Adoption...within the immediate family??!!?

Question

Has anyone adopted a child that is a 1/2 blood relative? A friend is adopting a 2 wk old baby. The mother is a 1st cousin of the friend and the baby was going to be taken away from the birth mother because of drugs/promiscuity. (She has already had another child removed from the home. That child lives with relatives but not adopted out.) The father is not known. Is the adoption possible? What rights does the cousin (birth mother) have? Has anyone ever done this and what was your experience?

Answer 1

i raised my god daughter, my cousins daughter from 6- she is now 36...we never did anything legally, ecept with her mother....i am her mother, yes her mother was in her life but she lived with us and we raised her..her mother is now in her life, but only because she feels bad her mom never got out of the hole...she helps her  but my girls are her sisiter and we are her mom and dad...if the cosuin is willing to have a legal paper drawn up i do not think she needs to be ADOPTed..just a legal paper saying she has guardianship

Answer 2

It needs to be done legally.

The birth mother will need to sign over rights and I am not sure what will happen if the biological father is unknown-

Best advice is for your friend to contact her lawyer so everything is done in a way that they can keep the baby.

Answer 3

I personally havent done it but my friend adopted her cousins baby as well-due to drug related issues. It worked out good in some ways but I know my friend feels as though she is being seen as just a long term goodhearted baby sitter. She is happy she did it though because she knows that the baby is safe and that her cousin will be able to see her child. They have an open adoptioin (obv) so the baby can see its bio. mother. They have talked about what they will do in the future with explaning to the child what the situation was-which they still havent figured out and the baby is 2. its just that hard to be careful with the childs feelings later.

The rights are simple. Just like any adoption-my friend gets to call all the shots with the baby-not the bio mother. It all depends on the situation they are in. Im guessing it will be an open adoption-where the baby will see its bio mom. . But like I said my friend is very glas to have done thisfor the family and she is happy to know that she helped the child as well giving it a great home to live in.

Hope that helped :o)

Answer 4

If social services are doing it the mother will have no rights. If shes just giving it to her friend/cousin then it is not legal because she hasn't signed her rights away. If the farther comes in to the scene he CAN take the baby if he supplied for the child.

Answer 5

yes its possible. i've known kids that have been adopted by their great-grandmother at birth. so yeah...