Legal Question in Family Law in Washington

Re: Legal Adoption

Since you know who the biological father is, to protect yourself from later challenges to the adoption, I would seek to have his parental rights terminated in the adoption process.

You can terminate these rights in step parent adoptions by agreement of the biological father, or after a trial to ask the court to terminate his rights.

Alternatively, and technically speaking, since there is no father on the birth certificate and assuming you were not married to the biological father when pregnant or when the child was born, then you may go through the adoption, but this can get complicated when bio-dad realizes what has happened. If he ever shapes up, gets some money to hire an attorney, he may have you tied up in knots for a long time as he tries to get the adoption set aside. It is better to go with the termination of his rights in the course of the adoption process, to make sure you are protected in the long run.

One last thing to keep in mind. If I were you, I would wait until you marry your fiance before filing the adoption. As part of your adoption, a social worker will need to prepare a report, and an important factor social workers look for is whether the adopting parent is married to the other biological parent (you). It makes things go much smoother if you are married (or registered domestic partners for same sex couples), since the marriage demonstrates the strongest possible commitment to the child and shows that long term thought that has gone into the decision to adopt.

Last, hire an attorney to handle this for you. Even if you only make $10 an hour, with all the time you miss to chase down everything and learn what you need to get this done, it will cost you more NOT to hire an attorney, not to mention all that time lost that you will never get back. Shop around, as rates will vary, when you seek to hire an attorney. Good luck!