legally confused

What is the name of your state? Illinois

The bio. father was gone when I was approx. 3 mos. preg. (the end of a very bad 3yr relationship) I have never attempted to obtain child support, and he has never attempted to establish paternity. At 7mos. preg. I married my 1st husband, when my daughter was born, he signed the birth certificate. After 1yr, we divorsed. During the percedings, he sighed over all legal rights to her. I have been married to my 2nd husband for 11yrs. My daughter wants to ask my husband, her "Dad" to adopt her. Legally where do I start??? Can it be done without the bio.'s concent due to her "legal" father giving up rights???

Please help!!!

I find it highly unlikely that your ex-husband was able to terminate his parental rights in a divorce decree. It just sounds like you got sole legal and physical custody. That is a different animal. A relinquishment of parental rights is normally a separate proceeding usually done within an adoption process. "Possibly" it was allowed 11 years ago. It wouldn't be allowed today. Are you saying that your x has never given any child support either? See, that would never fly with the court's today. Children are entitled to receive child support from the non-custodial parent.

Should your husband want to adopt, he will have to get your ex-husband's parental rights terminated. At least, that's what I can tell from the limited information you have given.

You should contact an experience adoption attorney in your town, give him/her all the facts and hire him/her to deal with this mess.

Oh, and it needs to be your husband's wishes, not your daughter's. If he hasn't brought this up before, perhaps he is not interested in doing it.

cre69 said:

What is the name of your state? Illinois

The bio. father was gone when I was approx. 3 mos. preg. (the end of a very bad 3yr relationship) I have never attempted to obtain child support, and he has never attempted to establish paternity. At 7mos. preg. I married my 1st husband, when my daughter was born, he signed the birth certificate. After 1yr, we divorsed. During the percedings, he sighed over all legal rights to her. I have been married to my 2nd husband for 11yrs. My daughter wants to ask my husband, her "Dad" to adopt her. Legally where do I start??? Can it be done without the bio.'s concent due to her "legal" father giving up rights???

Please help!!!

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If you have been married to your second husband for 11 years, then your child has to be at least 12 or 13. The bio-father would be irrelevant at this point....particularly since someone else had legal fatherhood.

Since your child was less than a year old when you divorced your first husband....its quite possible that his parental rights were terminated when the divorce took place. She was still young enough for that to be possible since he wasn't the bio-father.

Even if if he just gave up all custody and visitation rights, without his parental rights being terminated....MORE than enough time has passed to now terminate his rights based on abandonment.

If you are going to do this...USE AN ATTORNEY.