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Can an adoption be a fraud?

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danr611

Junior Member
I am in Illinois.

My wife and I adopted a girl born October of 2003. It turns out that my wife started an affair when our daughter was 5 months old, including during the final home visit with our adoption social worker. This affair continued until our daughter was almost 7 months. At this time, my wife put me on notice that she was not sure what she wanted to do about our marriage. Our adoption was not finalized until late December 2004 due to some paperwork being lost. My wife filed for divorce a couple of weeks after the finalization.

I feel as if we lied/frauded the birth mother and her parents (it is an open adoption). I suspect that they will be very mad when they find out about this situation.

My questions are:
1) Could the birth family sue to reverse the adoption?
2) Could I reverse the adoption if I wanted to as I feel quite used and cheated (note that I think that my soon to be former wife almost certainly does not want to reverse this)?
3) What other facts would be useful to the birth family or me if in fact anyone wanted to reverse this?

Or - is the answer that our daughter is our daughter, period, (and I do love her) and that I need to figure out how to build a relationship with her?

Thanks

Broken Hearted Father
 


djohnson

Senior Member
You went ahead and finalized knowing everything. I don't see how you could claim anything. She is your (and your exwife's) daughter. Nothing about fraud comes into play here as far as I can see.
 
S

seniorjudge

Guest
danr611 said:
I am in Illinois.

My wife and I adopted a girl born October of 2003. It turns out that my wife started an affair when our daughter was 5 months old, including during the final home visit with our adoption social worker. This affair continued until our daughter was almost 7 months. At this time, my wife put me on notice that she was not sure what she wanted to do about our marriage. Our adoption was not finalized until late December 2004 due to some paperwork being lost. My wife filed for divorce a couple of weeks after the finalization.

I feel as if we lied/frauded the birth mother and her parents (it is an open adoption). I suspect that they will be very mad when they find out about this situation.

My questions are:
1) Could the birth family sue to reverse the adoption?
2) Could I reverse the adoption if I wanted to as I feel quite used and cheated (note that I think that my soon to be former wife almost certainly does not want to reverse this)?
3) What other facts would be useful to the birth family or me if in fact anyone wanted to reverse this?

Or - is the answer that our daughter is our daughter, period, (and I do love her) and that I need to figure out how to build a relationship with her?

Thanks

Broken Hearted Father
1) Could the birth family sue to reverse the adoption?

A: Yes. They would lose.


2) Could I reverse the adoption if I wanted to as I feel quite used and cheated (note that I think that my soon to be former wife almost certainly does not want to reverse this)?

A: No.


3) What other facts would be useful to the birth family or me if in fact anyone wanted to reverse this?

A: See prior answer.


Q: Or - is the answer that our daughter is our daughter, period, (and I do love her) and that I need to figure out how to build a relationship with her?

A: Yes.
 

nextwife

Senior Member
File for custody/joint physical custody. And a geographic restriction to restrict moveaways. You have the same right to parent your child as she does.
 

danr611

Junior Member
We are planning joint custody and have put the kids (we have two adopted children) first for the most part (other than my wife's decision to end it in the first place anway). It is of course a painful situation.

I was just worried that the facts could put the adoption at risk - particularly if the birth family or actually my wife wanted to reverse it.
 

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