I am in this situation where its my fiancés nephew and we have been together for 5 yrs and are currently living together and his sister has let us keep her son she only wants him when its convient for her and we pay a babysitter when we have to work. The father is a drug addict and the mother to and the father don't have anything to do with the child. My fiancés mother the child grandmother is not capable of taking care of the child fiancially and the great grandmother is not health wise capable. They both agree we should get custody but we don't know how to go about this. We don't want his nephew being taking away from us if we call. We are capable in all categories to take care of him but the mother will not sign him over she has written papers saying we can take care of all his health needs as far as doctors and the emergency room go and the doctors office he goes to has already asked questions about why we have him all the time. So I guess I'm wanting to know can we get custody and if so how??

Both parents have to sign their rights away to the child so the child can be adopted. Big question is though, how do you get them to agree to do this if the mother has already stated that you can only have the nephew to care for on semi permanent basis.

Tick

Your FIRST step is to get a lawyer. No way will you muddle through this without one.

Also keep in mind that there are still many states that will not allow a single person to adopt--you may have to get married before you can move forward with that.