Love Just the Same?

So, as I mentioned in my earlier comment in another's thread, we went forward with pursuing adoption for one of our foster children. That didn't pan out for reasons beyond this conversation, but Sara is still a part of my life today and I love her as my daughter now as I did then (friends here with big memories will remember me writing about her on her 21st birthday last April).

i don't think he realizes his own potential to love an adopted child just the same

I. . .don't know. Mind you, I'm only speaking for myself and feel like I'm making myself look pretty awful here, but because I know how I feel about this, I would be irrationally paranoid my partner would feel the same way.

Yes, I fully believe that love is limitless and we can therefore love so many people in so many different ways and intensities. And, no doubt whatsoever I would love an adopted child. But. . .

Once upon a time, I had a wife and we had a third/lover/boyfriend. And we had a barrier protection rule that my wife and our third secretly disrespected every time they were together w/o me. And then my wife went off birth control before he had a deployment so we could work on making a baby and they continued disrespecting the barrier protection rule. And then my wife became pregnant with Tasmia and I learned about the protection issue.

With months of doubt growing in front of me. With rationality telling me that I love her, I love him, I love his kids with his wife...of course I would love this baby, even if she wasn't "mine." And then Tasmia was born, and she didn't look like the other three kids as babies. She was darker complexioned (he is half Thai). And I loved her.

But I didn't love her the same. And no one could beat me up over it as much as I beat myself. But I just could not bond to my new baby like I did with my others. It tore me apart.

A year later I finally just couldn't handle the lack of knowledge, the resentment (I understand that my problem was a lot more the betrayal at the hands of my wife and our partner than my ability to love), how awful it made me feel. And so I had the paternity test done.

Everything changed. If you know me now, and see me with Tassy, it's all there. I feel as if I robbed myself and my daughter of a year of bonding with her over something as idiotic as genetics. I can't get any of this back.

And the experience has forever left me wondering about the intensity of love. Would I, had we adopted her, love Sara as much as I love my biological children? I worry that the truth would make me a horrible person.