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My adoption was just completed yesterday (August 11, 2004)!
Backstory:
I have been with my now wife for 4 + years, and we got married this past April. Her daughter was 6 months old when we started dating and grown very close to me. The biological father is NOT on the birth certificate and has never paid child support. However, he does have contact with her (sees her only 6-8 times a year even though he lives in the same city-in LA County)
The Process:
I had been consulting a lawyer since last year and I never felt his advice was pro-active. He suggested I wait until after I'm married to pursue the adoption because of the stress. I decided I needed a more aggressive approach. Six days before my wedding, I met with a new lawyer who told me you DO NOT have to be married a year before filing to adopt (the fact that we had been together nearly 5 years was more important). So, I retained him the day before my wedding and we filed the petition to adopt the following Monday morning.
The bio dad was served on May 1 and had 30 days to answer the "Notice of Alleged Paternity." The Notice stated that if he did nothing within 30 days he may not be notified of future actions pertaining to the adoption. 30 stress filled days passed without a move on bio dad's part.
About a week later, we met with the case worker that must approve of the adoption and he contacted bio dad to see if he wished to voluntarily consent. Bio dad DID respond to this saying no, he would not consent. But, this is not an action directed to the court so it is not viewed as an attempt to contest the adoption through the court. The case worker made record of it in my file, but the judge did not take it deem it enough of an action to call a hearing to determine if bio dad was properly served, etc.
No hearing was ever scheduled to have the bio dad in court because he never took action in the 30 days allotted in the Notice of Alleged Paternity.
After the 30 days expired, we filed for termination of bio dad's rights, which was granted mid-June. In Mid-July we got our final hearing set for mid-August (yesterday as of this writing) and the adoption was finalized!
In short, it took 3 1/2 months to complete the entire process and now my little girl is legally my daughter! I was extremely lucky because this usually takes much longer to complete. I really feel having a good lawyer helped tremendously.
I hope this encourages people to try and adopt their stepchild. I know a lawyer is very expensive, but it is worth the sacrifice if you can do it. Since mid-April, it has cost about $6500 in lawyer fees and $1500 in various court and social worker fees. It is a lot of $$ but we made it. My lawyer worked with me on allowing me to stretch out payments to help ease the burden.
I hope this helps.
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