doing S.P.adoption in montgomery County May 2010

:D Hi! I am currently in the process of completing a Step-parent adoption in Montgomery County and thought I'd share some thoughts and amounts :) Doing this Pro Se has been a STRESS!! :grr: The system is set up to discourage you from doing it that way for a reason! Lawyers want money! We had some lawyers even tell us that it was unlawful for us to do this pro se when children are involved! others wanted 10,000 retainers and estimated if contested could cost 20,000 or more! I started with the forms from a previous post by danamom [url]http://forums.adoption.com/texas-step-parent-adoption-support/340578-step-parent-adoption-forms.html[/url] The court library @ 301 North Main Street Conroe, Texas 77301 3rd floor was also a BIG help! the books there have the whole adoption thing almost stream-lined! but dont expect anyone to give you any information to help ease your fears...legality reasons and all... The most time consuming was typing in all the correct info because it has to be precise to your unique case. And the waiting game...filled original petition in Nov. 2009 didn't get a case worker to do home study until March SO don't expect any of this to be completed quickly! Then once we got the study back (about a week and a half, but our references returned their surveys like the next day!) We didn't get a first court date until May 5. Then because this is a closed case we couldn't find out if the father had returned the papers or not, so when we went to court the order was worded wrong and since he considered it a default we needed a last know address certificate. which can be found at [url=http://www.texaslawhelp.org/documents/clusters/TX/194/English/Index.shtml]LawHelp HTML Document[/url] So now we have to wait until our pre-trial date which is the 14th and if its still not right then we have until the 24th(our final court date). If not right then the case is thrown out and we have to start all over again!:hissy: SO! Prices so far for me in Montgomery County Pro Se $12.00 Notary of documents $229.00 Filing fee for original petition (theres like a 5% discount for cash payments) -->Side note as well here...can file to waive fees for low income families $8.00 for official citation to take to have constable serve papers Reccomend this if father has no interest in returning the papers beacuse with court citation he has time limit to reply or it is defaulted :) as with my case $65.00 to have Constable serve papers to father $10.00 for fingerprint card @the County Sheriff's Office $15.00 to send to Austin for criminal background check RECCOMEND Delivery confirmation or return reciept!!! $2.53 to mail fingerprint card to Austin $650.00 YES! $650 uncontested! Home Study $981.53 Total so far... Then I guess you could add in there all the gas to and from the courthouse and other places to get paperwork filed and completed. and printer paper & ink Just stay Hopeful!! :cheer: