growth.

Last year in the UK and US, stepfamilies outnumbered first families for the first time, with demographers predicting that Australia will catch up by 2020.

Even though rates of divorce and remarriage are so high, being in a stepfamily is rife with complications, and often members of stepfamilies feel isolated. The last five years, in which I have lived in a stepfamily, have been the most joyous and the most confusing of all my 37 years.

In 2009, when I was at my wit's end as to how I would ever reconcile who I was becoming with who I had been before I was a stepmother, I set out on a journey of recording my own experiences as well as those of 50 other stepmothers from around the world.

Hundreds of hours talking, thousands of hours writing and countless litres of tea drinking later, I am overjoyed to announce that the first draft of my manuscript is finished.

As we don't have a printer, this is the first time I have printed out the whole draft to read. Besides all the people I have to thank for their help so far, thank you to the trees, to the trees.

Five

Happy anniversary PJ and Z!

Here's to many more years of making silliness together.

'

From here.

The other day I was sitting out on the deck drinking tea. Z was at school, PJ was in Sydney and our dog Zero was asleep beside me in the sun. The tea was hot. I blew on it. A cloud of steam drifted up into the sunshine.

I forgot what steam was made of. As I sat there, quietly blowing, sipping and sunning myself, I was reminded. And just as I saw that steam is made up of tiny droplets of water, I remembered that everything is made up of so many parts, different, the same, interconnected.

Happy Mothers' Day to all maternal sentient beings, including my own.

In our wanting to be better humans we sing your praises every day. You raised us, you held us, you guided us.

For everything else we say thank you today. The small things may be small, but just like the placement of an apostrophe, they are never inconsequential.

The Turtle

I was flicking through the photos on my phone this afternoon and found this. It was on the wall opposite the nurse's station in our local hospital. I snapped it during one of my visits to see PJ when he was in hospital with his chainsawed knee.

When I was growing up, my sisters and I called this pose The Turtle. One of us would get down on hands and knees while the other would jump up to reach a high place such as the cupboard where our parents hid the cooking chocolate.

PJ finished making this step yesterday morning. He made it out of the rocks I dug up from the garden two weeks ago.

When I first became comfortable with the prefix step in stepmother, I visualised myself as The Turtle. I spent the day today writing up my most recent stepmother interviews and every time I typed the word step, an image of this one came to mind.

The Interviews

Since I put the call out for stepmothers eleven days ago, I have been in touch with 15 women. Thank you to those who contacted me and to those who passed on my details. And an especially big thank you goes to those women I have already interviewed or who I have arranged to interview over the coming weeks.

Until today all my interviews had been over the phone, but this afternoon I talked to my first stepmother face-to-face. I was a little nervous – asking personal questions over the phone had been one thing, but would I be able to ask them in the flesh? But over tea and toast, there was just no stopping us.

I have been so overwhelmed by the women I have spoken to and so moved by their stories, by their courage and their willingness to admit and share their vulnerabilities. I have only just embarked on my interviews, and already I feel like they are helping me become a better person.

(I am still on the lookout for more stepmothers, so if you know of any you think might like to talk to me, please feel free to send them my details.)

Stepmothers, Ahoy!

Are you a stepmother? Can I please interview you?

Or do you know any stepmothers who would be interested in talking to me about their experience of co-parenting their partner's children?

I am currently researching this rich subject and am keen to talk to as many different stepmothers as I can.

Whether you are older or younger, live in Australia or internationally, have birth kids of your own or not, are married or de facto, are a hands on stepparent or more like a friend, I would love to hear from you.

All conversations will be kept strictly confidential.

Please email me at megland [at] gmail [dot] com.

The Time Machine

Someone left this time machine near our house yesterday. I found it this morning as I headed into the bush for my walk. All day I have been thinking about it and what year I am going to visit.

Am I going to go back to before I was born so I can meet my father's father, whom I never met?

Am I going to go back to the night Z was born so I can peer through the window and see what his mum's experience was like?

Am I going to go back to the year my mum cut her finger with a chainsaw so I can call her to say be extra careful that day?

Will I go forward to the next time I see my sister Abby, because I miss her like crazy?

Will I go forward ten years to see what state the world is in?

Or will I stay right where I am, because I'm happy?

Dear PJ's Parents,

Thank you so much for the dinner voucher you sent me for Stepmother's Day. I used it last night and shard a delicious meal with PJ. We felt so privileged to be eating so extravagantly and appreciated every mouthful.

As we were leaving the restaurant we chatted to a woman we know who works there. Knowing that I had a voucher she asked if it was my birthday. She looked stunned when I told her why I had received it and from whom.

She too is a stepmother, but unlike me, she was not recognised or acknowledged on Mother's Day. Not by her stepkids, because they don't want their mum to think they align themselves with her, not by her partner who takes for granted everything she does for his kids, and not by herself, because she didn't know she was entitled to.

Thank you for acknowledging my role. As the new partner, I have insecurities about Z's feelings towards me; that he, as well as everyone else will forever compare me to his birth mum, PJ's ex-wife, your ex-daughter-in-law.

All anyone wants is to be seen and accepted as themselves. The thoughtfulness of your gift made me realise that I am.

Much love to you both from me at the kitchen table,

Meg

The Half-Parent

Firstly, a big thank you to the lovely Julia for seeing this book in an op-shop and buying it for me. The fact that Julia is a close friend of Z's mum makes the gesture feel particularly thoughtful.

In my quest to read as much as I can about stepparenting I thought I would give this book a go, though my hopes were not too high. This book was first published in 1975, when I was just a year old. I thought it would be dated and boring and have cobwebs between the paragraphs.

Boy oh boy was I mistaken! Maddox was a journalist before she became a stepmother, so her research is empirical and her writing style is a perfect balance of objective editorial and engaged parental enquiry.

One of the many interesting things I learned (from page 35):

In English and American usage for about four hundred years, from 1440 until at least mid-nineteenth century, the term "mother-in-law" was often used to refer to a stepmother. Although such a meaning is now regarded as incorrect, it made literal sense. A stepmother was a mother "in law", that is, in canon law, by the fact of her marriage to a child's father.

Do I feel like I am half a parent to Z? No. Even though he lives with us for half the week, I still feel like his parent for all seven days, just as I'm sure his mum does.

Recently while we were in an op-shop, PJ found another copy of Maddox's book. I bought it to lend out to people, which I have already started doing, and so I could take this photo.

A half + a half = a whole, right?