[mjabrams]

I am currently in the process of adopting my 81/2 year old stepson. I have been in his life for that past six years and his mother and I have been married for over 2 years. I am very close with my (as i call him) son. My son knows he has another father, but considers me to be his dad. My entire family has always treated him as one of their own.

He has not seen his biofather in over 6 years. His biofather's family has never wanted anything to do with him aswell. The biofather has been in and out of prison and halfway houses for the past 7 years or so. He has only made child support payments to satisfy his probation and only lasts until he goes back to prison. The only contact he has had is in the form of letters during his incarcerations. When he is free, and can get back to his own life, we don't hear from him.

The only exception to this is when he contacted my wife 2 years ago at work and asked to see him. she said she would not let him until there was a visitation order set by the courts. This never happened and he went back to priosn again over a year ago.

When we went to our attorney last may about filing the adoption she sent him a consent form and he resopned with a nastly letter back saying he wouldn't consent.

We then waited until a year of no support or contact had been established and until he was realeased again.
We thin filed for adoption without consent based on the fact he hasn't paid support or had contact for 1 year without justifiable cause.

Everything is all set for the hearing background checks, home visits ect. The catch is that he can still show up and ccontest the adoption. We believe that he may hire an attorney to officially contest this. We have the law on our side in the sense that he has not paid support or had contact in over a year now. However he was incareated for that entire time. Our attorney seems to think that being being in priosn is not justifiable case. Even if it is, he had to ability to pay support out of the small amount of money he earned there and didn't.

If there is anyone out there that has been in a similar situation some input would be greatly appreciated. We are all interested in getting this adoption done so that we can move on with our lives.