Everyone agrees

It is the Adopt 200 that you fill out first and file along with the consent papers. It will not be drawn out at all as long as there is consent. they will do fingerprinting of the adoptive father and run a background check and then do a home visit. Your custody evaluation will not work in this because it is a totally different part of the legal system doing the evaluation. They will not be evaluating YOU, they will be evaluating your husband. It does not matter what state your ex lives in you can file here in California

Thank you for the information. I really don't want to get a lawyer involved, since my last one was an idiot and I'm out of money. This feels so overwhelming but hopefully will go through smoothly. Is there a specific reason why the relinquishment of rights and the adoption are handled at the same time? I have to explain this to my husband. There aren't any seperate forms to start with to relinquish rights, or is it all inclusive? I'm going to call the court house today.

In my county I filed the adopt 200 form and then it went to social services. Social services then sent my ex the consent form. he sends the form back and then its easy. I recommend getting the "How to adopt your stepchild in California" book by Frank Zagonie. It will tell you all you need to know and do. There is no reason to get a lawyer when you have consent. Since there is consent they will both be handled at the same hearing. Your should be a piece of cake. Remember they will tell your child that he is being adopted by your husband and make sure he understands what that means. Also if your son is 12 or older he has to consent to the adoption. I started my adoption proceedings without a lawyer, but mine is very complicated with a Bio Father is going to fight me to the end. So I'm off to find a lawyer now.

You brought up another question that was sitting in the back of my mind. Does anyone know of any boards for help with the adopted child. He's 6 years old. He met is bio-dad for about a year when he was 4/5. What if my son is confused and gets upset etc.? Also, is there away to remove the bio-dad's rights without the adoption process? My husband is giving me mixed signals and I'm not sure how it may pan out later. I'm pretty confident he will do it, but there's always a chance there's some logical reasoning in his head that I just haven't thought of. Since we're thinking so much about the baby due in 6 weeks, I haven't spent a lot of time stressing over this. Thanks for your help.

No. There has to be an adoption. Removing the rights of of parent is only done to free them up for adoption. I see alot of couples go through this process and then end up divorced and wanting to reverse the adoption because they are divorced. Do not have your husband adopt your child if he does not feel like the child is his. It hurts the child and everyone else in the end if you do. In my case my daughter and husband are very close and he is daddy to her and she is his daughter, with or without a court saying so. So it would be perfect for us to adopt. As far as confusion. Maybe you should sit down and explain to him that he has a father and he has a daddy. And that makes him special cause he has two. And as far as the adoption just explain that you know that he is the childs daddy and your going through this court process so that everyone else knows that he is the childs daddy. Something like that anyways.

I guess I don't HAVE to explain our situation, but here it is anyways. :) The initial reason why we're trying to relinquish the bio-dad's rights is because of his history. Never mind a bad temper, he's threatened to take him away, he's told the courts I beat my child, when he did have visitation rights I would get screamed at everytime we met, so I had to insist on meeting inside the police station. He would call me and scream at me constantly. And I was always left to clean up the mess with my son and try to hide what was really happening. He was 4 when he would do the weekend visit thing. And after a year of it, the bio-dad just up and left without an explanation, a plan or anything. So for the past year I've been living in fear that my son would be kidnapped, I would get some screaming phone call or even someone banging on my front door. My husband always felt like he had no rights to my son's well being, and very little rights to mine. He had no way of protecting us without getting in trouble with the courts. Now that the bio-dad has completly given up, I think my husband doesn't want to initiate the relinquishing part of the process. He wants me to file those papers. Then when that's done, we can continue with the adoption papers. He's also the type of person, he doesn't want to get his hopes up, because when things don't work out, his emotions are hurt real bad and he'll come crashing down. And that's kind of scary. But essentially, my son calls him dad. He has since he was 2. He doesn't remember his bio-dad's or his wife's name. He doesn't ask about them, he doesn't refer to them, it's like they were cousins that we saw on occasion and now they moved back away. Thanks for your help.

Your confusing me. Is the bio dad gonna give consent or not? If you have consent there is NO reason why the whole adoption thing would not go through as long as there is nothing on your husbands back ground check to stop the adoption. Regardless of everything else, once you have that signed consent there is no going back as far as the bio father is concerned. But if you want to go about it without the consent, which I don't recommend if you can get it. The there are other ways of doing the adoption without consent. It's just harder, alot more time consuming and leaves the possibility of the adoption not going through. As far as relinquishing, it goes hand in hand with the adoption. without relinquishing the bio fathers rights nothing in the adoption can go through. You have to have the rights removed FIRST. So file the Adopt 200, then the bio father needs to sign the consent papers that are sent to him. Then you see the social worker and get a home visit and everything is done in one court date.

Sorry for the delay with the response. I'm expecting a baby soon and have been very busy preparing. The bio-dad says he'll give consent, but he also "said" he would never try to take him from me, he would be civilized, he wanted what was best for my son and the list goes on...so why put my gaurd down now and start believing what he says. It's just the way we have conditioned ourselves to respond to him and keep our sanity.

I suggest you start the process of adoption before he can change his mind. Once he has signed that paper saying he gives up his rights. It is over for him. He will no longer have a say in anything as far as the adoption goes. It seems like he has realized that this child won't know him and to introduce himself this late in the game will only be detrimental to the child. I wish mine would give up this easily. But lately we have been in and out of court.