I married a man with a 13 year old son and I want to adopt him. He has not had any contact from his bio mother in over 2 years. Her whereabouts are unknown, the last was heard she was in Australia. How does one go about starting procedures on stepparent adoption and is 2 years of no contact long enough for abandoment.
Thanks

Probably the time varies from one location to another. You'll need to file with the court system, and a lawyer can help with the process of knowing how to proceed in your area. It will probably involve showing that a search has been attempted, but that would just be a guess on my part.

An attorney should be willing to give you a free consultation telling you what is involved as well as an estimate for the services and a time frame for each step during the entire process . You'll also want to find out how much additional costs might arise if things do not go quickly. Sadly, it seems like some situations are resolved very slowly which may or may not be a result of the attorney milking for extra fees... It might also involve complications that are legitimate so I don't want to badmouth the profession.

Hi oneguyinohio, good to hear from you.

I married his dad Feb 7, 2007.

I should have explain more in detail, this child's mom met a man on the internet and kidnapped him and took him out of the country. Took his dad a little over a year and giving up his business and every pennie he had to get his son back at age 6. The bio mom was court ordered out of the USA never to return unless she wants to serve 5 yrs in prison for 5 years. All of this is court documented, we have all the papers.

She emailed the child once in awhile up until 2 years ago. He is now 13 and I have been his mom for 11 months , but has been in his life for about 18 months and he wants me to adopt him so bad and I want the same also.

He has no desire to see or speak to his bio mom. We have emailed her but no response, so shouldn't all these legal papers we have stand enough in court.

We are told we can do the adoption procedure ourselves, the attorneys want anywhere from 1200.00 t0 1500.00 and we can't hack that right now.

I would like to know how one can get the proper forms to file themselves. I appreciate you writing so soon.

I am in Arkansas. I also have guardianship of my 14 year old Grandson, have had him since he was 18 months old. Yep, we raising 2 teenagers.. wooo hooo! :)

You're awesome for going the distance! You might be able to go online and look up the court forms for your state, or possibly to a law school in your area to ask for assistance from someone who has not passed the bar yet? Sometimes it is hard to get answers at the court house, but I have had some luck in finding out what needs to be done by making copies of other cases that are similar to what I needed. That would be from the clerk of courts. In your case, it would involve looking at adoptions that dealt with abandonment issues.

He will still have to go though the courts and follow the rules of the court. It can be done but you will have to have an attorney.