Adoption Law in Wyoming
Adoption Law in Wyoming
Today, we are in for an extra special treat because we’re having a conversation with Deb. She is a licensed adoption attorney in the state of Wyoming, and her paralegal, Brittani, who really focuses on supporting the birth families through the adoption process in the state of Wyoming. I think their perspective of how you can support your expectant family through the process from start to finish and help them really get on a trajectory to change the outcome of their lives is really interesting. Won't you join me in welcoming Deb and Brittani to the show? Thank you so much for joining us today. We would love to learn a little bit more about each of you. Deb, do you mind to go first?
DEB: Sure. I'll go first. My name is Deb Wendtland. I am an attorney in Wyoming. I'm a mother of three boys. And I've been practicing law for about 34 years. And adoption is just one aspect of my practice. The bulk of my practice is trust litigation, with other litigation things thrown in. But definitely adoption is the funnest part of my practice. I'm located in Sheridan, Wyoming. And I love it.
AMANDA: That's awesome. Brittani, we'd love to learn a little bit more about you as well.
BRITTANI: So I'm Brittani and I have been a paralegal here for about 13 years working with Deb on adoptions and everything else. I am a mother to one boy. And yeah, adoption is also my favorite part of working here.
AMANDA: That's awesome. Adoption is definitely the favorite part of my day. For those folks who may not know, would you mind explaining a little bit more about what a paralegal does?
How Can A Paralegal Help In An Adoption?
BRITTANI: So from an adoption standpoint, I keep the profiles organized that we keep here for adoptive families and keep a chart on everybody. And I talk a lot with birth moms about the process of adoption. And sometimes I ended up running girls to doctor's appointments or different little things like that. I have been at the hospital a couple of times with birth moms. I draft and help get signatures on adoption documents. I help put ICPC packets together if baby is going to a different state, and help us kind of coordinate with the attorneys on the other side and keep everything moving.
DEB: Okay, now let me tell you what Brittani really does. When I started this, practice in adoption, gosh, 34 years ago, I was young, and birth mothers and I have always gotten along and we still do. But now I'm 59 and I get a 20 something, 30 something birth mother and she loves hearing from the lovely Brittani. What a gift that is for me and for my birth moms because Brittani clicks with these girls. And so sometimes not every time but sometimes they really click better with Brittani which is a wonderful thing because they will tell Brittani things they might not tell me like, I need help with maternity clothes. And we're in a small community and Brittani knows who to call. The girls have befriended Brittani, and it is not unusual with our birth moms, we stay friends with them for years. And the same happens with Brittani and these birth moms. So you'll have a situation where Brittani will go to doctor's appointments. She'll spend the night in the hospital with the girls. Our girls do not spend time in the hospital by themselves. If they have no one with them, I stay with them or they choose Brittani, which is absolutely fine. Because what we have learned in 34 years, 13 for Brittani, is that if an adoption is going to go bad, it's going to go bad at night in the hospital. And so what a gift that we can give to our birth moms, that they can have one or both of us at the ready, and they really tend to click with Brittani and she, by the way, let's just be clear, she explains things to me. Like, what in the sam hill does lol mean, on the text I just got from my birth mom. Yeah. Or now, Deb, if she reads that she's going to interpret it this way. That's a huge, huge gift to me, certainly, and to our practice in general. So I had to add that that's what Brittany does.
AMANDA: That is. That is awesome. Well, and thank you again, Deb for joining. I know you've been ill. But thank you for continuing to have this conversation with us. We're very lucky to have both of you. We'd love to start with just an overview of what adoption law is in the state of Wyoming. Now, I will always preface on behalf of our community and everyone here that we understand that you are just giving us an overview for an educational purpose, this does not constitute any sort of working relationship, or attorney client privilege or anything of that nature. And if folks have additional questions, I will of course link to how they can get in touch with you. So as my non law, your version of a disclaimer shared, I would love for you to share just an overview of adoption law in the state of Wyoming, please.
