My daughter is 2 1/2 years old. She has never seen her biological father and he has made no attempt to contact us. He could easily find me but has not. Also, we are on Medicaid and foodstamps therefore the state has made me file for child support, it has been a year and nothing has happened.
To start form the beginning, me and the child's biological father split up when I was about two months pregnant. We were never married, we were together for about 10 months. My first child and I lived with him for 5 moths. He knew about the pregnancy, and was very emotional about the break up. He threatened me that he would take her from me, and so on. But after about a month of that I never heard from him again. Honestly I didn't try to contact him either. He knows how to get in touch with my family and could have easily gotten in touch with me.
During my pregnancy I got back together with the father of my first child. He has been the one who has been there for my daughter since before she was even born. He is her daddy now, the only father that she knows. He has raised both of our children and now we have gotten married and I don't want my daughter's last name to be different. I don't want her to feel like she is different from her sister. I plan on telling her when she is older about the situation, though its not something I look forward to. Also when you file for state assistance they send you through the ringer about the child's biological father. I want to know how he can adopt her, to me she has been abandoned by her biological father. I don't see the purpose in waiting for him to maybe come around someday to be in her life. She is living her life right now, we have a family, and "stepparent" adoption seems to be the next step. I just don't know how to go about with the process. The state has already tried to find the biological father and has not succeeded. How can he give up his rights to her if we can't even find him?

1. The best way to proceed with ANY adoption is with a lawyer.

2. Unless you can PROVE that the biological father is a danger to his child, you need his permission for an adoption to happen. Sometimes you can try contacting the birthfather through publication--but again, you'd want a lawyer to make SURE that was done correctly.

3. Start telling your daughter NOW that she has 2 daddies--one that is her "blood" father and one that is her "best" father, or wording to that effect. If she asks where the biological father is, just say he can't be around right now, but isn't it great that your other daddy is always there for her? Do NOT mention what a jerk he is, don't mention that he's a deadbeat, and absolutely do not tell her that he doesn't love her. The older she is when she finds out, the more she will resent YOU for lying to her for her whole life.

4. If an adoption is NOT done correctly, it can be overturned. Not just by the biological father, either. If his parents or other family want access to your child, they can contest the adoption, and if it's found that it was NOT done with all the I's dotted and the t's crossed, then it could be overturned.