Will Adoption Work for You and Your Child?

We can assist you in making this decision by providing an assessment of your situation. You can talk to our attorneys who are trained to listen well, so we can explore legal issues as well as the psychological and social aspects of your situation. Our goal is to gather an understanding of your circumstances while collecting accurate information. In this manner, we can anticipate your concerns and answer questions you may have about adoption.

We inquire about medical history, including drug, alcohol, and tobacco use. (Please be honest with us as it will help us to locate adoptive families who will both welcome your child and be capable of parenting him or her.) We will also inquire about your social history, including your personal preferences; your marital history; support systems; budget needs; education; and other background information about you.

We want to know what qualities you seek in the adopting family and how much contact is desirable for you. For example, do you want to know what role education will play in your child’s life? How about religion? Will your child have siblings? What kind of neighborhood does the family live in?

We will discuss your estimated expenses and talk about applicable state laws to determine if and how these may be legally disbursed. If we do not know the information we will find out and get back to you!

We have worked with over 6,700 birth parents. There have been many instances where adoption was not appropriate and we have helped these women formulate other plans. We have developed an excellent sense of who adoption will work for and are confident that our experience will serve you well! Call us today to discuss whether adoption is the right plan for you!

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Birth Father’s Rights

One of the most complicated areas of adoption law is the legal rights of birth fathers. Each state has its own laws, and often the laws conflict with each other. This conflict has been alleviated to some degree by the implementation of all of some of the Uniform Parentage Act by all 50 states. The rules around terminating birth father’s rights are the same, whether the adoption is an independent, agency or stepparent adoption.

A man who is married to the birthmother (or who was not divorced from her at least 300 days before the baby’s birth), is generally considered the marital or presumed father. There is a legal presumption that if a birth occurs while the mother is married, the husband (or estranged or ex-husband) is the child’s father. This presumption would exist even if the marital or presumed father is not the biological father. Again each state has its own laws and these laws would be determinative as to the notice requirements for the terminate of a presumed father’s rights.

The most common instance in which an unmarried man is considered a presumed father is if he takes the child into his home, supports the child, and claims the child as his own. In many states, a man may achieve presumed father status by filing suit and doing everything within his power (e.g. assisting with expenses, letting people know that he wants to raise the child, starting a bank account for the child) to “legitimate” the child. In other states, a single father may attain presumed father status only by winning a court action. Other states have what is known as a putative father registry. Each state is different, that is why it is important to discuss your particular situation with an experienced adoption attorney.

Commonly, a presumed father has the same legal rights as a mother. In most cases, the presumed father, like the mother, is entitled to custody, so his rights must be terminated. This may happen through an adoption consent (or in some states he may sign a waiver of his right to notice of the adoption proceedings). If the presumed father cannot be contacted, (or can be contacted but refuses to consent) and meets the statutory requirements of no contact with the child for a specified period and no child support for a specified period, then an abandonment action may be brought. Usually this entails the opportunity of the presumed father to have court appointed counsel. If he cannot be located, usually notice will have to be given via publication in a newspaper of general circulation.

But what if the presumed father is not the actual or biological father and has not parented the child? (For example, if the mother has had an affair, or was recently divorced when conception took place.) Almost always, the man presumed to be the father still must receive notice, but his consent to the adoption may not be necessary. The rebuttal of the presumption of paternity will suffice.

If the birthfather is an alleged or non-marital father, in most states, he is entitled to official notice of the adoption plan. In states with a paternity registry (putative father registry), registering gives a man, at the minimal, an automatic right to notice. Generally the alleged father must take legal action before receiving any parental rights; (e.g. he may need to prevail in a paternity action.) A national registry is being proposed, but currently, registry benefits and burdens vary greatly by state.

There are rare instances where the birth father is unknown or where the birth mother refuses to disclose who the father is. Again, these issues are decided differently in each state. In some states, publication in a newspaper of general circulation listing the mother’s name and expected due date or child’s birth date is mandated. In other states, publication is deemed not necessary and the adoption may proceed with the caveat that if a father surfaces within the statute of limitations and can make a case for fraud, then he would be entitled to his day in court and would have the possibility of setting the adoption aside. For children conceived with the assistance of anonymous sperm donors, again the process of freeing the child for adoption varies state by state. For example, in CA, if the insemination was done under a doctor’s supervision, the donor typically would have no rights.

Lastly, a child can have far more than one father. He may have more than one presumed father and also any number of alleged fathers. How this gets sorted out once again depends on the state which is controlling the adoption terminations. An adoption attorney is a crucial player in terminating the birth father’s rights. At Family Formation Law Offices, we have over thirty years of experience building families through adoption. If you are considering adoption to build your family, we offer a free 15-minute consultation over the phone to discuss your concerns and how to proceed.

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Announcing Birth Parent Outreach Program!

Family Formation Law Offices is excited to announce the launch of its new and improved birth parent outreach program. This program is designed to help would be adoptive parents find a child to adopt by reaching out to women who are pregnant and wish to place their child for adoption. You can learn more by calling our office at (925) 945-1880, or emailing us!

The basics of the program are flat fee legal and outreach work for a period of time, chosen by you, the adoptive parent (1 year, 18 months, or 2 years). Family Formation Law Offices will place advertisements for adoptive parents in places that will reach birth parents, including the internet. We will also reach out to other groups and individuals that may have contact with birth parents, to let them know that we have a pool of families for birth parents to choose from when selecting a home in which to place their child.

Family Formation Law Offices not only locates birth parents, but screens them using both a legal and a mental health approach, building on Diane Michelsen’s years of experience as an adoption social worker, as well as an adoption attorney.

For birth parents, we encourage you to contact our offices to join our list of birth parents looking for a placement. You may qualify for legal representation by our office at no cost to you.

We are very excited about this new program, and hope that you will contact us to learn more about adoption, whether you are a would-be adoptive parent, or a birth parent looking for a family for your child.

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Building Your Family – Steps in Adoption

a) Finding Birthparents who will follow through with adoption placement

This for many people is the most difficult portion as the number of potential birth parents is somewhat limited and there is no one place to search. AIDS information has increased the practice of safe sex, more and more single parents are opting to raise children. Unlike surrogacy, in CA only reasonable pregnancy-related expenses are permitted by law to be remitted to the birth mother.

Some people work with attorneys who will assist in locating birth parents, do screening to guard against fraudulent situations, and assist in adoption processing. Because we have had so many requests, Family Formation Law Offices of Diane Michelsen has newly reactivated their outreach program.

Locating a woman who wishes to place her child for adoption may be difficult or costly. Some people work with facilitators. Facilitators are bonded but not licensed individuals who work with adopting parents and assist in finding birth parents. Facilitators run the gamut between honorable and scrupulous to less than stellar. Because most facilitators make their money upon a birth mother match, please be aware that you may well be pressured into a match or that the birth mother may not be screened carefully for legal issues or emotional red flags.

b) Being Chosen

The birth parent(s) must choose the adopting parents, and adopting parents in turn choose the birth parent(s). There is no formula for being chosen. People just like you, who may think they are too old/too young, too skinny/too fat, single/married/domestic partners, straight/gay, with children/without children, etc have been chosen.

c) Background Screening

Rarely is any psychological screening of the birth parents performed. Background checks and criminal checks may be done by a private investigator, but many birth parents feel insulted by such investigations.

d) Mental Health and Medical Screening

Medical background and genetics of the birthparents are self reported by the birth parents. Usually medical records of the pregnancy and delivery will be available but often they take a long time to secure. Since unplanned pregnancies are often at the root of adoptions, inheritable traits of the birth parent may include low impulse control conditions such as ADD, or ADHD.

e) Birth-Father Information

The identity of the birth father is dependent upon the birth mother’s reported information. If the alleged birth father denies paternity or wants nothing to do with the situation, background and medical information may not be available.

f) Prenatal Care

If the family is uncomfortable with the birth mother or her level of care, the option of not pursuing or completing the adoption exists. There is little or no control or recourse if the birth mother does not take good care of herself or uses drugs during pregnancy. Additionally, the use of drug tests is considered by many birth parents to be insulting.

g) Monetary Risk

For a birth mother in CA, assistance with living expenses is allowable so long as the assistance is “necessary and reasonable” in the situation. Typically expenses connected with rent, utilities, food, transportation, misc., maternity clothing, and cell phone may be covered. Please note, placing a child for adoption is probably the hardest thing anyone does in life. While a very small percentage of birth parents change their minds after placement, at any time prior to signing a consent or relinquishment, and for a limited time after signing, a birth parent may change their mind and decide to raise the child. Any monies that changed hands are considered as charitable nonrecourse gifts.

h) Cost

Average cost ranges from $18,000 to $35,000, including about $6,500 for birth parent assistance. Other costs are investigative agency fees, fingerprints, home study costs, costs to locate a child and legal fees. Birth mother change of mind insurance is no longer available.

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Building Your Family – Adoption

Adoption is really love and the legal process working together. The following is a tiny thumb nail sketch of the overview of adoption.

Officially, adoption is the creation of a parent-child relationship with people who are not the child’s biological parent(s). In California, voluntary adoptions, Family Code § 8500 et seq, may be processed independently (usually through an attorney) or through an adoption agency (often with an attorney to assist). Typically, the birth mother learns that she is pregnant, decides that she will carry the pregnancy to term but, for any number of reasons, she chooses to not parent. Alone, or sometimes with the birth father, she chooses a family to adopt her child. After the family agrees to move forward with her, a special social worker called will meet with the birth parent(s) to advise and counsel, and discuss the adoption process and the alternatives to placement. Counseling will be offered and encouraged and information about the adopting family typically is shared. In voluntary adoptions, most placing birth parents terminate their rights by signing consents or relinquishments so that their child may legally join the family they have chosen. Non-placing parents may not be as cooperative and therefore may need to have their rights, if any, terminated by court actions. Any agreement made prior to birth to place a child is a good faith agreement and is not binding.

Tomorrow: steps in adoption!

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Common Fears – Birth Parents

Interacting with the birth parent. Many worries revolve around a birth parent’s truthfulness. Some information may be verified and medical records can and should be attained. The records will indicate if the pregnancy is proceeding on-course and may indicate issues in the medical background to be alert to.

But how do you know if a birth parent is lying, is in fact a scam artist, or really has no intention of placing her child? The truth is you don’t always know. It is possible that you will not get an accurate medical history, or that the birth mother will not disclose that she has had a chemical or substance dependency. She may not even disclose accurate birth father information.

The best rule of thumb I can give you is that if it feels “not right” or “icky”, if something keeps gnawing at you about the situation, then stop going forward. Connecting with the birth parent should feel exciting, not burdensome. You should like the birth parent, not necessarily akin to your feelings about a friend, but definitely you should not have a negative reaction or feel like you can’t wait to get away from her or him.

Birth parent’s financial needs. I am always leery of the birth mother or birth father who starts off with a “What’s in it for me?” attitude. I applaud those birth parents who seek a good family for their child and secondarily request some financial assistance and they do exist!

Most state’s laws allow adopting parents to financially assist birth parents during the last trimester of the pregnancy and the six to eight weeks of the postpartum recovery period. In most states, financial requests must be filed (and approved) with the court. Generally the rule of thumb is what is necessary and reasonable in the situation. Average birth parent expenses range from $3,000 to $9,000. This includes a shortfall of medical coverage, some or all rental expense, some or all utilities expense, including cell phone, maternity clothing and some or all food expense. (Please check with your own adoption attorney to determine what is legal in your state.)

