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QUESTION:
"My child has no father listed on the birth certificate. My question is, can and how can go about putting a name on? Long story short, bio has been out of the picture since about 3 months into pregnancy due to abuse. Bio doesn’t have any involvement, ghost. My husband has been in our lifes since 2 yrs old. Hes dad. Living in PA getting a name change is like pulling teeth, especially with kids. Bio has to legally give up rights, but there was never any DNA or anything of the sorts that confirm who’s the father ( I know who but legally there just isnt any proof) so I know we’d most likely have to go through the entire process, court costs etc just to get a new last name and bio would then have to agree to all of that. For adoption bio has to release his parental rights and then again court process. Theres plenty of reasons why he cant be around but the number 1 is safety. He was the most extreme during pregnancy and if he didnt care then about my baby he doesn’t need to now. I disappeared when I ran. Theres no record of anything. So I just want to know if theres a way put my husbands name on the birth certificate and to go from there"
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TOP ANSWERS (AS SELECTED BY MODERATOR):
The following top answers have been selected by a moderator from hundreds of responses to the original question.
"He is not the father, therefore he should not be on the birth certificate. If he wants to be responsible of the child, he can adopt him."
"Your husband adopting him would be the legal way."
"You’ll probably need a lawyer to help you attempt to contact bio father and give bio reasonable time to respond and if there’s no response then your husband should be able to legally adopt. My cousin had to put something in the paper for her daughter bc her bio father is illegal and she didn’t know how to contact him otherwise."
"I did not have a father listed on birth certificate but I still had to have bio sign away rights for my husband to adopt my son. I am in Texas"
"File to adopt tell them you dont know bio…they will prob make you post it in local paper twice and then husband can adopt…i went through this with my oldest before my SO past away he was going to adopt my oldest"
"It’s illegal to lie about who his bio dad is on a BC. Not to mention if later on a DNA test needs to be done or something then it would come up, or say you and your husband get divorced then he would be listed as the bio father. I wouldn’t lie to your son about who half of him is. He can still legally adopt him with out being on his BC."
"Get a lawyer. Say you dont know where bio dad is as hes never been involved and you can’t search for him because he was abusive and you dont want him to know where you are…Lawyers are good at kinda twisting stuff around looking for loopholes without actually breaking any laws … Good luck"
"Just lie and say that you don’t know who the father is - that way they don’t try and find him to dna test and add him. Just have your husband adopt your child it should be easy without anyone “in the way”"
"I live in pa and all my mom.had to do was petition the courts and pay for it… it wasn’t hard what so ever"
"The whole process is a pain in the ass, no matter how you go about it. We’re in Maryland and in the process of my husband adopting my two youngest. One biological father signed his rights away, with no issue. He hadn’t seen the kid in 8 years, but was paying child support. The other, even though he’s never paid a penny and hasn’t seen the kid in 5 years, refused to sign his rights over. I made several “good faith” attempts to contact him and notify him of our intent for my husband to adopt her on the grounds of abandonment, with no response from him. So we petitioned the courts to strip his rights and allow my husband to adopt. Like I said, it’s a pain in the ass process, but it’s worth the time and money in the end."
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