When you live in North Carolina and have dreams of adopting a child, you may start exploring your options and researching the process. You may, too, find that you have numerous questions about the process, and you may wonder what happens if you make a plan to adopt a child and then one of that child’s birth parents changes his or her mind.
Per the University of North Carolina School of Government, there is a certain timeline a North Carolina birth parent must follow when it comes to consenting to adoption or relinquishing consent.
Signing the papers consenting to the adoption
A North Carolina birth father has the option of signing an adoption consent form either before or after the birth of the child. The mother may sign a consent form only after the birth of the child up for adoption.
Relinquishing consent for adoption
Once the parents of the child you plan to adopt sign a consent form allowing the adoption to move forward, they have seven days to change their minds. The seven-day span begins on the day following the execution of the consent form. The birth parent relinquishing consent also has to serve you with written notice of his or her plans.
He or she must send the communication via personal delivery, an overnight delivery service or by registered or certified mail. In rare cases, birth parents may have a longer stretch of time in which they may revoke their decision to allow the adoption to move forward.
If the child’s birth parent changes his or her mind and again consents to the adoption a second time, the decision becomes final.
