by Brandi Riley posted in Pregnancy

I met my husband Terrence when my daughter was 17 months old. At the time I was a single mom who wasn't looking for love, but he quickly changed my mind. After two years of dating long-distance (he was in California and I was in Pennsylvania), my daughter Ayva and I packed up and headed west to be with him.
From the very beginning of our relationship, Terrence was intentional about including Ayva in everything. If he sent me flowers, there was candy included with a card addressed to her. He sent care packages for her on every holiday with little toys and trinkets. Every time we visited him in California, our activities were child-friendly and family appropriate.
Even before we started talking about getting married, I made it clear that I didn't want a step-parent for my child. Her biological father wasn't in the picture at all, so whoever I decided to be with would be the daddy. I had been a stepchild myself. My stepmother and father were married when I was 6, but it wasn't until I was 30 that my stepmother and I had a relationship where she saw herself as my mother -- even though she took care of me for the majority of my adolescent years. She wouldn't even sign her name on my permission slips. She'd write my dad's name instead. I knew I didn't want that for Ayva. Terrence was incredibly receptive to the idea of being Ayva's father, and agreed that once we got married, he would want to adopt her. When Ayva and I arrived to California,...