Birthfather Rights

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? California

My husbnad and I are working with an adoption agency in CA in adopting our son. Our son was placed with us from the hospital at birth when he was one day old (he is now almost 15 months old). His birthmother signed relinquishment papers at the hospital, but his birhtfather was unavailable. The birthparents not married, but they have two other children together and were living together at the time the baby was born (although they seperated shortly after the birth). The baby was kept a secret from the extended birthfamily so confidentiallity was important in this situation. We waited and waited for the reliquishment papers from the birthfather (which the birthmother told us were signed and promised to mail), but they were never received. Finally, our agency decided they needed to move forward and purblished a public notice in the newspaper of the birthfathers last known residence. The birthfather responded to the publication and stated that the birthmother had lied to him and told him that the baby had died at birth and wants the baby now that he knows he is alive. He is currently in jail and is due to be released in Aug. He is in jail on a violation of probation and has an INS hold on him. He has no family around, but has the full
support of the birhtmother's parents (whom have just leared about the baby), We are having great difficulty getting to the truth. It seems to me that this birthfather is in no position to parent this child.

I have been trying to get information about what our rights are, what the birthfather's rights are, etc., but have hit many dead ends. Our agency is working with an attorney, but they are having trouble getting
information (no one can get a hold of the birthmother).

Does anyone have any advice, comments or experinced a similar situation?

[stephenk]

the adoption agency screwed you royally by not getting the father to relenquish his rights while mom was pregnant or moving to terminate his rights once the baby was born.

now you are in a defensive position of having to justify why you failed to properly notify everyone. "Keeping it a secret" was a bad idea.

[Seanscott]

There have been a couple cases similar to this in the news over the past few years. What a terrible ordeal to go through, and you certainly have my sympathy!

My sister and brother-in-law adopted a little girl years ago and after they had the child for a year, the biodad came from nowhere and said he had never been notified of the birth. He demanded custody and when it finally ended up in court he met my brother-in-law in the hallway and told him he would not fight the adoption if "certain financial conditions" were met. In essence, he SOLD his child!

I know this doesn't help, but you may want to try to look up those cases on the internet.