[Lynn Barry]

Family relations can be completed no matter how people are connected. Thanks for sharing your situation. I find the difference is the bio. connection and the gene connection and all that jazz. It was hard for me not to feel insecure about that when it appeared Star wanted to only spend time with bio. family and not adopted family. I now know that some of it was that she wanted to find herself and be independent. Some of that is normal for anyone, but gets fuzzy when no explanation is offered. Not knowing fosters fear, it seems.

As for your situation, does that mean that your adopted daughter is your granddaughter, as well? I am unclear. It reads that your stepdaughter is the b-mom of your daughter...so that must make it even harder to connect or more complicated but bravo to you for what you are doing. I had a friend in college who got pregnant and didn't know how she could have the baby and raise the baby and my hubby and I offered to adopt the baby or foster the baby until she could figure it all out, and it all sounded so romantic in 1972, but she could not tell her parents about being pregnant, so she had an abortion. I wondered through the years if that "romantic" helping hand I held out would have gotten very messy later on, but I will never know...My niece learned that the baby she waited to adopt was born yesterday. She has three bio. daughters and now will have an adopted son. I have three bio. sons and one adopted daughter. My other niece adopted three sons and then had a bio. son. Families...fascinating. My son married a gal who is older than he is and she had two daughters by a first marriage. My son has had two daughters with her since and they are all my granddaughters, I feel no different, except that gene factor, the thing that pops up to show you where you got that talent or eye color from, things like that.

Great connecting with you, Lynn.