Adoption

[nelix2000]

Hey everyone.....Ok story is I and my partner have DS who is 19 months and I am 6 weeks pregnant with number 2!....we have a known donor, thought not "known" on any paperwork, ie birth certificate etc. My partner wants to adopt both children, naturally....question is how do we do it? we are planning a civil partnership which will give her automatic step parenting rights. Trouble is as did not use a clinic....will they question the father? Do we say it was two different fathers as I had one night stands?( I never but I need to ensure my donor stays safe as he never signed up to be anything more than a donor). Or if I say we used a donor will they just not question it? Anyone already done any of this?? Any help would be fantastic! thanks!

I think it might be a bit tricky for you and your dp to adopt them without permission from the birth father (you both have to adopt BTW, even though you are already their birth mother). Is there any chance that the birth father would be willing to sign a release so that you and your dp could adopt them? Once the adoption goes through he won't be held responsible for them anymore anyway.

I'm not entirely sure how it would progress for you as we have adopted in the usual way, but DS's birth mother wouldn't tell social services who his birth father was and when we went to court social services had to show that they had tried their best to find out who the father was and then the court formally dispensed with his permission. You could refuse to give that name of their birth fathers, for instance claiming that you promised him/them that you wouldn't. Or possibly you could make up a story about the donor sperm coming from a friend of a friend who is unknown to you. I think it would be very awkward though, and I wonder if you could be found in contempt of court if you refuse to give the names.

I suppose the good thing about your story of a one night stand in order to get pregnant is that they can't force you to reveal anymore.

Of course the problem with that suggestion is that you would be lying to the court, which is a criminal offence. In theory you could be prosecuted if they found out.

Have you considered doing a parental responsibility agreement? My partner and I have done this. It's a much simpler procedure than adoption, no involvement with social services, and gives the non-bio mum legal parental responsibility.

My partner adopted our daughter last October when she was 9 months old and it was such an easy and straight forward procedure. You do not need to adopt your own child anymore - this changed with the new adoption laws a couple of years ago. We were civilly partnered (although you don't have to be) and my partner wrote to social services fostering and adoption dept to give them her intention to adopt her step daughter. Social Services then contacted both of us and did a series of visits. We used a clinic so the Donor was not an issue, but we have two sets of friends who used a known Donor and easily adopted too. They wondered whether to be honest about the donor as in neither case was he on the birth certificate. In both situations social services met the Donor and he had to give verbal consent (he didn't have to sign anything as he didn't have any responsability).

There is loads of information on the MSN lesbian insemination website about adoption. We also did step-parent parental responsability prior to adoption. This is not automatic but is very easy. There's loads of stuff on the website about that too.

If you want more info let me know

I'm glad to hear the people don't have to adopt their own birth child any more, I always thought that seemed a bit skew-iff.

Hi nelix,
DP adopted DS as step parent adoption last year - just like dorchies said. We had what sounds like same donor arrangement as you - known but not involved as a parent. The social worker was keen to be a bit slack and almost hid it from the court (though we were very open), and it was picked up by the guardian at the last minute. The social worker phoned our donor asked if he was okay with the adoption, he said yes, it was a quick call, then the report just said there were no issues from the biological father and we had no more hiccups. There were no invasive interviews for him. We had a thread on this further down - 'adopting non-bio' DS I think. There was no need to lie at all.

Congratulations on number 2 - hope all goes well with the pregnancy!

thankyou for all the replies its very much appreciated!

have you given any thought at all to how these children will feel when they are older , they have right to know who was biological father regardless of your feelings

'They have a right to know who the biological father is regardless of your feelings' (slightly paraphrased that last comment).

Says who? Why is it so important that a child knows who its biological father is ? Will it make the child mentally stable, more complete? As you can probably tell, I totally disagree with that last posting and would hate to see this thread ended on a comment like that.

People make choices everyday based on their feelings. I don't agree with some choices that other people make, and they may not agree with my choices. But hey, that's life.

My DW and I chose to use an anonymous donor. It took an awful lot of thought to come to that decision and wasn't something that we decided over a cup of tea and some biscuits. Was it the right decision? I have no idea and neither does anyone else at the moment; our child isn't due for another couple of weeks. When s/he is older, they may hate us and feel let down because we can't tell them anything about their father. Or conversely, they may not care one little bit about who the father was because they will know that they are dearly loved and wanted by both myself and my DW.

scotlovia, regardless of your feelings, everyone should have the right to make their own decisions for themselves and their families. It would be a really sad world if we felt we couldn't because of others peoples prejudices.

Nelix - I hope you managed to work out what you needed to do regarding the adoption and hope everything is going well with the pregnancy. I'll be looking to adopt in a couple of months, so might come back to the forum for some advice myself !

Higloalie I had lost this thread, and thankyou. scotolivia we are all entitled to our opinions, and I hope your crusafe for ALL children to know their fathers ends well. Goodluck chasing up all those dropbeat dads who leave their familys by choice. My son ahs two loving parents and thats all I care about to be honest.

golaie we are 6 months pregnant with number 2 now say waiting to start any adoption until she is here