My youngest son said something once that made me wonder how he got so wise. Sd was whining and moaning because she didn't get some expensive thing she wanted and generally making all of us miserable. Anyway I asked him if he was bothered about it and he says he felt sorry for her because she would never be truly happy. That all she knew and cared about were things and how much it cost. Since she is so shallow she could not appreciate the small important parts of life. :jawdrop: He was 17 at the time, this is when teenagers are supposed to be shallow and selfish. Of course H opened his mouth and said my son was a wuss for feeling like that. Monkey Butt!!

I thank God every day for my sons and I love them both. My youngest is something special. I'm constantly being surprised by the things he says and does. Before he was sent overseas he would volunteer for the Christmas toy drive and help deliver the gifts. He even gave up taking leave on the holidays so people with kids could be with their families. One year I was complaining because he wouldn't be home again at Christmas and he tells me that doing things like that made him feel good and we could have our own Christmas in Jan. and that would be more special. He's constantly doing things like that and it makes me so proud I could bust.

have it pretty good. They all get lots of attention from us and things from us. We do tend to save the big outings for when my skids are with us, but our son is only 20 months old. I suspect that the " Big" things will always be that way, even though the skids do plenty of fun things with their mom. I am okay with it though because they are very appreciative & quick with a thank you.

My skids do get more things because they have two house holds & 4 sets of grandparents essentially, BUT my son gets tucked in everynight by his mom & dad.

"To Thine Own Self Be True" William Shakesphere

As it is, I see how things are so slanted (by H) in all things towards HIS family-be it the skids, or H's sisters or h's mom.

Christmas was a good example. Skids live 30 minutes away. H's mom lives 30 minutes away (nursing home) in the other direction. My bs lives 5 hours away.

Christmas nite, H was not even here. He had to leave about 7:00 pm to go back to work.

Who spent the nite in this house? MIL and skids. My own bs had to get a motel room. Who was cozy in the recliner all day? MIL. While I had to tell skids, more than once, to get their butts up off the couch so MY parents could take a seat.

That's just a small example of how H has steered things. But BIG changes are happening. It will go on no longer. H used the fact that I was financially dependent on him to bully everything his way. Now that the IRS debt is out in the open, this will happen no longer. I'm going to start showing him that he and his can go eat grass!

But I digress. As a child, you had no control over what went on.

DH and I want to have a child, and we are going to have to pay a LOT of money to do so (damn vasectomy reversal!). MY child will not suffer for anything because it will have 2 half sisters. If DH were to say "we need to send money to SD because she is in college" I will tell him to tell her ass to get a job, or 3 like I did, to make it. And all that money I make that goes toward paying for stuff for SD's now, will STOP the minute I am with child. Not to mention, my family is supportive and giving, unlike DH's. That baby will have everything under the sun and then some.

Normally I am not so aggressive about SD's and giving them stuff, but SD14 struck a nerve with me last night. She said she didn't want us to have a baby because then we wouldn't have money to give to her. She knows the reversal is expensive and said she didn't want us to spend the money we are saving for it, because then we wouldn't have any left for her. I told her that was not her place to be concerned with it, and left it at that. But it kinda pissed me off. How dare she tell ME what to do with MY money. Now granted, we will be using money that I am inheriting from my grandmother's passing to pay for the surgery, but that is not her business either. Grrr, and to top it off, she sprung it on us that she is going on a school trip this weekend (her BM's time) and she needs money for food. I was going to be the nice SM and give her some extra for play money, but she called DH this afternoon and told him she "thought it is silly" to have to clean to earn money. SHE is the one who begged me to have daily chores to make money! I know where that comment came from... her jobless lazy ass POS mother, who should be supplying the money for the trip since it is her time anyway!

Whoops, sorry for the rant!

im pregnant now and i wory about how we will be able to afford giving our baby everything he/she needs. we pay alot in CS (i think) and when i think of how BM got her "paycheck" and is now pregnant w another kid to some random guy and will get ANOTHER paycheck, it makes me sick. and here we are...married, committed, so in love and wanting a family of our own, and my husband for the first time choosing to have children and doing so w the woman he loves, and we will have to struggle. its tough. BUT like sweetthing said, she will have her parents tuck her in bed together every nite, and will know we chose to have her, wanted her, and love each other as much as we love her. that means the world.

"Given the right reasons and the right two people, marriage is a wonderful way of experiencing your life."
~the late great George Carlin

DH and I are at a place in our lives where we can provide financially for the kids. However, if we were still in the situation of paying thousands to BM in CS, we couldn't afford to help them out as much financially as we can now.

It's like what sweetthing and bellacita said. The fact that their bio kids with their DHs will have both of their parents under the same roof and that their parents chose to have them is everything. The skids don't get that. Granted, our DHs/BFs/fiances love them just as much as they love their kids with us. In my DH's case, when BM got pregnant with my youngest SD, he thought they had agreed they'd have no more kids. At the time, she was cheating on him with someone else, so when she got pregnant, DH waited until the youngest SD was born and got a DNA test. The test told everyone that DH is the father. But still, he was understandably angry at BM. He thought they had an agreement. He found out later that she did indeed go off the pill to try to keep him. So when I got pregnant, he was more excited about this pregnancy than he was about the youngest SD's.

If I hadn't miscarried, I definitely feel that our child would have (unintentionally, of course) gotten the shaft financially from DH due to the CS he had to pay BM. But, that child would have also had both of his parents loving each other under one roof, and would have had a sane BM. The SDs have neither of those things. There were many times when I was little when I wished I had both of my parents under the same roof, even though I talked to each of them daily when I was at the other's house. However, it was just not the same.

We had a dilemma arise when the youngest SD asked DH (while I was expecting) if he was excited when BM was pregnant with her as he was excited that I was pregnant. Gee, I wonder who forced her into asking that question! He answered that yes, he was. How do you tell a little kid that they weren't mutually planned between their parents? Now that she's here on this earth, though, we wouldn't trade her (or her sister) for anything in the world. She knows that she's wanted by her dad. It's important for kids to know that they are wanted and loved, regardless of how they are conceived. How they are conceived isn't their fault and they didn't ask to be brought into this situation. Luckily, I think that most of our DHs/BFs/fiances DO want their kids, regardless of how the kids were conceived, or they wouldn't have fought so hard to be a part of their children's lives.

The problem is, we don't know if we should tell her (or her sister) about the circumstances in which she was conceived when she is much older. Should we see if she asks us, or should we tell her once she's turned 18?

I think that a key part to making sure everyone (especially both bio and stepkids) gets through this OK is for ALL the adults involved to let them know that although the situation in which they live is not perfect, they are very deeply loved and wanted and very much a part of both mom's and dad's families.