What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida
I have a little girl age 11 years that I received at the age of 2 days old while I was doing foster care. When the child was around 2 years old, the department was fixing to terminate the mother's rights and place the child up for adoption. I was worried that due to the child being africian american and we are white that she may have been placed with a family of the same race. We asked (the judge) and received legal custody to remove her from the foster care system, but that meant the bio mom's rights were never terminated.
The mom lead us to believe that once we were granted legal custody she would then allow us to adopt her, but then she never made good on that promise. Mom continued to visit once or twice a year, but never provided any financial support at all. We have not seen or heard from the bio mom for about 4 years now. The bio mom could never prove in court just who the father was (she knew but refused to say due to the fact she was a minor when the child was conceived and father was an adult so she just left it as "father unknown") so that was never an issue. We have always wanted to adopt this child from the start, but were afraid if we rocked the boat the bio mom would try and gain custody so we left it alone. My question is how hard would it be to adopt this child now, now that bio mom has had no contact? Would we have to fight the father if he came forward after all these years? If I have to just settle for the legal custody that I have now in order to prevent losing her I will, but she is begging us to adopt her. Sorry this is so long.
Mommyx6
I have a little girl age 11 years that I received at the age of 2 days old while I was doing foster care. When the child was around 2 years old, the department was fixing to terminate the mother's rights and place the child up for adoption. I was worried that due to the child being africian american and we are white that she may have been placed with a family of the same race. We asked (the judge) and received legal custody to remove her from the foster care system, but that meant the bio mom's rights were never terminated.
The mom lead us to believe that once we were granted legal custody she would then allow us to adopt her, but then she never made good on that promise. Mom continued to visit once or twice a year, but never provided any financial support at all. We have not seen or heard from the bio mom for about 4 years now. The bio mom could never prove in court just who the father was (she knew but refused to say due to the fact she was a minor when the child was conceived and father was an adult so she just left it as "father unknown") so that was never an issue. We have always wanted to adopt this child from the start, but were afraid if we rocked the boat the bio mom would try and gain custody so we left it alone. My question is how hard would it be to adopt this child now, now that bio mom has had no contact? Would we have to fight the father if he came forward after all these years? If I have to just settle for the legal custody that I have now in order to prevent losing her I will, but she is begging us to adopt her. Sorry this is so long.
Mommyx6