Mother leaves state where I have custody of her children

we have lagal custidy of 2 babies in california. There Mother has since moved to Oregon (home town). Is there something legal I can do against her?

Like what ??.. what do you want ?

The mother is my first cousin. We had the attentions of adopting the girls. She said that on they're 1st b-day that she would let us know. Rumor has it that she is going to try to get the girls back. We will fight for them. Under the California law we have to notify the courts by writing if we intend to leave the state. she has left the state! Her parental rights have been suspended and has no visitation rights. Yet we go out of our way to make sure that she and her 2 sons ( now living with the grandma) see the girls. She has not seen the girls now for 4 months. She has not contacted me in over 3 weeks. I keep in contact with the grandma ( my Aunt) and the boys. We will see each other in a week. Right now I can sue her for child support but choose not to because we feel that the girls (1yr) are ours and intend to care for them like are 2 older kids. What I am looking for is a way to make sure the girls stay on our custody no matter what. We have had the girls for 9 months and our whole family loves them.

Unfortunately, unless the bio parents sign over and let you adopt the children then there is no other guarenteed way of keeping the children. Bio parents have a great deal of clout with the courts. If you had guardianship for 5 years the bio mon could still come back and get the children via a court order.

Now, if you are given full custody by a court then you have a little more to fight with, but a judge on a good day would change physical custody in a heartbeat if the bio mom showed that she had changed and wanted her children back.

Obviously, things change over time. If you had custody for 12 years it would be unlikely that she could get custody back.. but visitation is a cert anytime she wants it.

z

[This message has been edited by LegalBeagle (edited August 20, 2000).]

z

[This message has been edited by LegalBeagle (edited August 20, 2000).]