big picture for kells76

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

And something else to note is that I recognize how strongly my feelings of "do I have the bandwidth for having a kid" vary. I experience it as very binary, either Yes or No way. I think when I started this thread I was at a "Yes I do have the energy for this" place, and today I'm strongly in a "I don't have the capability to have a kid" place. The openness to having a child, generally, is still there -- that doesn't change.

[kells76]

And something else to note is that I recognize how strongly my feelings of "do I have the bandwidth for having a kid" vary. I experience it as very binary, either Yes or No way. I think when I started this thread I was at a "Yes I do have the energy for this" place, and today I'm strongly in a "I don't have the capability to have a kid" place. The openness to having a child, generally, is still there -- that doesn't change.

[worriedStepmom]

I think there is a connection between pain and capability/capacity. I think I might be wary of "inviting" more pain into our lives because I don't feel like I have the energy or resources to face it. So, yeah, the potential pain is part of it, but really it's the exhaustion brought by  dealing with the pain, maybe, that is more daunting.

This is really valuable insight.   We all have capacity for X amount of stress at any one time (with surge capacity sometimes).  We have to choose the most critical stuff and sometimes hand off the others, temporarily or permanently.  You probably don't have spoons to add more stress to your life, structured the way it is. 

Maybe it's time to look at this another way.  If more stress gets added to your life - because of a new baby or a car accident or a fire*, how could you provide some capacity, if needed?

My therapist keeps talking to me about triage.  Here are some triage things I've done when I've been overwhelmed:

*When I had infants, my house was a mess.  Sleep > dusting.
*When I got divorced, the kids and I ate sandwiches for dinner 4 nights a week.  Cooking = no.
*When work got stressful last spring, I stopped organizing the kids' activities.  D14, H, and exH figured it out together.
*When the coronapocalypse started and my anxiety spiked out of control, I talked to my best friend who is going through tough stuff.  I'll be available for all BIG FEELINGS, but I can't handle being her day-to-day support right now.  She understands and she's okay.

*note to universe: DO NOT do the bad things to kells76.

[livednlearned]

I completely understand trauma from having step kids  

It's definitely a thing.

What strikes me about your situation is the timing.

Teen agers are awful. Sorry teen agers! And your SDs have a mom and step dad who seem like chronic teen agers themselves. I mean, I know teens have wonderful qualities and it's an amazing time in their lives and there are definitely ups. But wow. What a challenging time for parents when teens start to gain momentum!

I remember reading somewhere that the teen brain starts to rewire so it can learn how to learn socially from peers (versus from adults). The quasi rejection of parents and adult figures is built into the process for how kids become adults. But so is the attachment to parents, which probably explains why our kids come to us for stuff while believing we know nothing.

And apparently the definition of popularity changes for kids as they go from elementary to middle to high school ages. In high school, popularity is dictated by the willingness to test taboos and limits. This kind of tapers off when teens become young adults and settle back into what feels like themselves.

You have a very challenging step parenting dynamic and these teen years are probably going to get weirder and harder given mom and stepdad dynamics.

It's a super personal decision to have a baby, obviously and I genuinely have no thought one way or the other -- you're being so wise to consider your own capacity so carefully. I just think this period now as the girls go through their teens is kind of like the month of February. It's often the coldest, the darkest, you can't remember last summer and spring seems like a long way away...

It's almost like you have to take into consideration that this too shall pass so you have enough space to make a decision that is genuinely for you.

That, and having a baby is such a major reset of unknown proportions.

I was a step mom to n/BPDx's teen age son when I had my son, and it created a dynamic I could never have anticipated. My step son had to adjust to no longer being the center of attention and honestly it was the best thing that happened to us. We bonded over focusing on this tiny little person and it changed the dynamic into something way more real and frankly, pragmatic.

That's the kind of stuff you can't really plan for because it takes its own path into places there are beyond planning for.

[Turkish]

I just think this period now as the girls go through their teens is kind of like the month of February. It's often the coldest, the darkest, you can't remember last summer and spring seems like a long way away...

Beautifully poetic!

I tell stories about D8 to my 70 something neighbor and she says, "that's why I'm glad I only had boys!"

Just this morning D8 told me she hated me and when I asked her to brush her hair she said "No!" And tried to hit me.  I sent her to her room. I heard a bang. She threw her brush into the closet and i couldn't find it. Can't wait for 3-4 years and puberty!