Clarification

First of all, thanks everyone for your prayers and support. We humbly ask you to keep them up until Noel is legally ours. We firmly believe they will make all the difference and do not mind talking about what is going on or if you pass our prayer requests along. We do, however ask that you not bring this up in front of Chase. He has many of his dear mother's personality traits, two of them being a tendency to worry and the need to know what is going to happen. He doesn't do well without a plan. ( I will post a prime example of that from this past weekend asap) I wanted to clarify the previous two posts after speaking to our attorney. I was confused so I am sure everyone else is too. Basically, here is what is going on in short form:

Our attorney was able to find the bio father despite the bio mother's desire for her not to. Bio father is in prison and was contacted via mail that if he thinks he is the father of this child he must respond in writing to request the paperwork to gain status as the child's legal father. [To establish paternity, you simply have to show that you share DNA with the child and a biological father has no rights to the child. A biological father would still have to try to legitimate the child and go to court and show that it is in the child's best interest that he be declared the legal father. Only a legal father has rights, such as custody, to a child.](from our attorney) That is what is happening now. He was given the instructions to and a deadline for establishing those legal rights. We are waiting to see if he files that paperwork properly and within 30 days from when he receives it. If not, his case is dismissed and we move on to the final step of legally adopting Noel. If so, he must come up here and convince a judge it is in Noel's best interest that he have a legal right to him. Hopefully, that didn't confuse things more. Long story short, we just have to wait.