Okay my niece who is 24 and has three other children, had a child in Nov 08 and decided that while she was pregnant she was not going to be able to care for a 4th child. My husband and I have been married 5 yrs were trying to conceive couldn't so she decided that she wanted us to care for her unborn child we werew ecstatic, well in the hospital she informed them she will be turning the child over into our custody, we signed papers in the hospital giving us power of attorney over our baby, we thought that the process weould be easy since she willingly handed him over to us but all we've done is ran into problems since. We want him to be ours legally... What do we need to do?

Is she willing to let you adopt? The first thing you need to do is ask her that... then the next thing is to find an attorney to draw up the papers. Does she know who the father is? He could contest the adoption if he is proven to be the father even if the mother agrees at which point he would basically be asking for custody. In what state do you live?

Okay yes she is willing, and she doesn't know who the father is, and the one that she thought was the father does not care to be his father. I live in Nashville,Tn and the costs are outrageous

Well, I hate to be the one to tell you but you are going to have to get a family/adoption lawyer. Adoptions are way complicated and a tiny error could nullify the whole thing. Look around your area to find one that you can afford (some even take payments but not all or necessarily many) they can tell you about your local laws concerning the adoption process.

First and foremost she needs to get any man she slept with during the average conception time to test. This may need to be done with a judge and a subpena (I didn't spell that right I don't think) she MUST find the father. If it is the guy she thinks it is, this should be easy as if he doesn't want to be the father, he should have no problem giving up his rights for the adoption.

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Originally Posted by mrspanther

Okay my niece who is 24 and has three other children, had a child in Nov 08 and decided that while she was pregnant she was not going to be able to care for a 4th child. My husband and I have been married 5 yrs were trying to concieve couldnt so she decided that she wanted us to care for her unborn child we werew ecstatic, well in the hospital she informed them she will be turning the child over into our custody, we signed papers in the hospital giving us power of attorney over our baby, we thought that the process weould be easy since she willingly handed him over to us but all we've done is ran into problems since. we want him to be ours legally..... What do we need to do?

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If you have power of attorney for the child it really means you have nothing at all. What a POA does is allow you to sign for a person or act on their behalf. If you try to take the child to a doctor or sign them up for school and you sign papers that would be fraud. You really need to straighten this out unless somehow you misquoted yourself and you mean guardianship papers ?