[Bug-n-Bears-Mommy]

We have an open adoption agreement with Bear's family. We have no contact at all with Bug's parents. We DO, have an informal arrangement with his aunt however...nothing legally binding.

What I find different is that we have 4 kids all together with my step daughters. The aunt accepts ALL the kids and says she would love to be Aunt (name) to all of them. She is barely making it on her own with her 4 kids, but she ALWAYS thinks of all 4 kids.

Now Bear was the last of the 4 and his bio family KNEW from the begining we had 3 other kids. They act as though he is the ONLY child in the house. Not just in buying things...because I don't expect them to buy things for all the kids, but in the way they are treated and talked to. It is weird to me. They have made my oldest s-daugher feel so outcast that she calls them "the biologicals"...she is 11 and at an age where she really feels and senses the difference.

I am more comfortable with the informal essentially "closed" relationship than I am with the formal open adoption we have. I just hope as the boys get older it is not something that comes between them. I have seen it happen with my s-daughters and their older half sister who does not have a father figure in her life. It is sad really.