[biomom]

My husband and I have been married for 2 years. I have a daughter from my previous marriage. I have sole legal and sole physical custody of her. Her biofather hasn't paid child support in almost a year. He had supervised visitation due to a meth problem. Then he failed another drug test and lost visitation all together. He has not had any contact with our daughter in 6 months. My husband and I would love to have him adopt her. If you didn't know us you would never know that she isn't biologically his. They are wonderful together. What can I do?

[Kazmum]

Biomom --

A lot would depend on the state you're in, but generally, the biological father would have to terminate his parental rights. You can certainly go to court to attempt to have his rights terminated, if he doesn't choose to terminate voluntarily, but of course there are no guarantees.

A suggestion: I would contact an attorney. In Texas, the State Bar has a service which can help you find an attorney in your area -- I would bet that this is true of other State Bars as well. I would try to contact them first. But you definitely should contact an attorney.

Best of luck to you, Biomom -- and welcome to the forums!

K.

[Sledge]

I would first ask the bdad if he would voluntarily surrender his rights, if he says yes the process will be very simple. You would just need to hire a lawyer to start the paperwork and let you know what your state requires you to do. If he says no then the lawyer will need to do a lot of work to show the father as unfit and work through the legal system. The reason I say to ask the bdad first is if he says yes, you will be able to use about any lawyer to do the processing. If he says no you will need a more aggressive lawyer that has experience terminating parental rights of deadbeats. Our adoption process went smoothly because the parents voluntarily surrendered their rights. We had two lawyers lined up for each possibility, the aggressive lawyer told us to check to see if they were voluntarily surrendering their rights and if they were he referred us to another lawyer that was cheaper and would do just fine with a simple case like ours. (Kind of caught us off gaurd that he was nice enough to tell us this upfront, we saved nearly $1,000 by him doing this.)

[Canamom]

I am in similar situation to biomom, except it's been two years since bipolar bioDad has seen kids, never paid child support; I have sole custody AND legal guardianship of the kids. My lawyer told me at the time I have sole legal decision making for the kids. Wouldn't that include adoption? Isn't that synonimous to losing parental rights...... one's guardianship? That was under Canadian law, mind you..... we're permanet residents of the US now. He signed off permission for us to move here, nothing done except above board here!

[biomom]

Thank you all for replying. I really doubt my ex would consent to the adoption. So far he hasn't been exactly reasonable. When he lost his visitation to the drug problem I got a lot of phone calls from him cussing at me because apparently that was my fault. I don't know where he is now. All the phone numbers and addresses I have for him are no longer valid. We live in California. I think I heard somewhere that it is one year of no contact or support for abandonment but I'm not positive.

Thank you all for your posts.

[kovmom]

Hi...I dont know the laws in your state. But I have two daughters, now 14 and 15, that I adopted about 6 years ago. My husband and I have been together for 11 years, so I have known them since they were babies.

Anyway, my advice to you would be to find a good attorney, and file for adoption and termination of parental rights for your ex. He most likely will decline, and not sign off. That is what happened to us. But be persistent and do what the court asks of you. We had to go through psychological evaluations as a family, and I had to hire an adoption agency, and have a background check and references. You would think the birthmother should have been under the microscope but it was me. She ended up backing off realizing it was the best for them. At that point, she had been gone for 6 years.

So get a good lawyer, say a lot of prayers, and be persistent. Good luck!