How big can a family be?

When our daughter came into our lives she did not come alone. Along with her we gained her biological families as well. There is a provision for ongoing contact not just with the birth parents but also with any birth relatives who request contact. With our daughter the adoption order included birth grandparents on both sides as well as her birth parents siblings. Not only did we have to get to know our daughter but we needed to find some commonality with all these people we'd never met and yet we shared such a bond with. We first met J's birth parents over the days we were in Melbourne meeting our new daughter. They presented as a lovely pair of young people who had an extremely mature attitude towards an unenviable situation. They assuaged my fears by telling me they wished only to be our daughter's friend, never to usurp our roles as Mum and Dad.