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Your agency may or may not be giving you the run around, but it might just be that your facts are limiting the adoption choices for right now.

For ANY adoption to be completed in Oregon, private (independent) or agency, in which you have a legal father, HAS to have the consent of the legal father or meet a specific law exempting his consent.

In very general terms, the exemptions are:

1 - You have been awarded sole custody in a divorce proceeding AND a hearing is had AND the court thinks your consent should be enough. (This is very rare by itself and often used in conjunction with 4 or 5 below).

2 - The child is under the care of DHS or an approved child caring agency.

3 - The child is under the care of another state's equivalent to DHS.

4 - The parent is mentally ill (as determined by a court) or the parent has been in jail for more than 3 years AND the court thinks that termination would be in the best interest of the child.

5 - The parent has deserted or neglected the child for one year before filing the adoption.

6 - The parent is not actually the biological parent as proven by another court hearing.

Please understand that I don't know all of the facts of your case and cannot give you specific legal advice about your case without knowing all those facts. With what was given, it just may not be possible for you to have an adoption be completed until/unless one of the above actually happens. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT THERE ARE NOT ALTERNATIVES AS THERE DEFINATELY ARE. There can still be placement decisions made under these facts but they have to be done carefully and with a full understanding by all parties involved.

Parents in your situation need some very knowledgable legal assistance. You are not dealing with the normal situation that an agency deals with and they just plain might not understand all the rules. Please make sure that one of the services that the agency is providing you with in a case like this is adequate legal counsel.

-Scott