Surrogate mother/husband is father/step parent adoption/no surrogate agreement

What is the name of your state? california


My husband (of 9 years-happily) & I are infertile (well, I am). We have a friend who is pregnant by my husband, we have no surrogate agreement in place as we did not complete this process in a hospital in the US. We are certain he is the father and she doe not want the child (she is having him for us only). She wants to terminate her parental rights the day she gives birth. If she terminates her parental rights, signing over full custody to my husband, since I am his spouse, does that automatically afford me some form of guardianship? Will I have to do a step parent adoption to attain legal rights to our child? We (biomom, my husband and I) are all in full agreement. There will be no parentage dispute nor will there be any difficulties in the process as we already premeditated this outcome at the time of conception as a group. I have been told it is all simply a paperwork process and should not take much time. Please advise what steps we need to take and is retaining a lawyer neccessary, if so, at what cost? Please help, our son will be here in just a couple of weeks...

Also, I will be taking the paid family medical leave and my work requries proof, what do I show them?

ANYONE with any tips, advice, similar instances, anything, please respond. I am running out of time.

You're going to have to go through adoption proceedings. Your best bet is to go through an attorney to ensure that all i's are dotted and all t's are crossed.

From one IFer to another, good luck and congrats!

Personally, and this is just my opinion, I think you're crazy for doing this. What if she gives birth and decides to keep the child? It is, after all, her and your husbands child.

Maybe it's just me, but there's no way I'd do this without an agreement, and even then, I wouldn't do it. Your husband will be responsible for the financial welfare of this child but she is the mother......

What most don't understand...

I suppose it would be a little awkward to hear if you did not know our history. She has been my friend since we were 7 years old. Best friend. She thinks a little differently about these things than we do. She already has 3 kids (who are spoiled rotten), she has had 3 abortions during high school. Her third child, who she now has, the child's dad did not want, she went through with the pregnancy only because we told her we would take and care for the child (this was 6 years ago), at the last minute my husband renigged and she got stuck with her youngest daughter because she didn't know what else to do. She is 30 yrs old and has a house, her mother as her roomate and her children are very (did I say very, very?) well taken care of. She got pregnant again (2 yrs later), by the same guy, who wanted nothing to do with her or the previous child (the two older ones were from a previous marriage). Again he wanted nothing to do with it, he asked her to have an abortion. Her insurance would not cover it and he did not offer any money to do so. She ended up farther along and we told her ,again we would take him. She said that she could not trust us to do so after what we did last time and she gave that son up for adoption to a couple that lives about 100 miles from us. That was 4 years ago. This time we were getting ready to go through the adoption process on our own ... We were talking again and she felt so bad about not giving us the last baby boy. She offered to do this for us, to carry. We checked into surrogacy etc, and the cost was far more than we could afford (after all, we had went $75,000 in debt trying to conceive over the last 10 years), why should that stop good, willing parents from being parents, we all thought....and took a trip down to Mexico to visit my parents. We had the surrogacy procedure done in clean, mexican hospital. I have not the slightest hesitation that this will be a problem, we have discussed it for the last year. We just want to make sure we do the right thing when he is here. She will relinquish her rights and my husband will be responsible for this child, of course, after all it is his son. She will no longer be around as my friend after this goes through , so she will not be seeing him or us as she does now. We all agreed on that decision, this gift for us, is more important than anything else in the world to her. That is hard for many to understand. When you have tried for nearly 10 years to have a child, miscarried 3 times (once at 5 months along), taken medication, put your body literally through hell, had your husband give you shots of hormones, and your life turned upside down by going into debt and having to nearly file bankruptcy because of it all, perhaps then you would understand and not call me, or people like me...."crazy".. Do you have any children by the way?

your friend sure is the "fertile myrtle"!! pregnant 8 times!


hopefully it works out for you, good luck

good luck and god bless

good luck,but remember the childs not yours untill the adoption is final, if she decides to keep it, youll have no legal rights to the child. i do hope it works out for you though, there are thousands of couples who want a child, and cant have one, and i dont think its fair that all parents cant have a child to love(and spoil rotten). my husband and i were blessed with 12 kids(my 3 plus 1 my husband and i have together, his four, plus 3 nieces and a nephew we adopted) we are expecting our 2nd child in nov. please let us know how it goes.

Good point

Thanks for the replies.. They really touched me. Indeed, we are going to make sure that we do this the right way. Which is why I am seeking advice. IT JUST INFURIATES ME THAT THERE ARE SO MANY HORRIBLE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO are able to have children and then abuse and mistreat them. Then there are those like us, that want the mso badly and can offer them so much mroe but financially, it is near impossible for a middle class working family to be able to afford adoption, even in it's simplest form. When we were researching the surrogacy here in the states, one man had the nerve to tell us, "if you think the cost of doing the legitimate surrogacy is outrageous, and money is an issue in your household, perhaps you should re-think trying to raise a child" Well, needless to say, I let him know point blank what I thought of that remark, as his superiors and the hospital board also heard! I know that my husband will have all the rights when this little guy is born, him and her, and I will have nothing but some miniscule rights as the step parent. That's why I want to do this thing the right way, I just have to figure out how. My husbnd thinks it's all so simple, that I don't need to do all this, it's cut and dry, but I have my associates in Criminal Justice and I have a basic knowledge of the law and from that I know, we need to protect everyone involved, not just the baby, my husband and myself, but my friend as well.

Thanks for the kind words and advice, keep them coming..

I'm right there with ya--in the debt, the heartbreak, the whole shebang!

It's amazing how little many of the the fertile appreciate what they have.

Hope it all works out!

NOW WHAt?

Okay, I spoke to my friend yesterday and she said that she was a little uneasy about something, apparently her brother's girlfriend (of 6 years) wants to adopt the baby. OUR baby. She was saying that he belongs with family and they want him, she told them he is going with family, his dad. Her sister-in law then said something to the effect of she is family and if she wanted to be mean, she could contest the adoption. My friend asked her why she would do that, she already has kids and she couldn't contest it if she is giving custody to the father. Would she have anything to say if she did try to contest it, I mean only te parents can contest it correct?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - adoption of any sort is NOT a do-it-yourself project! You NEED TO SEE AN ATTORNEY! Like 9 months ago.

cant everyone just butt out and mind their own business?

the sister in law has no legal standing to contest the adoption. she is not a party to it. you should tell everyone politely but firmly to butt out and mind their own business. this is your husband, and soon to be your child, and that is that.

Actually BBM, if you want to get technical, the baby is only the mother's until she relinquishes and the husband's as soon as he establishes paternity. It is NOT the OP's "soon to be child" until the mother relinquishes.

You (well, your husband) screwed her over once. She's hinting she's going to screw you (him) over in return.

Until your husband establishes paternity, this is solely the mother's child.

I wish you luck, and I hope I'm not being overly pessimistic, but there is bad blood between her and your husband, and therefore, you. Plus you are giving up a lifelong friendship.....

I have to agree with the person who told you to HIRE AN ATTORNEY ASAP!!!

I'm adopted, am very pro adoption, but this whole situation sounds too scary to me. Before I read your latest post I was ready to say: why doesn't she just give the baby up for adoption to you and your husband? I realize he is the bio father, but it would seem easier to NOT mention that and just have both of you adopt the baby.

But, yikes......she's doing some freaky stuff.

Best of luck to you! Please let us know what happens.
Karla in Amarillo