Abandonment/terminating rights
Want some information on how long a parent has to be absent to get them on abandoment, and how to terminate there parental rights in the state of FL, so that I may adopt my fiancee's son if possible.
My fiancée has sole primary custody of his 4 yr. old. The mother was incarcerated when he was 6 weeks old and remained there for the first year+ of his life for 21 felony counts of grand theft and fraud. ( can't believe she served only a little over a year for 2nd offence of this nature! ) Upon release, the judge let her have visitation to try to reunify them. She consistently did not show for her visits or would bring him back early. She always had some lame excuse. When visits with her would take place they were very traumatic for him. He even told me she used to lock him in his room and his other dad (her boyfriend would have to let him out) By the way BF said this was so, and when he would ask why she said he had been bad and that was why he was in there. Unclear on if he was locked in or just had door shut.
The court proceedings for custody and divorce were drawn out and only just finalized in Feb. 2007. She was granted supervised visitation with a mental health professional and would be allowed to have unsupervised visits once she went through drug rehab and was found to be clean and sober for many weeks. NEVER HAPPENED. She has not had any contact with him since before divorce and custody was finalized(missed her Dec. 06 visit with him.), except for a recent phone call(to harrass my fiancée, we think she had been drinking or possibly drugs) a week after she was realeased from prison yet again. After he talked to his mother for two minutes he became upset, could not sleep, and told me he was worried and said he didn't t want to see his mom. He wet the bed and woke up sreaming in the middle of the night for a week afterwards. NO CHILD SHOULD EVER HAVE TO GO THROUGH THIS EVER!!
By the way, she was also court ordered to pay child support and half of medical bills of which she has never paid and is currently over $15,000 in arrears in child support and $1,000 in medical bills. She also went back to jail in Sept. 07 and was released in May and just moved to the other coast. She also has two other children with different fathers that she is doing the same thing to. This woman should not be allowed to procreate!
Sorry for my ramblings. I just want to know if we can get her on abandonment, and how difficult it will be to terminate her rights. She undoubtedly will fight us even though she hasn't seen him in a year and a half, nor has she done what was ordered by the court to be able to see him, and she has talked to him once for 2 min. in that same length of time.
Any help or advice you can give us would be greatly appreciated. We will be married soon and it is all of our wish for me to be able to adopt him. In the year that I have lived with him I have fallen in love with him, and have been his mother. I dry his tears, tuck him into bed, kiss away his fears and treat him exactly like I do my own son. He is the sweetest little boy and I love him as if I had given birth to him. I think he deserves a mother who will truly love him, care for him, and have his best interest in mind.