Since almost always funds that are given to assist the birth mother during her pregnancy and recovery period are considered a gift, money really is at-risk with no certainty that things will work out. For the birth parent who keeps upping the ante by requesting more and more expense money, a determination will need to be made whether the expenses are legitimate or whether this is a way for the birth mother to get you to withdraw from the match. Again, an experienced adoption attorney will be helpful in this assessment.

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Most Common Fears – Locating a Child, and Being Chosen by a Birth Parent

Locating a child. Worried about locating an adoptable child? That it may take so long that you will be too old to be a good parent? Or that you may succumb to the pressure to accept a child you really do not feel is appropriate? Will there ever be an appropriate child available? My statistics show that most people, either doing their own outreach or with others, find an adoption situation which is acceptable to them within l8 months.

Being chosen by a birth parent. It is the norm to be concerned that the qualities you possess may not be those which the birth parents wish for the parents of their child. As an adoption attorney, I hear people voice concerns about their age, their height, their weight, their mental health conditions, their marital status, the amount of contact they wish for, or that they already have a child. Additionally it is a not uncommon fear that the birth parent will locate a “better” family.

Believe it or not, birth parents have parallel fears. They are worried that, among other things, you will find their background too shaky, that their health history or education will not be up to your standards, or that you won’t find them attractive enough. They are worried that you will “dump” them for a better situation.

Birth parents come in all shapes, sizes, and ages, just like adoptive parents. Each birth parent is unique in their preferences. Most birth parents are so pleased to have found a family they are comfortable with that they stop looking. Depending on the personality of the birth mother, in some cases outside pressure to not place or chose a different family works to solidify the initial choice made.

To reinforce that birth parents make choices that they are individually comfortable with, I recently worked with a birth mother who chose adopting parents who thought they were too old– 43 and 61 (from a pool over 50 families). Other birth parents have indicated that they did not care about the physical traits, they wanted the child to be with a family who laughed and where successes, not failures, were stressed. Still others have chosen families who had particular (in this case musical) interests or where creativity was encouraged. And did you know that extremely thin people have a more difficult time finding birth parents than extremely heavy people? Truly there is no external standard that you must match. Be proud of who you are.

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Most Common Fears of Adoptive Parents

As a continuation to the earlier posts about working with an adoption attorney, we’re also covering some common concerns faced by prospective adoptive parents. This is a multi- part series, so check the rest of the week for the updates.

As you decide how to build your family, you may have significant anxieties and fears about adoption. Please know that it’s normal and completely reasonable to have those anxieties and fears! But, did you know that fear and excitement produce very similar chemical components and body changes? It is possible to switch from apprehension to anticipation with a bit of inner work. In order to assist you in working with your concerns so you may convert anxiety into excitement, we will list the most universal categories of concern and some of the realities relating to them.

The Adoption Process Itself. It is true that as adopting parents, with the exception of deciding to go forward or not with a particular birth parent or adoption situation, you have very little control over the specifics of the adoption process. The adoption placement happens because the birth parent(s) allows the child to be adopted and the adoption is completed under the legal system of the state(s) involved. Just as each person, birth parent or adopting parent, has their own personality traits, each state’s legal system has its own peculiarities. For many people, being at the mercy of others and subject to a court’s interpretation of law is incredibly uncomfortable.

An experienced adoption attorney can be invaluable. He or she can assist you in sorting out adoption situations so you only go forward with those which are most likely to be successful. He or she can navigate the court systems and state laws so you have an excellent idea of what legal risk exists and how to work with them. Also, the uncertainties of the adoption world are not so different than the uncertainties of day to day living. For example, the lack of guarantee of success does not stop people from falling in love, purchasing a home, or interviewing for a new job. And in adoption, even though there is no guarantee of success, most people are successful.

Tomorrow we’ll cover finding an adoption situation, and being chosen by the birth parents.

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