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misskkay

Does anyone have experience with contested step parent adoption?

misskkay
10 years ago

I have been in my step sons life since he was 3, when he started living with us full time when his bio mom disappeared. My husband filed and won full physical/joint legal soon after that. Around age 4, he was diagnosed with a special needs disorder. Bio mom was never involved with his education/therapy as it related to this. For 3 years, she had visitation every other weekend, and missed over half of those visits, sometimes going months without contact only to show up like nothing happened. My little guy never responded well to these disruptions and it would cause lots of problems at home whenever he would get thrown off of his schedule due to her popping in and out of his life. Then 1 1/2 years ago, she stopped visiting all together, and we didn't hear from her for about 10 months. I started getting things together to file for adoption by abandonment (you need 1 year no contact and no financial support for that in my state), but she showed up at the end of month 10 like nothing happened. Husband filed for supervised visits because child had NO idea who she was at that point and acted out when she saw him, and the judge agreed. That was 6 months ago, she was calling to speak with the child for a couple of months but that stopped, and she never tried to schedule a supervised visit.
...... I really want to get her out of his life. I want him to be the one to make the decision, but he doesn't have the mental capacity to do so right now. And perhaps that is best, because how can you explain to a child why their mother never comes to see him when she lives only 15 minutes away? I feel the only reason she acts like this is because of his disability, and thinks that he wont remember these years so why should she be bothered to put in the work on the relationship between them. Does anyone have stories they can share that would make me feel like I have a chance at adoption? I am worried that since there has been recent contact, the judge won't allow it, and I know she would never agree because she believe I am the one that gave him this disorder (hand to God, this is something she actually wrote on her FaceBook in the beginning of all of this). Any advice would be great, thanks!

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