UNWED FATHERS:

Normal pregnancies last 38 weeks (265 days) plus or minus one week. Conception can occur on the day of sexual intercourse or up to few days afterward. If you do not recall the date of intercourse, try to figure it out. If there are multiple possible dates, use the earliest. With a calendar, count and mark 265 days ahead. A week on either side of that later date is your probable window for the birth or due date. Do not rely on mom's word. And do not listen to doctors or nurses who tell you to "count forty weeks after the first day of the mother's last period" or something like that, unless it is all you have to go on (e.g. your sex was regular over a prolonged time.) Do all you can to preserve your parental rights as soon as possible, preferably before the birth. From your angle, there are two stages, early and never.

Until DNA tests are done, a man never knows the child is his. If there is a decent chance the child is yours, presume it. Ask your attorney if DNA testing can be done before the answer or hearing date, or even before an adoption petition is filed. You will probably need to pay for the testing. In many states, being unsure of whether the child is yours is an invalid reason for not filing a paternity statement or signing a putative father registry. If you feel you must rely on mom's word, remember that mom's lies may not excuse you from signing a putative father registry, filing a paternity acknowledgment, or helping support mom financially.

Consult a family law or adoption law attorney. (See Section I. G.) Many states consider you on notice of an adoption simply because you had sex. Thus, many states let you sign their putative father registries without confirming a pregnancy. If a state lacks a putative father registry, the state may consider you to have a duty to investigate whether your ex-girlfriend became pregnant. How exactly one investigates this without violating the mother's privacy, risking a restraining order, or having grandpa shoot you, courts and the adoption gurus who support this notion never say. But consult an attorney to help you determine the potential mother's location. Once you locate mom, consult attorneys in that geographical area. Attorneys have investigators who can find her. Try always to get an attorney to hire an investigator, rather than hiring an investigator yourself. Otherwise, act quickly. If your attorney does nothing, contact his state bar association and find another lawyer.

No. If you do not answer a petition for adoption, you will be involuntarily terminated, probably on grounds of abandonment. You are telling your offspring, on the record, permanently, that you did not care about him/her. You will perpetuate the image of the unwed father as an abandoner. There is no such thing as loving abandonment. Also, some states use involuntary termination of parental rights regarding a previous child as grounds for involuntary termination regarding a later child.

Probably not. Biological parents can revoke their consent to the adoption before the court orders the adoption (called finalization). But revoking consent does not translate to 'getting your child back'. When a biological parent consents to the adoption, he puts the adoptive parents essentially on equal legal ground with him. Thus, when the bio-parent revokes his consent, most state courts hold a best interest hearing. The biological advantage is gone, and dad must now show that he can provide a more stable and permanent family relationship for the child than the prospective adoptive parents can. This is difficult to do, especially if the prospective adoptive parents are married, better off financially than dad, and already have the child in their home. If you change your mind after the court orders the adoption, you may have the added burden of showing you were deceived or under duress when you consented to the adoption.