Last week my SD (22) found her "Daddy", my DH, after 17 years. The last time we'd seen her was when she was 5 years old.

History: I met my DH 20 years ago when he was one year out of his four-year relationship with SD's mother (they had lived in Califoria). They weren't married. The last 2 years of their relationship the ex was addicted to crack, had boyfriends to help pay for the crack, left the kids (2 and 4 years old) unattented (SD plus a young son from another guy), even had a "sugar-daddy" move in with them towards the end. My husband also got addicted, thus the old saying "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". The "sugar-daddy" paid all the bills, took care of the kids when my DH worked, and gave the ex money for her "stuff". DH finally realized "this isn't the life I want", things were going from bad to worse, and transferred with his job to another location by himself. Stayed there one year, then moved back to his home town (where we met). We were friends for one year (I was 30 at the time, he was 25), and while I didn't need any drama in my life (raising a pre-teen by myself), God spoke to me to help this man to get sober. During that one year of friendship I had met his young daughter, and had also met the unpleasant ex who kept threatening him that if he didn't give her money for crack, she wouldn't allow him to see the baby. She didn't even have custody of the kids at this time...she dumped them onto her mother so she could continue in the crack world. The ex blackmailed him like this for a long time, and I could see how horribly she affected him. After one year of friendship our relationship turned serious and he asked to move in with me so he could get away from bad influences and sober up. Two weeks later the ex contacts him to say she just had twins! His twins! Long story short... the twin boy died soon after, and the baby daughter lived to 4 1/2 months. Both born to a crack addicted mom. She had asked us to take care of the baby girl (still in ICU) because someone was after her and she had to leave the state. Since I loved DH and his other daughter, I said we'd take care of her. After we fought the state for custody, we finally won, but only had our DD for 1 1/2 months before she died in my DH's arms. I hated the ex for not being a real "mom" to her kids, for abandoning her crack-addicted new babies, for threatening and blackmailing DH, and always referring to me as the fat bi*ch. So my DH got sober, we got married and had a son of our own. We saw SD for the last time when she was 5 and had visited her for christmas, along with our new son. The only way the Grandmother would let us see SD was if we gave her money for support, which was MY money since my DH was without a job off and on for the first year. When the ex found out that we had been seeing the daughter and giving money for her support, and had taken our baby over there, she threatened that if we ever came around "her" daughter again, she would have us killed. And because of the person she is, we believed her. So my husband did a lot of soul searching, wanted to get on with his better life and protect his new family from this crazy drug-addicted ex, and we've stayed away since. We also felt that SD (and other brother) was in safe and good hands with her grandmother, a good Christian woman. Over the years we tried to find SD, but there were no leads.

So last week she finds us. The first meeting was really great! We went to dinner and she got a chance to meet our son (17), her 1/2 brother. We were so excited to have her back! We then made plans to pick her up on Saturday to meet the rest of the family (my son (32) and his wife). The plan was for her to spend the night so we could have a relaxed meeting and go over old photos of her that she'd never seen. By the next day, Sunday, she'd made up her mind that she was moving in with us! We told her that we needed to take it much slower, and that now wasn't a good time because my son is facing a serious and risky cancer surgery on Oct. 2nd (rare cancer, 3 tumors, bladder removal/possibly colon too). I tried to reason and reach her, explaining that I needed to spend time with my son before surgery and couldn't be here for her. And since DH works 12 hours per day, it would most definitly be ME that would be with her all day. She refused to see reason, and the responses I got from her was "well, he's not even my Daddy's son", and, "My Daddy said he didn't have a problem with me living here". I explained that DH was indeed my son's father since DH raised him since he was 13, and that "we" did have a problem with her staying. That "right now wasn't a good time".

Her background: My SD is bi-racial. My DH is Puerto Rican, and her mother is African American. SD has been raised her whole life in the black community, and now lives between 2 friend's houses in really bad neighborhoods. When she turned 13 her grandmother placed her in a girls home because she was unmanageable. While she had a good place there for her, she still ran away and ended up living with her mom, her mom's boyfriend and his kids. After 2 years there her mom physically kicked her out. Her mom had been doing crack right in front of her, and she said she even saw someone killed. So now for the past 7 years she's been living between friends. One house has about 8 people there, transients, and the other friend has a husband and 5 kids. SD doesn't work, has no completed education (dropped out of high school). She has boyfriends (some married) that buy her "things". She talks about having to "cut" people to defend herself.

While she is a very beautiful young woman, with potential, she has done nothing with her life to better herself. She is a hard-core ghetto girl. She is full of anger and resentment, and feeling like her dad owes her. She's immature, turns her sweetness on when DH is around, and off when it's just me. She ignores me, and tells DH wierd versions of our conversations to gain his side and favor.

My family had just gotten our own problems sorted out when we found out my son's cancer has returned and has this complicated surgery coming up. He is in so much pain, it breaks my heart. And there is a chance he could stroke on the operating table because of how this rare cancer skyrockets his blood pressure (he's also had 2 heart stents put in place over the last 3 years).

Don't get me wrong...I loved this little girl who I met so many years ago, helped to support her, and tried to be a good step mom to her. Even when we first met her a few days ago, she had nothing but love for me. But by the end of those few days, there was complete chaos in my family.

