My Family

I Love You Just as Though You Were My Own

I love you just as though you were my own,
Though you are not the children of my blood.
Love is not lodged within one's flesh and bone,
But in one's heart, which goes which way it would.
I married into you, as into wealth,
Or into some bright mansion, just by chance.
You were not why I came, nor what I felt
That made me give my life to this romance.
Yet once we were a family, out of need,
Love came bubbling up from some sweet spring,
Watering the newly planted seed
That it might in the will of sunlight sing.
So may we long remain through love and art:
Stepparent and stepchildren of the heart.

How Ant and I met.

I met Ant in a MSN parenting group called PANS. I joined PANS in November 2002.
I always enjoyed reading his posts on the boards and he has a great sense of humour, which made going into the chat room, lot's of fun!
He was going through a hard time in February 2003 and decided to leave the group. The group just didn't seem the same without him. After a couple of months had passed, I emailed him. I wanted to let him know that I was there for support if he needed to chat.
He emailed back and for the next few days we sent each other quite a few emails. I invited him to add me to MSN Messenger.

The first night we chatted on messenger, we just clicked.
I went to bed feeling very happy and excited at this new turn of events! Lol
The next night, we chatted on messenger again and again, it was a wonderful night. After he went offline, he phoned me. We chatted all night, only putting the phone down around 7am the next morning!
For the next few days, we were either talking on messenger, sending emails to each other or on the phone for hours at a time!

It wasn't long before we decided to meet. I was nervous but extremely excited at the thought of meeting him. I'd fallen head over heels in love with him!
Our first meeting was one of the most wonderful days of my life. I knew I was in love with him from the moment our eyes met. It sounds corny I know but it's true!
We had a few problems in the first few weeks due to us still getting over other relationships and for a while it looked like we weren't going to make it but we talked a lot and managed to sort out the problems.
I was happier than I'd ever been in my life, I'd never been in love with anyone like I was with Ant and I was looking forward to our future together.

All Ant's children (he has 6 of them) accepted and welcomed me and my son, Aiden, into the family.
Ant would spend a few days at my house each week and when he got a house of his own (he'd recently moved from Ireland and was staying with his dad temporarily until he got a house) I'd go for long weekends.
Things were going great until the end of October. We had a few problems and instead of staying and talking it through, like we'd always done before, I went home.
We were apart for just under four weeks and those weeks the most painful weeks of my life. I never believed anyone could feel so much pain because a relationship ended.
Luckily, throughout the four weeks, we were still in contact via email and we managed to sort things out and get back together.

Aiden and I moved in with Ant, Jervais and Jerome, in January 2004.
On Valentines day, Ant proposed :o) It was so romantic, I just cried! I was so happy and thankfully, am still happy to this day :o)
I became Mrs A on April 30th 2005 and I just love being married :o)

Our beautiful baby KayCee was born on 2nd August at 12.04pm. She's our gorgeous little princess and we're both over the moon! :o)

So there we have it, thanks to PANS, (and to MSN lol) I've found my soul mate and I'm so lucky to be step mum to six wonderful people who I love as if they were my own.
It's all worked out great for Aiden too...he has a wonderful relationship with his dad, and his dads family, and now he has another father figure. His relationship with Ant is excellent, he's a very lucky five year old, to have so many people who love him :o) and he's excited at the prospect of being a big brother!