My son and girlfriend gave up a baby for adoption a little over a year ago. He has had severe depression over the decision. He didn’t want to give him up, but the girlfriend pushed till he felt it was hopeless. He recently found out that his girlfriend had been unfaithful during the time she became pregnant. He would like to do a paternity test to determine whether or not he is the father. If he isn’t it would eliminate the pain he endures daily. Does anyone know if this is a possibility or how he would go about obtaining a paternity test? The birthmom has contact with the adoptive parents but my son doesn’t.
Does anyone know how my son would go about obtaining a paternity test?
– August 27, 2012Posted in: Community Wisdom
What an awful position to be in .. I’m very sorry for your son. And I have to wonder why he doesn’t have contact with the adoptive parents? He will need to if he wants a paternity test.
Any adoption agency and lawyer should be able to provide you with the name of a company that can do the test (and probably Google or the Yellow Pages). That is the easy part. I would think co-ordinating that test might be more tricky because you will need the permission and co-operation of the adoptive parents. And that’s where your son needs to be able to communicate with them. He’s going to need a sample of his daughters DNA and that will only be provided with the adoptive parents permission as the child is a minor.
The other question is who is paying for this test? We had a similar situation with our daughter’s adoption and were more than happy to pay for the paternity test so that we all had peace of mind. But this was brought up during the process, before we brought our daughter home. In your case, it may be your sons responsibility to pay for since the adoption is probably already finalized. We live in Canada and the test cost us $800.00 two and a half years ago.
This is a really hard conversation to have with the adoptive parents so I hope that your son is aware of what this means for them. While he may relieve himself of the guilt, he may completely destroy the adoptive family unit. I would be absolutely devastated to get a call like this. I do believe that if your son is not the biological parent of this child, that presents legal issues for the adoptive parents. It would mean that they adopted a child without the parental rights of the biological father having been relinquished. I do believe it would mean that the adoption could be contested by the biological father, with the biological mother no longer having a say because her parental rights have already been relinquished. This means that it would be possible that the adoptive parents could lose the child completely. Which means the child would lose these parents too, after having bonded with them for more than year at such a time in her life when she doesn’t even cognitively understand what’s happening.
I’m so sad for all of you and I can’t help feeling horrified for the adoptive couple who are about to receive this information. Life is already so hard and they probably waited so long to have this family. I hope that it is able to stay in tact and that your son is able to find peace.
So your son signed off? If he didn’t, how were his rights terminated? The stated father of our son wouldn’t do a DNA test, refused to sign off, then changed his mind at the TPR hearing and signed off. Since he didn’t do a DNA test, his rights and any other stated fathers’ rights were also terminated. Our attorney told us all the bases are covered when done this way.
Thank you for your response. We have been made aware recently that the adoptive family was aware that paternity could be in question 3 weeks after the baby was born. I realize that the adopted family was trying to protect the adoption -but as the birth family we have been devastated.
My son did not want to give the baby up at all, he was kept out of all decisions until the day his child was born and then told he had no rights because they were not married. He is a very stable, educated person with a good job that wanted to raise his daughter. The birth mother on the other hand – had not one doctor visit for prenatal care, drank alcohol, smoked and did drugs. It should be MANDATORY that a paternity test be done with the stated father. That won’t happen of course because it would compromise too many adoptions. It’s inhuman to put a family thru what we have been thru. To have been so devastated by this loss and to find out it may have been all for nothing. To be told you are just going to have to get over it – it’s a life sentence. I’m sorry to be so angry – but watching your child go thru this is unbearable.
This adoptive family has 2 bio children and 2 adopted.
It’s so disappointing to hear that the adoptive family was aware 3-weeks after the child was born that paternity was in question. This should have been taken care of at the time and obviously has caused much harm in your family. All the more reason to take care of it now.
What an awful situation. I’d be curious to know where you live that your son would have no rights because they aren’t married. I am not sure that’s true anywhere in the US and it’s definitely not true in Canada.
It’s unclear between your first and second post as to what his intentions are in terms of the DNA test? Just to clear his conscience? Or to reclaim his son? That intention could make a lot of difference to the adoptive parents when he approaches them.
I wonder if they’d be interested in any openness with your son and his family (i.e. you)? Why doesn’t he have contact with them now?
As an adoptive parent who found herself in a similarish situation just a month after our son came home, your posts leave me with a lot of questions. If the situation is as you describe it, the law was on your son’s and even your side way before the adoption plan was made, and for the many months it took before finalization took place. I’m curious as to why neither of you pursued keeping the child back then?
In our case, our son’s birth father and his family members could have easily disrupted the adoption b/c our son’s birth mother lied about paternity. Our son’s birth father started the process by telling children’s aid that he wanted to parent his son. Then had a total of 14 months to make good on it. His income was such that he qualified for free legal counsel. It took him two months to even show up for the DNA test (paid for by children’s aid). After that it took him seven months to make the trip out to children aid’s offices to meet his son for the first time. The next months were given to him by the court as time to sign up with a free lawyer, and write out a parenting plan. He met none of the deadlines. However, if you read his Facebook page, there are comments from friends and family wishing him good luck in court, telling him that if they had $$ to spare they’d give him some to help with legal bills etc. etc.
Essentially, he spun a David and Goliath tale about wanting to but not being allowed to parent his son. It made him look better to friends and family whom he had told he was going to fight for his son, and probably made himself feel better. Saddly the end result is that it has made it very difficult for us and for him to entertain openness. We send email updates but he mostly does not respond. WE hope this will change in the future as we do have extensive openness with our son’s maternal birth family and continue to believe in openness.