Since DH works so many hours, I searched everywhere for a car part so she could be mobile again, I checked around for a school that would take her to get her GED, drove and picked her up from schol, and took her places to get job applications. But she only talked to me when she wanted something. She seemed anxious to hear stories of our lives, but then resented that she wasn't part of it. Jealously came out over her 1/2 brother and my son ("he's not Dad's son...he's nobody). I tried to reason with her and get her to understand how we live our lives here, but the "real" her only came out when DH was't around. She began ignoring me, fading out when I spoke, or just walked away when I was speaking to her. Her cell phone rang constantly...it's the highlight of her life. The conversations I heard were her trying to weasel money out of a couple of men for $500 for 2 jackets for her and her girlfriend so they can wear them for her upcoming birthday. Another call was to try to get money out of these men for Coach shoes and Gucci bags. (we shop for clothes and things at Salvation Army) How she had to hide in a closet from one guy because he was banging on her friends door to get a chance to see her after she spent all the money he gave her and she wouldn't give him anything in return.

While I have a HUGE heart and am a good practicing Christian woman, I just can't help but be repelled by her life. It's just not my way to use people. While I also understand that this is the only life she's had to survive, I just can't seem to find any peace within my heart and mind. The more I knew her, the more I didn't like her, the more I saw of her mother in her.

She's never done anything to better her life. I don't know about anyone else, but both my DH and I have also had a rough, poor life. It's taken us 20 years to have a home and be out of debt. We don't have extra money when all the bills are paid. But this girl sees what we have, figures we have money, and figures she is entitled to everything. She already wants and expects us to send her to a hairdresser to have her color and weaves done as well as gluing semi-permanent eyelashes in, spend money to get her car fixed, pay for her schooling, buy her a new Razor phone. And what's next? Spending money, gas money, insurance money, expensive clothes. We just don't have the money. Are we to go into debt with her? Let her turn our lives upside down? Are we to put her before our other 2 kids?

So for 4 days up through Tuesday, our life was turned upside down. After she found out that her dad would be taking her home Tuesday night, I picked her up from her GED school. She had a snide grin on her face as she explained that she had changed her schedule and would have to return the next day for school so "Now I can't leave". I got ticked, of course, because she thought she was pulling one over on us. So I told her I'm sorry, but she IS going home. I called my husband privately and told her about her recent manipulation, and he said "We'll stay strong through this. I'll take her back to her friend's house tonight." When he got home from work, she was really ticked and said "Let's GO!!". DH said he wanted to eat dinner first. She stomped around the house, slamming doors for the next 1/2 hour, demanding that she was ready and let's go NOW! My husband wouldn't let her push him, and took her home when HE was ready. While they were still in the driveway, I called his cell phone to let him know that she had stolen all the baby pictures and momentos we had of her. Her reply was "They're Mine!". DH said they didn't belong to her and that we had already promised we would make copies of them. She was just p*ssed and said that she didn't want to see any of us again. But once he dropped her off, she asked if she could call him and maybe come over on weekends. He told her yes, to call him, and if he wasn't busy, they could get together. And the photos stayed with her. He left her the car part ($95) and another $200 to get her car fixed. He's only heard once from her since and she "said" she got her car fixed. DH told me whether she used the money to get her car fixed or not, at least he made the effort to help her.

So that's where it stands. What started off as a sweet reunion has turned into a nightmare. I was already stressed from my son's illness, and now the additional stress has done a number on my health. My Crohn's disease is acting up, my arthritis is hurting like a demon, and, I guess my body's immune system couldn't fight the stress, and on top of everything else, I started meds yesterday for an upper respiratory infection and pneumonia in one lung.

My sick son and his wife were going to come over this weekend so we can spend as much time as we could with each other before the surgery (yes...there's a good chance he could stroke on the table), and because both the infection and pneuonia are contagious, we cannot be together...his catching what I have would complicate his surgery. The surgery has already been postponed once.

So I just can't find any peace. I feel for the girl, but don't want to lose the family life that we've worked so hard for. Life is already complicated with DH working 12 hours per day, my older son being so sick, his wife fretting that she may lose her husband, my teen son going though all of this as well and resenting the "new" sister turning our lives into chaos, and my getting sick over the stress.

When SD came back into our lives we were very adament with her that her mother NOT find out that she had found her dad. WE know what this still-crack-addicted woman is capable of. Well...SD told her brother, who told their mother, and now the crazy woman is calling the daughter and her friends to find us. We have had to adjust our whole lives around the fear of this woman showing up at our door. We're afraid with good reason. We've already talked about moving so we can't be found. I don't know why the ex still feels that my DH owes her or has to be part of her life. She's had numerous boyfriends over the years, has had 6 kids (one is SD, one is previous son, 2 step babies died, and 2 additional she gave up for adoption). The last SD said she heard from her mother was one year ago when her mom was in jail. All this woman has to do is find a phone book to look up our number and address. We stopped having it unlisted a few years back when we felt safe that the ex wouldn't find us.

So that's the story. I've done some reading and research on the internet to see how other "steps" are dealing with things, but all I've read is how so many steps are having a hard time of it as well.

How far is this girl going to go with her jealousy, her resentment, her wanting. What is this going to do to my reationship with DH? How is this going to change our sons' lives?

It just feels like a bad omen... like we've been infected... and there's no easy answers.

How can we just bring this girl into our lifestyle? What are my husband's obligations to her? Everything about her is ghetto... her lifestyle, speech, actions. This weighs so heavy on us.

At least I'll have a one month break from it while I hopefully help my son to recover from his surgery. But what happens then?

I'm sorry to say this, because we had been so excited when she first found us, that I wish she would just go away. I want our life back. I don't want the ex or her "mini-me" in our lives. I know they both see me as "the problem". DH and I have a GREAT marriage... can we weather this? I keep praying to God for answers, for some peace, some understanding. Why would he give me more than I can handle? I know He'll lead me through this, but right now it seems too big. I wish it would just go away.

So that's it. If any of you out there can give suggestions, or past experiences to help, I'd so appreciate it. God bless us all.