When I was four months pregnant, three-and-a-half-year-old Kai collapsed on my lap in a friend's living room, amidst the low buzz of an early evening dinner party. Before long he fell asleep. His head lay firmly against my chest, his breath flowing straight towards my heart for the next 30 minutes. As I carried him to the car that evening, I found myself thinking what every parent does: don't let anything happen to this little boy. And then the stepparent's corollary: don't let anything happen to my husband, because then I'll lose them both. For me, this is the hardest part of stepparenthood: Realizing I have no legal bond to this child I love and living with the fear that he could easily be snatched from my life.
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