Step Parent Adoption

[TJ2378]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Utah and California.

I'm sorry if knowing that I am dealing with 2 states complicates things. To clarify... I live in Utah, and all of my court related paperwork is in Utah. However, my current husband is being put on orders in California which will require us to be in CA until July next year. My husband is in the USAR (Army Reserve). The reason we are looking into all this information now, after only being married a month, is because once we return to Utah in July, my husband is being deployed for the 3rd time. I have a 1 year old son, who has only known my husband as a father. His biological father has not seen him since he was 2 months old, and has not paid child support consistently. By that I mean in total the state child support office has only been able to garnish about $500 in a year. $250 of this was paid the week before our review hearing for our show cause hearing on why he was not paying child support. He has owed $327 a month since Feb 2010. In Utah, I have been told that you are required to be married for a year before you can apply for an adoption. I do not know the requirements in California. Our one year anniversary will have us in California, but since the process is a long one, I am not sure if we will be in California long enough to finish up. So my questions are these..... 1) What is the requirement in California before a step parent can apply for an adoption? 2) What, if any, are the reasons a court would terminate a parents rights in CA? 3) What is the process for an adoption in California, and if the process takes long enough that we are back in Utah, can we finish up our adoption in CA or do we need to start over in Utah? 4) Can adoption proceedings continue while my husband in deployed?

A couple other bits of information.... 1) My husband will also be adopting my oldest child at the same time, but her fathers rights were terminated by the courts when she was 3. She is now 8. Will that help the request for adoption look better to a judge, since it shows my husband is committing not only to my son, but to myself, and my other child? 2) My ex husband lives in TN and I have a protective order against him, which he claims is the reason he cannot get a job that will allow him to pay child support or visit our 1 year old. However, I have photos of his facebook page showing him offering to buy plane tickets for the women he slept with while in Utah. Also, he brags and shows off his new motorcycles, new home, new car, etc. Would being able to prove that he is living a good lifestyle prove to an adoption / termination court judge that he has an ability to care for and maintain contact with our 1 year old, but chooses not to? Would this information be helpful if he decides to contest the adoption? I do not know if he will consent or fight. He was adopted himself and he hates that he was. He obviously does not care for our child, but he will not want to do what he has hated for so long.

Sorry for making this so detailed, but I hope it will help me get some straight forward answers.

 

[mistoffolees]

You need an attorney. Even a simple adoption really needs an attorney to be done right and yours is fairly complicated.

You are aware, I hope, that you're probably going to have to terminate Dad's rights or get agreement from him for your new husband to adopt? If Dad doesn't agree, you have to go with TPR - which is not all that easy.

In addition, you are going to create massive problems later on by pretending that your new husband is the child's father. The child as a right to know that stepdad is not his biological father - even if stepdad adopts him. Some day, things like medical family history will require that - and finding out when he's older that you lied to him for 18 years won't be present.

I'm curious about the timing. What was the date of the divorce and what was the date of your current marriage? And when was the child born?

 

[TJ2378]

I don't believe I ever mentioned wanting to pretend that my ex was never involved in my sons life. I would never be able to, nor would I want to, prevent my son from knowing his past. No one can do that successfully. My husbands family tried that with him, and it wasn't ok. I want what is best for my son, and that is definitely not my ex husband. He is more than welcome to know his father, while at the same time I keep him safe. And I do mean SAFE. My ex lives with 3 women, 2 dogs, and a monkey which he loves to "play" with by letting him out of the cage and allowing it to rampage the house while he is gone. The week he was in my son's life, he left him alone in the apartment to come and check in on me at work, sometimes sitting in my office for an hour. A one month old child should NOT be left alone that long. As far as timing between my ex and my current husband, that really isn't much of your business. I don't need someone to examine my life, simply to answer LEGAL questions. I don't really see much in the way of legal answers the more I research the forum.

 

[Isis1]

Honey, we are only scrutinizing what a judge will scrutinize. Yes, it will get down to that if the father contests. You need to be prepared for that possibility.