The Love Cups
In October 2018, I found out I was pregnant. For so many reasons, it felt entirely unbelievable… and yet, it was very real – we were adding to the Cayleys. Baby makes 8 (humans).
Becoming a family of 8 changes things in a really obvious way, like cars… 7-seaters are common these days, but we had a steep learning curve about the availability of cars with 8 or more seats. And I was in no hurry to get my truck licence. I got a Mum bus and Mal had his car modified to have an 8th seat legally added.
A car felt like a change we had parameters for, so we worked within them and got it sorted.
Where we felt less guided was preparing Madi, Conor, Asher, Judah and Luca for a baby in the house and the first to be grown from their dad with their stepmum.
We sat the kids down to tell them I was pregnant. To this day, this is still one of my favourite family moments. That might sound like it was this light, airy, happy-music-playing moment. Nope. It was a moment that showed the core of every one of my stepkids. Madi smiled… the biggest smile ever and gave me a hug. Then she turned to Mal, and she said, “You’re such an old Dad”. Conor was triggered by thoughts of his recent Biology class where he learned how babies are made. Asher had tears well in his eyes, but before they could escape, he wiped them away and said “I hope it’s a girl. Girls aren’t annoying. Brothers are annoying.” Judah said “You’re not really pregnant. I don’t believe you” and he meant it. Side note: he maintained I wasn’t pregnant until he came to scans with us and I grew enough of a tummy for him to be convinced. Luca processed the goings on of his siblings and then asked, “So, does the baby come to Mum’s with us?”
I’ve summed up the kids’ feelings in one paragraph and of course it was a much bigger conversation than that. Importantly, what it highlights is that trying to bring all of the kids through this pregnancy and the change that was coming for our family by treating them all the same was not going to work. They needed different levels of assurance.
As Judah began to believe I could be pregnant, it became obvious there was uncertainty for him in all of this pregnancy business. One night, all of us sitting at the dinner table after we’d finished eating, I could hear Judah’s questions centring on there being enough love for everyone. Without looking to qualify what he was saying, I said “When the baby is born, we will all get a new cup of love. Right now, we have a cup for each person we love. When I fell in love with your dad, I got a new cup of love in my heart that was just filled with my love for him. I didn’t have to take love from anywhere else; everyone I already loved, I still loved because they had their own love cup in my heart. Then, I got a love cup in my heart for each of you. I didn’t take love from anyone else; they were new cups. When the baby is born, all of us will get a new love cup in our heart. I’ll love the baby from the new love cup and no love will be taken out of my love cups for you. The same for Dad and the same for each of you; you will all get a new love cup for the baby so that you will still love the people you love now, just the same.”
There was barely a pause before the beautiful smile that Judah is known for swept across his face and lit up his eyes.
We soaked up this moment. Mal and I spent nights chatting about ways we could make sure the kids felt secure and loved in what was about to become (greater) mayhem in our house and hearts.
We found out the gender of our baby and made sure the kids were the first to know. We made it a moment, a family moment. We did a gender reveal at home, just the 7 of us. The kids all had their own gender reveal confetti popper and, in our lounge room, they went bang and the room filled with small spots of pink, loud cheers and squeals, and tears of joy.
When we shopped for things baby would need, we shopped together.
We would sit together and vote on names for baby. The kids would say “No way! I have so many kids in my class with that name!” or they’d be divided on a name that half liked and half passionately disliked. When we all agreed, we added the name to our list.
We would take turns on guessing who the baby would look like, what colour hair she might have, what colour eyes.
We downloaded one of the apps that compares the size of the baby with fruit and vegetables and following the Tuesday night update, whoever was in the front seat for the Wednesday morning drive to school would excitedly open the app and see how big our baby was this week.
We moved rooms around and set the house up for baby’s arrival, making sure everyone was involved in the discussions about the changes in everyone’s space.
We sat together on the lounge room floor watching the baby do backflips in my tummy to a chorus of “Woahhhhhhhh” “Oh. my. gosh.” and “Does that hurt?”.
Two weeks post due date on a Tuesday afternoon, the kids were picked up from school by my beautiful cousin and brought up to the hospital to meet their baby sister, Mykenzie. She was less than an hour old.
From the moment they arrived, they could see their fingerprints on the atmosphere; decisions we had made as a family. Mykenzie was a name we had all agreed would be in the Top 3 – spelt like “Mykonos” to represent our love of travel and starting with “M” which was decided to be the theme for the girls, just like Madi and Matilda.
As promised, they were the first to meet their baby sister and most importantly, we made the very big decision that when baby was born, there would be no visitors. We spent five days where the kids only competed with each other for the next cuddle. Where they would lay next to Mykenzie and me on the hospital bed and fall asleep watching her. Where Mal would bring takeaway dinners and we would sit around the bed eating and chatting. I have an album of bonding moments on my phone and in my heart.
Every big conversation, every moment of reassurance, the moments of letting the kids influence things that I could easily have kept for myself (like baby’s coming home outfit) was worth every bit of effort.
I was pregnant, sure, but we were having a baby.
The change is for everyone.
As new parents, it’s accepted and expected you will commit a lot of energy to contemplating all facets of pregnancy and preparing for baby’s arrival. As a not quite nuclear family, we needed to create this for the kids.
Here’s some of what I remember of this stage:
We avoided the statement “nothing will change” – it all changes.
The whole dynamic shifts – Luca used to be the “youngest” and wasn’t going to be anymore. Madi was the only girl and wasn’t going to be anymore. We didn’t avoid this being the case and we talked about it.
As a stepmum, the attention I could give the kids before Mykenzie was born was undivided and no doubt was what made them feel more comfortable about our not quite nuclear-ness. I spent time explaining to them that Mykenzie would require intense levels of attention, care and time from me initially. Preparing them for what was inevitable rather than waiting for it to happen.
If the kids wanted to raise conversations about things said by bio mum during and about my pregnancy, that was fine. I would engage. Answer. But I wouldn’t seek it out. It’s not my conversation.
Include, include, include. The kids chose what they wanted to be involved in, but they were always included on baby chats. I mean, age-appropriate baby chats of course…
Where possible in the rush of hormones, I practiced not being easily offended. That’s clearly a counterintuitive sentence, agree. So sometimes I was offended enough to tell Mal it was painful and then seek perspective.
I knew my limits. Choosing a baby carrier was always going to be about something that comfortably held my back, boobs and baby. There was no room for the kids to help with that. There’s plenty that is personal in the preparations, and I had no guilt about the things I needed to have control over.
Leveling up during pregnancy with stepkids is not about making a bed of roses. It’s about helping young hearts learn a very big change is coming and helping them know that however they feel about it is okay.
In your home, there’s excitement galore. That might not be shared in their other home, or maybe it’s difficult for them to navigate the views of their friends. Our commitment was to give them the safe space to ask, say and feel whatever is going on for them.
Kids love to reminisce. We all do. But kids really do. Today, we spend countless hours talking about what each of us remembers about my pregnancy and Mykenzie’s first three years. What we all agree is we can’t imagine a world where she isn’t the 6th Cayley kid and we’re all grateful she gave us a whole extra Love Cup.
PS – there’s blogs galore inside this blog. Biology discussions, attending scans, gender reveals, hospital time, shopping for baby things (“what does that do?” “why do you need that?”), hormones in the fourth trimester (and beyond), breastfeeding with 4 stepsons etc etc etc. The adding-a-baby-to NQN families is a big “To be continued”…