Adoption Law in Wyoming
DEB: And Brittani, feel free to jump in. Brittani is not a lawyer, but she should be because we've done a lot of these together. So the best way to think about adoption law in Wyoming is it's a rodeo. We don't have a whole lot of laws, quite frankly, there is no waiting period in Wyoming. There is nothing that a birth mother can say or do or sign prior to delivery of that baby that has any legal significance whatsoever. Once the birth mom has baby, and only once she has baby will her signature have any meaning or birth father's signature. At that point they can sign and the moment they sign they're done. There is no waiting period. I'm not sure this is what was originally intended 30, 40, 50 years ago when the law was passed. But in Wyoming, we feel like it is best for a birth mom to not have the waiting period. Because it's hard that she just keeps reliving and reliving it. And one of the huge things that Brittani and I do together, this is why our birth moms latch on to us and stay with us over time is, we spend the time between when they contact us and delivery, trying to help them develop tools to deal with the tough times of that adoption decision long term. Because it doesn't go away. I mean, let's be honest, that decision keeps coming back. And you have to keep saying, did I do the right thing, should I have done this or should I have done that. And so during that period, prior to birth, if a birth mom is willing, we'll spend as much time as she wants developing tools for her to keep in her back pocket or wherever. So when those tough times come she can say okay, wait a minute, I looked these people in the eye, this adoptive couple, and I investigated them. Deb and Brittani and I asked them hard questions. We researched them. I looked at my options on down the line. So I bring that up because we don't have a waiting period. So my birth moms in Wyoming when they sign, as long as their baby's going to a Wyoming couple, there's no waiting period and they're done. The second critical thing for us because we don't have that waiting period is we work very hard to make sure that our birth mom has something to look forward to when she leaves that hospital. Because we all know baby's gone out another door with the adoptive couple. She has to have something to look forward to whether it is writing, going to school, doing an internship, whatever it is, so we are there to help her with filling out FAFSA forms, filling out grant forms, helping her brainstorm what she good in, what has she tried, what shouldn't she try, to change the trajectory so that her life is also something to look forward to. So I throw that in there. We don't have a waiting period.
AMANDA: That is really unique and commendable to you all for really helping her from an entire life perspective. This is a huge moment in her life and giving her the support that she may or may not have, depending upon her situation, to really decide what she wants her life to look like, and give her tools and resources and the direction to help her move in that direction?
Zero Revocation Period In An WY Adoption If Both Parties Live In WY
DEB: And Amanda, I am always shocked by how many of the girls say no one has ever asked me what I want to do. So in Wyoming, we don't have a waiting period. Now, of course, if a Wyoming birth mom chooses to adopt out to a couple from another state, the law in Wyoming is we follow the law of the receiving state. So we become the sending state, we follow the law of the receiving state. When that happens, I get on the phone with the adoptive couple and I say, run, don't walk, find the best adoption attorney you can because then I'm going to obey that attorney. Yeah, we have to make sure what that state wants happens here.
BRITTANI: And then we're ready for it on delivery.
DEB: And so Brittani, you pick up here because that's really when Brittani's job kicks in even higher gear, because now we have to gather things.
BRITTANI: So every state obviously is a little different. And so I just try to get with the attorney in the other state and get all the documents that they require ahead of time, they may have us still have a Wyoming consent signed, they may not. And in Wyoming, it is just one consent. It's one piece of paper, we do have birth moms sign a healthcare power of attorney and a travel authority. That's more so the adoptive couple can do what they need to do. But requirement wise, it's just the consent for us. So we just tried to go back and forth with the other attorney and get a really good solid list of documents. And Deb tries to go through them, you know, if possible, with birth mom before we get to the hospital. So we're not going through, you know, like what happened in Florida, for example, we had twins born in Wyoming, and 140 documents to be signed in Florida.
DEB: So let me go through them first, answer all questions, so that on the day we can say we’ve already talked about all of this. I mean, of course we'll go through any of it again, answer any more questions. But yeah, it's just kind of less going on at the hospital.
BRITTANI: And then when I have all the signatures, depending on again, the rules of the other state or the waiting periods, I get everything packaged up and I try to get stuff out to ICPC. And so people can go home with their baby.
AMANDA: Thank you. That's super helpful. Let me ask a couple of clarifying questions there. So using the Florida example. So I live in the state of Florida. I'm a hopeful adoptive family and matched with an expectant parent in Wyoming. I travel for birth of the baby, and the birth mom has signed the relevant paperwork. Are we waiting for the revocation period in Florida to expire before we travel home? Or excuse me ICPC.
DEB: We’re following the state law.
AMANDA: So it depends on the state, but we're not signing a revocation that doesn't exist in the state of Wyoming, we're following the adoptive parents state law, if you will.
DEB: And you know, you're lucky, by the way, if you adopt a baby out of Wyoming, because if you adopt a baby up here in Sheridan County, Brittani, and I take care of you too. We take you on tours, you get to see the mountains, because you're waiting for the revocation period to pass and you are, you know, you're here and it's foreign. And it's strange, maybe, and then you have to wait for ICPC as well, you can't leave the state. So, yeah, we follow that waiting period that is required by those other states. And sometimes, you know, you have to have the exact time for the signing.
BRITTANI: And some states will say, Yeah, we have a revocation period, but we'll still let the adoptive family come home in the meantime, some say you can't even leave the state until the revocation period has passed. So first, we send to Wyoming ICPC. And our wonderful Wyoming ICPC lady, Maureen. Maureen will hopefully approve and then she sends it to whatever state the baby is going to their ICPC and then they look through make sure we've met all the requirements and then they give us a call and say, Okay, tell the adoptive couple they can come home now but it is different for every state.
DEB: And by that time the adoptive couple wants to stay here because we've been so good to them. And we do tell people too there are some sensitive situations where we don't want to be in the same town, we don't want to run into each other, adoptive couples can go anywhere in Wyoming with baby. So if they're flying out of a bigger city, or they just don't feel like they're comfortable being in the same small little town, they can go outside of Sheridan, and just can't leave the state. And then sometimes everything is opposite, and they want to meet up a couple times. And that can happen too.
