When I gleefully announced that I was in the "stepmothering way," there was no de facto What to Expect When You're Expecting guide for me. So, instead of a manual of advice on how to raise someone else's children, my friends (whose numerous baby showers I had attended) gave me a bottle of wine and a diary and toasted me with something akin to "glad it's you and not me."

Unlike our bio mom counterparts, stepmothers have no gestation period to get used to the idea of becoming a parent. There is no ga-gillion dollar industry based on celebrating a woman's entry into stepmotherhood. There are no overly frosted party cakes with plastic stepchildren arm in arm with their stepmother. There is no nine-month primer filled with congratulations and grandmotherly advice, no strangers patting your tummy or time-tested counsel from Dr. Spock. There are no stepmother showers, no books with chatty stepmother advice (except mine) and most disappointingly, there are no tuna noodle casseroles on the doorstep. Instead stepmothers go into the role blindly, without any tutelage from friends, books or doctors. Why?

It is a concept that is hard to understand considering the staggering statistics: 52% of all first marriages end in divorce, 75% of those people who get divorced remarry, 65% of those remarriages involve children from a prior marriage.

So where does that leave you? Well if you know a stepmother that is about to embark on the stepmother journey it is up to you to shower her with encouragement, enthusiasm and realistic advice. What better way to do that than with a stepmother Baby Shower. The following is a good list of ideas that should help to get you started in the planning.