[zoebaby321]

Long story short my daughter is almost 20 months old her biological father has not been in contact with us since she was 4 months old when he came out and saw her once. He paid child support once when she was first born. We broke up before she was even born because he told me things like he wished I got stabbed so he wouldn't have to have my child. Anyway I met someone new before she was even born and that is who my daughter knows has her father, that is her daddy. When she was 4 months old I told her biological father to get a paternity test and we could take it from their, well I haven't heard from him since. He was in the military and stationed in a different state then me last thing he told me was he was getting out of the military 6 months ago and going home. The guy who my daughter knows as her father and I got married and we had another daughter 6 months ago. He loves our first daughter so much and he wants to adopt her. Since it has been almost 11 months since the last time I heard from her biological dad and 16 months since he last made contact with my first daughter. Would that be considered abandonment? My issue is if I do contact him and say that my husband is adopting my daughter then he will make sure that doesn't happened just out of spite. The other issue that comes in to play is that my I am also active duty and I will be going over seas in 6 months, my husband has to adopt her before I go overseas. Also, the biological father is NOT on the birth certificate and my daughter has my last name.

[ScottGem]

Abandonment barely matters here. For your husband to adopt he has to petition the court. The court will require that you contact the bio father, or at least make a good faith attempt to do so. Only then will it grant an adoption. Abandonment only comes into play if you can contact him and he refuses to agree to the adoption. You would then ask the court to override his objection based on abandonment.

I would strongly suggest you contact a lawyer immediately to start the ball rolling on the adoption. Though 6 months doesn't seem like it would be enough time.

[stinawords]

Six months is a very short time to try to get this done. You should start calling adoption attorneys Monday morning. If you can not do that then contact the county clerks office to find out what all is required when petitioning the court to get a court date. The more you have ready the faster you can get the ball rolling. But do be prepared for it to take longer than six months to be finale.