Step parent adoption....sort of.

You have to be married , it all just depends on what county you are in with how long you are to be married. In my county it is ten months. What is the problem with marriage anyway. You have already been together 2 years. My husband and I got married on our two year anniversary of being together. ANyways, it depends on how bad you want an adoption. The bio fathers rights are severed. There is no longer contact. Unless you agree to something but that even wont hold up in a court case. You were very vague in your case and so this is all the info I can give you for now, hope it helps.

Let me give you a little background on our case. My daughters father has been abusing her since before we split up when she was a year old. I battled with him in our small town court, which always seemed to swing in his direction. I moved to a larger city when she was three years old. The attorney I hired in our new town discovered that her father didnt have paternity documented due to paperwork errors made by the small town court. We were advised my my attorney that my daughter and I could move to California without her father's permission due to this error. He has not made an attempt to see her or contact me within the last three years, until recently. Does anyone know if its possible to force him to file his request in California since this is where we have been living for almost two years, or am I going to have to pull her out of school to travel 2000 miles to attend court where the father lives? I would love for my boyfriend to adopt my daughter eventually, but I am sure her birth father would have to consent to it, right? How hard is it to get parental rights revoked? Is the past abuse and her unwillingness to see her birth father enough grounds to remove his parental rights? My daughter is 7 years old now and she is very happy in school and at home. She sees my boyfriend as her dad and I am very upset at the prospect of her birth father upsetting her life and subjecting her to even more abuse. Does anyone have any advice or legal knowledge that might be helpful to us?Thanks so much!Shelley

Have papers already been filed and served upon you? If so, you could file for a change of venue since you and your daughter live in California. If granted this would give California jurisdiction. Do you have documentation of the abuse? This will help in a custody /visitation case as well as adoption. California does have second parent adoption but homosexual couples are the formost applicants for this type of adoption. For a heterosexual couple the court looks upon an adoption more favorably when the couple is married. It gives the impression of stability and commitment. You could try filing here in California for the second parent adoption. Doesn't hurt to try. You don't have to secure his consent to file for the adoption. You could petition the court to terminate parental rights. You could do it under a variety of laws, look them up and see what best suits your situation. Hope this helps.

I would just file paperwork for custody and visitation out here. THis is where the child resides and then if the question comes up with the case out there then you may have to back track. If you have the evidence for the abuse, california more than likely will grant him supervised visitation and I guarentee you he probably would not want to travel all this way just to see her. Get married as soon as possible. Thats what I would do. I would have a nice wedding later after all this happens. Once you are married and he had no contact for a year then the rights will be terminated. You said there is a question of paternity. If the test never go through and you were not marrried the adoptoin may be easier then you think. My four year old had to go through the disruption of him entering and then leaving again and now we are at the final leg of the adoption. If he lives far away he may go ahead and abandne her anyways if the courts grant him supervised visits. Request a psychological evaluation. THat willl give it time for you to get married and start your time. Meanwhile also try to do what kallen says so that you have a back up.