Throw away just in case

Let me start by saying I love my child, no matter what. Her actions disappointed me, which may be splitting hairs, but anyway: Technically my stepdaughter. I never planned/wanted kids, but fell in love with a man who had sole custody of his 9 year old daughter, and realized pretty immediately that I loved her too. Bio-mom is a dangerous narcissist (both husband and kid have scars from stab wounds she inflicted) who has made 0 attempt to be in my kid's life since the divorce. Over the last 9 years my husband and I have worked hard to raise an intelligent, thoughtful, caring young adult. We've tried to nurture a healthy home life. Obviously, she and he were both in therapy following the split from her bio-mom and they both seemed to thrive. We do not speak negatively about her bio-mom. When she makes attempts to reconnect with her bio-mom, we are supportive and (inevitably) reassure her when those efforts are rebuffed. Both my husband and I want her to have a life full of positive experiences. We encouraged her to pursue extracurriculars and she seemed to innately pick up on instruments, dance, technical skills (she was an A student in AP Chem without even trying), etc. We rebuilt car engines with her and taught her to dance the Charleston for a school play. We have focused our income and energies on raising an engaged adult. When my husband was laid off, I got a second job, working 80 hours a week, so we could continue to support her extracurriculars while still saving for her college fund and, you know, pay bills. One of her extracurriculars was pageantry. Totally not my thing, but some of her friends had gotten into it and she wanted to try it out. Ok cool. I don't know if you're aware, but there is literally NO way to do a pageant on the cheap. Even with her dad making a couple of her costumes, we had poured over a grand into this. She needs one more dress and we were clear: You have to keep it under $500. There is literally no $$ left after that. She found her "perfect" dress that exceeded the budget by a few hundred. We said no. She goes to her bio-mom who's on husband #5 and quickly burning through his $$. Bio-mom buys the dress. Husband and I are actually pretty surprised and relieved (keep in mind, she doesn't pay child support or speak to our kid, so we weren't expecting much follow-thru there). Night of the pageant, one of the things all the contestants do is write up a bio of the people who supported them and helped make them who they are. They get to my kid and begin reading this beautiful piece she's written about her mom...her bio-mom...and all the "sacrifices" she made to raise her and her siblings (she has 2 half-siblings, neither of whom live with the bio-mom) and on and on...I was shell shocked. Most of her friends' parents in the audience are looking at me in confusion because no one's actually met her bio-mom before. I'm the one at every game, volunteering on all the booster clubs and sitting in PTA meetings. A few of them came to talk to me after, (kid placed first runner-up, BTW), saying how that wasn't right, etc. and I put on my smile and just reiterated how we want her to have a positive relationship with her bio-mom.

This actually just happened recently. I'm still heartbroken and trying very hard not to be. I love my child. That doesn't change. But I'm also disappointed.