Advertisements
I'm just wondering if any birth fathers who lost their child were contacted by the agency or lawyer or whoever handled the adoption to get your signature for the adoption.
Reason I'm asking is when my daughter was given up for adoption, her birthfather was never contacted personally. The agency knew where he lived because I gave them the address.
They placed my daughter within days of being born rather than waiting for any signatures to be given to allow the adoption from the birthfather's side.
What they did do was put notice of court action for the adoption and for his signature for the adoption in a paper in the area where the adoption took place burried in hundreds of pages of legal mumbo jumbo.
Unless a person knew they were being looked for there would have been no reason for them to look and if they knew they were being looked for, they would obviously look in the area where THEY lived.
The only reason I found the ad was going to the library in the area where my daughter was adopted and asking them where I'd look. They pointed me to a legal paper that came out once a month or something like that I don't remember it's been years. Then just told me to start looking for dates around the time my daughter was born and keep going until I found it. It took me hours of searching through all that stuff.
My boyfriend had no idea where I was. I was in a foster home in the King County WA area and he lived in the Pierce County WA area. I wasn't allowed to call him while I was there (agency rules) and I wasn't allowed to write him to let him know where I was. They made me change my last name so I couldn't be found.
I was told that was the "best thing to do". They didn't want him finding me or anyone else finding me while I was pregnant.
I never saw him again until my daughter and I were in reunion 10 years ago. She was 21 at the time. I was able to track him down and let him know our daughter had been found. I was very nervous to meet up with him again but my daughter wanted to know her birth father and I did everything I could to make sure that happened.
During that meeting I asked him if he'd ever gotten notice about the adoption. He told me he hadn't and had assumed that I'd moved away and kept the baby and didn't want him in her life. He had no idea what happened to me or his baby. He didn't even know what gender she was.
He disapeared after that meeting and we have never been able to find him or any of his family. He has no idea that he has a granddaughter that was born on his birthday. She just turned 6 years old this year.
I was told that the agency or whoever handles the adoption doesn't have to contact the birth father by postal mail or anything else. All they have to do is post the notice "somewhere" and if he doesn't show up at court his rights are taken and that's it. He loses his child too.
I don't know if that's still a legal thing or not but in my opinion, the father should have the right and actually sign a paper of some sort if he doesn't want the child and should be notified and have PROOF that he was notified and SAW the notice.
In my opinion, to take the rights of the father away merely because he didn't look in a "legal notice paper" in a county he didn't live and had no reason to look in, should be illegal! Period!
I'm just wondering if any other birth father experienced that in their situation. I'm pretty sure that was a common way to make sure that baby was actually adopted and taken away from the mother.
Rylee
Like
Share