If you do not know where the birth father is, you can pursue a stepparent adoption with filing a public notice of the intent to adopt in the paper. The notice is run on average for thirty days, with an extra week to ten days after the last running to give the father time to respond. If no response is received by the courts, the adoption process will continue as though the absent parent has waived his or her rights to contest and a court date will be set for the adoption hearing. Getting a lawyer is always the best way to go as you want to make sure everything is done correctly so it is all 100% legal and binding. Most likely you will not even need the voice message that you have.
Call a local attorney and ask for a free consultation. Let them know you are interested in a stepparent adoption based on the grounds of abandonment and do not know the current whereabouts of the father. Each state has different small steps that must be taken in the initial stages of the adoption process, and the lawyer will let you know what that is durning the initial consultation. Most lawyers give a free consultation for the first visit so feel free to visit more than one, before you decide to stat shelling out money to anyone. Just because one charges alot of money does not mean they all do. Someare quite willing to let you do some of the leg work to save you money and them time!
Stepparent Adoption Blog