Husband would like to adopt my daughter

NO! YOu already have custody of the child. THey are only investigating your husband, case sounds a lot like mine. go through and read my past threads. You can prove abandonement on the fact he did not provide support for one year. Your case seems pretty simple if you ask me. depends on what county you are in. YOu can do this without an attorney. go purchase the book how to adopt your stepchild in california. I need more info to help you further though. Like county you live in.

I live in the San Diego county. I have bought the book on adoption but just worried about not doing it correctly.

Don't foreget if he is in prison they will apoint him an attorney to fight you and prison is not to be used against them as far as not being able to pay child support. Because they are not able to support or see the child these are not grounds for abandonement. You need to prove that even when he was not in prison he made no attempts to pay support. I already saw a lawyer on this when my ex was in prison. Also its very important to be able to prove that you have not moved or made it impossible for the bio father to contact the child. These things will count against you. Do not worry about your record at all. It has nothing to do with you, it has to do with the man adopting the child. They will only do back ground searches on him, not you.

I saw a lawyer who stated the same thing about the prison thing. However there was also an attorney that let the adoption go through even though he was in prison. HE could stilll call, write letters, send cards, etc. If the person was incarcerated maybe for 10 years and never was released then you have a case. You are right. They will assign him an attorney however the attorney does not do any foot work. Also if he is getting constantly convicted of violent felonies then you have grounds for the adoption as well. Kallen was from san diego county and she did 3 or four adoptions on her on. One was even incarcerated and appealled the adoption and she won. I would read over threads posted by Kallen as well. She is a good support if she gets involved in this thread. I do not think she frequents the site as often as she used to though. When I filed for the adoption I went back over the last five years of my daughters life. I made a timeline. I wrote when he was incarcerated , when he was out, when he saw my daughteer and when he dissappeared once again. This helps with the case. Especially when he is out for a month and then contacts me to see her. Or when he gets incarcerated 2 months after the last visitation. stuff like this proves he did not just leave because he got arrested. It proves he got selfish and decided to move on with his trouble making with no regards to the child. She is also of age I believe to choose for herself , that has allot of bearing on the situation. ou heard from him last in oct. Did he see the child then? THe adoption done without a lawyer just takes alot of footwork and investigation on your part however it is possible. We only had a lawyer because of the complicated issue with him appearing the same month we filed however we could have done the adoption without the lawyer. I have not heard anything bad about your county. I would go for it and do a lot of research. ALOT. Has there ever been any court orders done in family law court?

Thank you for your responses. BF DID see DD in person in October - it was Halloween. I called the correctional facilities yesterday and it turns out that he IS in prison again (since Dec. 2) but I forgot to ask what his charges were. My brother-in-law is a deputy so I am going to ask him to look into it. Crystaly - BF knows my cell phone number (it's been the same number for years), where I live, as well as where my parents live. The most that I do to make any effort to contact HIM would be to return his phone calls when he leaves me a message. I have really tried to give him a chance to be a part of DD's life but she's older now and he is a stranger to her. She doesn't want anything to do with him and the only dad she's ever known is DH. The last time BF was in prison was when I asked for his consent to the adoption. He did not respond until he was released a couple of months later and then it was just to tell me that my asking for permission to have DH adopt DD has opened his eyes and made him realize that he needed to get his act together and make things right, yada, yada, yada. He was released in the late part of September and back in prison by the beginning of December. I told him that last time that if he went back to prison, I'd pursue the adoption with or without his consent. AJB's Mom - When you say "research" - do you mean for similar cases? I would like to create a timeline similar to yours - how were you able to find out the exact time periods that your ex was in prison? I don't always find out that he's incarcerated until some time has passed and I'm never sure how long he is out before he contacts me. Again, I really appreciate both of you providing me with input on my case. I'm really anxious to get the ball rolling, as DH and I have talked about doing it for a couple years now but keep postponing to give BF another "chance".

Sounds like you have plenty of a case. No paying of child support constitutes a good enough reason to terminate his rights. It was nice of you to give him chances to be a father. The courts gave my ex another chance and he died this morning. Unfortunately for him he never got to know this sweet little girl. But fortuneately for her he died now rather than in 6 months when there would be a bond. This whole reunification could have ruined my little girl. Make sure you do this before the courts make you put your kid through what the courts were putting my baby through.

crystaly I am sorry for you and your child that the bfather died this morning ((Hugs to you both)) He may not be in your life now but he is still someone who was important to you - together you created a child - a life to be celebrated and mourned. ste313 I have no idea of what your life experience is with the birthfather. He has obviously made some bad decisions and is now facing the consequences. What does "scream" at me from your posts is that nowhere in your posts do you mention your child's wishes. There can only be one bio-father and even if the courts allow an adoption, morally and genetically she remains his daughter. At 10 her opinion is important. Ann :flower:

Depending on his crimes a proceeding to terminate parental right may be brought under this law. 7825. (a) A proceeding under this part may be brought where both of the following requirements are satisfied: (1) The child is one whose parent or parents are convicted of a felony. (2) The facts of the crime of which the parent or parents were convicted are of such a nature so as to prove the unfitness of the parent or parents to have the future custody and control of the child. (b) The mother of a child may bring a proceeding under this part against the father of the child, where the child was conceived as a result of an act in violation of Section 261 of the Penal Code, and where the father was convicted of that violation. For purposes of this subdivision, there is a conclusive presumption that the father is unfit to have custody or control of the child. Also if you are the sole custodial parent a proceeding may be brought under the CA Fam. Code 8604. Also since you live in SD County, as do I, you can look up his record at the county courthouse and request certified copies that you can submit with the adoption papers.

Like kallen said get the records. figure out when she saw him. For example he was released in september but did not contact you till october then he dissappeared however was not arrest until december. SO where was he from oct to dec. that is what i mean by a timeline. that is what I mean by research. Research the crimes and the times and when he contacted you for visitation. anotheer thing is he has the burden of proof. I am not saying to lie. Don t lie . But stating that he knew you were going to do an adoption and he cried ooh I will get my life together and obviosly it was wrong. He saw her once and then went to prison once again. So make sure you document that fact in your time line. The courts are going to believe you however they willn not believe him as easily. Get printouts of his time in prison. File that with the worker that does the investigation. The thing is that he may know about the one year no contact law and try to be fixing it thinking you may can not do the adoption. However the judge gets the facts and what they are trying to do real fast so go for it and just get all the facts together.

We never talked to DD about adoption because, in the beginning, we wanted to give her BF a chance to straighten himself out and be a part of her life. Since he only contacts her once or twice a year, she really has no feelings towards him one way or another. She won't even consent to see him unless I promise to stay with her. We never told her that he's been in prison - she's afraid of him already. She'd be even more afraid if she knew he did bad things to put himself in jail. She's old enough to know the truth now, though. We didn't want to talk to her about adoption until we knew for sure that we would go through with it. I know that she would love to be adopted by DH - she loves him very much and to make him her "official" dad would mean the world to her. Of course, if she told us otherwise, we would not proceed with the adoption. Lucky for me I work in downtown so I can easily walk to the courthouse to get copies of the ex's criminal record and work on that timeline. Although I'm not certain what he keeps going back to prison for, I do know that's always had a drug/alcohol problem. Crystaly - I'm sorry to hear about the death of your DD's BF :( I appreciate everyone's input. I'm sure I'll be back here with questions from time to time. I'm very nervous about the whole prospect but excited for my DD and DH at the same time!