Step parent adoption for surrogacy?

[rsmit02]

What is the name of your state? NJ

My un married sister is pregnant with my husbands baby in a surrogacy arrangement. Do I need a lawyer to do a step parent adoption for myself to adopt the child at birth here in NJ or can I do the paperwork and court appearance ourselves? My husband will be named on the birth certificate as the father all that is needed is for us to file for my adoption of the baby and appear in court. Can it be done without a lawyer and how do we do it? If we need a lawyer what kind of cost are we looking at?

Ruth

[nextwife]

Good Heavens! NOW you're concerned with legalities? Sis could decide to keep the baby and hubby would be paying CS, if no contract exists. The time to do this RIGHT, legally, was PRIOR to implantation.

Absolutely use an attorney!!!!!!!

[penelope10]

Originally Posted by nextwife

Good Heavens! NOW you're concerned with legalities? Sis could decide to keep the baby and hubby would be paying CS, if no contract exists. The time to do this RIGHT, legally, was PRIOR to implantation.

Absolutely use an attorney!!!!!!!

That's exactly what I was thinking....was there some reason why this wasn't done prior to implantation?

[rsmit02]

Sorry if I wasnt clear we do have an attorny now she is a surrogate lawyer, we have contracts and all the legal stuff in place before we went ahead with the surrogacy. But we are in NJ and it does not recognise surrogacy so the lawyer who has worked with us for over a year before we went ahead is now from this point going to charge us $2500 for the rest of the work which is basically filing for the step parent adoption.

Here in NJ what has to be done is the fathers name goes on the birth certificate alsong with teh surrogates then the surrogate gives up parental rights and the mom (me) then does a step parent adoption.

We have done this totally legally and with surrogate contracts etc from here on is just paperwork for step parent adoption which im thinking we can do ourselves.

Ruthx