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I will try to keep this as short as possible. My husband and I have been together for 4 years. At the time we met, my step-son was 11. He is now 15. My husband has had sole custody of him since he was 4 years old. His mother lives in Atlanta. Since he was 4, Dereck has seen his mother approximately six times. At the time that I met my husband, there had been no contact for four years. A few months into our relationship, Dereck asked me and his dad to help him find his mom. We were able to find her. Since that time, he has seen her twice. Unfortunately, she only contacts him a couple times a year. When she does talk to him, he makes him promises that she never keeps. Any time he tries to contact her, her phone number has changed and he just has to wait until she contacts him. She has told him for the last 3 years on Christmas and Birthdays that she has mailed him gift, which never arrive. He has dreams of being a singer and she tells him that she knows many famous singers and she works for a record label and promises him a recording contract. Then we are there to burst his bubble and try to explain why she does what she does, then pick up the pieces again. She has another child now who is 6. Most recently, her boyfriend went missing and she called to tell me that I should let Dereck know because he loved her boyfriend (Who he had met once). I told her that I wanted more info before I told Dereck as we had just started him in a new school (we have had a very rough time with him and he has been kicked out of 3 different schools for behavioral problems) and I was not going to throw a wrench in this. I serached the newspaper in her area and found that her story was true about him missing, but I had a feeling we did not get the whole story. My husband is a police officer, so I asked him to contact the law enforcement agency handling this case. He did and found that he in fact is missing, but instead of being a doctor like she has been telling Dereck, he is a high profile drug dealer. Well, now she called to inform me that they found him dead. I have checked the papers and confirmed that he is dead. I sat Dereck down and talked to him about it. He is very angry with her as she knew what her boyfriend was doing, and she has chosen to put his little brother in danger and let him get close to this man that is now dead. He wants me to adopt him. He is afraid that if anything ever happend to his dad he would have to go to his mom and he wants to stay with me. Does anyone know how I would go about starting that process. I don't know if his mother would even have a problem with just giving him up, but I know that if it came to a hearing, she would not come here to fight for him, she didn't even show up to fight for custody. Thanks for letting me vent.
Jessica
Has anyone given you a direction to go in for a stepparent adoption?
If not, start with your local court for the paperwork.
Good Luck!!
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