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Shamysmom: I think God is giving you an opportunity to let your heart expand and grow with this wonderful new soul who has entered your life. Obviously, your ED does not want you any longer. It's so hard to understand as I like the many other moms on this forum are grasping for answers to the question of why. She has replaced you with someone else. Even though you feel like adopting the step-daughter would be a "trade-in", I don't feel it would be. Would you feel this way if she had physically died? It's just giving your love to another who is wanting you so very much. There have been times I wish I could just give my love to another child since I have been rejected by my daughter. Please don't ruin this beautiful gift being offered to you. It also sounds like you were given a second chance with a wonderful new husband as well. Give yourself totally to those who truly want you in their life.
Prayers for you.

Post edited 5:02 pm – July 29, 2010 by Shamysmom

Ours is not the typical story of step-parenting. I love my step-daughter and my step-son. They are respectful, intelligent, heartfelt human beings that grace the family. I guess I beat the odds.

Adopting my step-daughter is in the future, as soon as I can do so without feeling guilty. I gave birth to 4 children, three of which I have a very, very, VERY close relationship to. Also, my husband of three years loves my children like his own. I guess I beat the odds there too.

However, the closer my oldest daughter got to her father after our divorce, the more she estranged me. She hasn't spoken to me in three years and counting.

I guess I'm that facebook mother who only knows that her daughter is alive if I can find a recent post of hers somewhere. Unfortunately those posts have revealed that she has completely replaced me with the ex's wife, so much as calling her "bonus mother", and she is her step's "bonus daughter". I am not loved by my daughter at all, I am not a good person, I have been disowned – her words.

My step-daughter's mother passed away in 2003. My husband and I met one year later, almost to the date and we married in 2007. My step-daughter and I have shed many tears, not necessarily together but sometimes. She can't understand how anyone can trash her mother like my daughter has and she would give anything to have a "real mother". I can't understand how her mother could take her own life the way that she did and trash her children. I guess my step-daughter and I share a common ground.

We have grown so close in many ways. She is 17 years old.

Here is the part I can't get passed. I can not sign the papers to solidify her as my legal daughter without feeling like I am betraying the one who has estranged me. I feel like I would be "trading her out". I know it was not my choice to jump over the edge and cut us apart like she did. But I take so much blame for the reasons, though from other's perspectives they are not nearly reason enough for something this dramatic. But that doesn't change the fact that I still love her in spite of her hatred. I still can't get her out of my mind. I can't stop crying. I can't stop talking to my husband about it. It's a miracle our marriage has survived because I have been so obsessed. Only with him would it have worked in spite of this nightmare.

How do I get passed this obstacle enough to legally adopt this beautiful soul in my life? Her step-siblings, my wonderful children respect her and know the sweet heart that she is. We all get along so well together. This is a delightful family with no hostility, no clashes….

Except for this one tragic decision my daughter made. But, I just…can't…sign…the… papers without tremendous guilt while my daughter is not in my life. If she were, it would be easy because this feeling of betraying her, of "trading" her in for another would not be there.

No one knows that this is the reason why I haven't made this adoption final. Only I know and now you. Not even my husband knows. When people ask why I haven't pursued this, I have no answers to give. I'm not even sure why I can't give them.

Maybe I know it sounds crazy. And I have to admit that I haven't been exactly sane since my daughter stopped talking to me three years ago.