location: sonoma county CA, USA
just looking for some words of wisdom and guidance.
i am stepmother of my 2 children (13 and 15). they have absolutely no desire to reconnect or have visitation with bio mom. she has had no meaningful contact with either child in over 2 years. she’s engaged, has been in a relationship since 2020, and lives with a child molester (on megan’s law, lewd and lascivious contact with child under 14). she was also physically inappropriate with one of the children. this came to light later on. she also has a documented history of abusing opioids. i must emphasize the true zero contact in two years.
father and bio mom never established official terms other than joint custody in the divorce paperwork. divorce finalized in 7/18
bio mom out of the blue is now asking for visitation. we were served with a FL300 requesting reasonable right of visitation. the children do not want this.
we were unofficially operating on “live and let live” style. no contact, no legal stuff, just do all of our thing til the kids are 18.
we filed a response detailing her behavior and situation. mediation is on friday, she is using the county legal help service, we are doing this alone.
basically we filed back No. and with a whole very strong statement why. we expect to go to court. i’ve also poured over all of the forms and infos, i believe i have the right paperwork. but maybe im off base, what forms would be considered appropriate?
i’m concerned about next steps. we need to get full custody. and the children want me, stepmom, to adopt them. do we have enough evidence against her to file for full custody?
any advice, or anything at all! i would really appreciate any help i can get.
thank you :)