AMANDA: I've had personal experience of both where we needed to leave the city limits, so to speak, so we didn't run into each other, or where baby wasn't seen by someone else, in that city. And then others where we just stayed in contact. I want to ask a few more clarifying questions on the process. So can you talk to us if birth father is known and where he is not known? How does that impact the situation from an adoption law perspective in Wyoming?
Birth Father’s Rights In Wyoming
DEB: So let's, for purposes of discussion, assume we have a Wyoming baby going to a Wyoming couple. And we have a birth mom who says, Oh, it could be Mr. A or Mr. B. We have a putative father registry in Wyoming, where if a father, a potential biological father wants to protect himself, and make sure he gets notice, he's required to register with the putative father registry. So one of the things we do is if we don't know who father is, for a certainty, I just go after everybody, every name she can give me, okay. And I check that putative father registry. If I know who they are, then I start trying to track them down, well, let's be honest, Brittani starts trying to track them down. And because she's young, and she's a snooper on the internet, she finds them, let's just say that, if we can't find them, the law in Wyoming then is though, we file a motion with the court, describing to the court everything we've done to try and find the birth father to get them to sign and then we say, please give us permission to do notice by publication. And, and the notice goes out in a newspaper of general circulation in Wyoming, which good news, there's only one. So, um, so that's a Wyoming baby to Wyoming couple. If it's a Wyoming baby, that's going to an out of state couple, then I will help that attorney from the other state. Let's say it's Arkansas. I'll help the Arkansas attorney try and find the birth father. Absolutely. We'll gather signatures if we can, we have great, hilarious stories of getting signatures from birth fathers. But if we can't get them, then we provide all the information of what we've done to the out of state attorney, and then they follow their state's processes for notice, and maybe defaulting or maybe that birth father actually shows up and wants to contest the adoption. Does that answer the question?
AMANDA: That does, yes, that's definitely helpful. So say, he shows up and tries to contest the adoption. Does he have a timeframe in which to do that? Is it prior to birth? Prior to finalization, if you're out of state, how does that process work?
DEB: So if it's a Wyoming baby to a Wyoming couple, so everything's under Wyoming law, if we have identified the father, and we've sent him the documents, and he just doesn't sign, then I actually give him notice. I sue him essentially, it's the equivalent of a suit. Yeah.
BRITTANI: With our adoption petition.
DEB: Serve him with the summons and petition of adoption, and he would be in state, he'd have 20 days to respond.. And if he doesn't respond, then he's defaulted. Now, if he shows up, yikes, honestly, if he shows up, that's not great. Simply because, in Wyoming, it's tough to terminate the birth father's rights. It's really tough. Now, we're making some progress in the sense that you're counterbalancing this fundamental right to your child. Absolutely. Versus the best interests of the child. And so we're seeing some give on that. We have a scenario right now, where birth father is in jail, on felony child molestation charges. He's going to trial in March. He's just sure he's gonna win. And he wants to parent. Yeah. So what's going to happen? We'll see baby, has gone out of state. And so the laws of that state are going to kick in, in terms of he's going to have to notify and respond.
Supporting Your Expectant Parents Prior To Birth In Wyoming
AMANDA: Okay. Do you mind to speak a little bit about support services? From a legal standpoint prior to birth? I know there are some states where it is not allowed and some states where it is. Given the no revocation period from a Wyoming expectant parent, how does that impact support from the hopeful adoptive parent to the expectant parent? I'm curious how that impacts support prior to birth.
DEB: So in terms of support services, I'm gonna zero in on two. I mean, we have social services. Certainly we have lots of those. The law in Wyoming is that the adoptive couple can provide reasonable support to the birth mom, what's reasonable? Well, I can tell you what my judges like and what they'll put up with. They certainly would be very willing or very able to provide rental assistance, food, some money towards clothes, those kinds of things, utilities, yeah, the basics. We want to make sure she can get to her prenatal appointments, those kinds of things, you want to make sure she has a phone. That's a huge one, make sure she has a phone. So what do I do? Well, I don't like to go right to the adoptive couple for those things, because I don't want my birth mom, at the time of signing, remember she doesn't sign anything that has any legal significance until after the baby's born. I do not want her to sign that document because she feels obligated because somebody gave her rent. And I don't want that. And so if she has a need, she knows she can come to us, and we will move heaven and earth, and we will figure it out. So we have a good relationship with every church in this town. Well, except one. And we call the churches and we say we need help, and they don't ask many questions.
BRITTANI: We have an amazing advocacy center here.
DEB: We have a very, very wonderful pregnancy Advocacy Center here. And what we do is we say, okay, if it's utilities, please pay them directly to the provider, if it's rent pay directly to the landlord, if its food …
BRITTANI: A Walmart gift card. Yeah, and the same, if it's the adoptive couples providing this. We don't just have them write our birth moms a check. We say, give us who your landlord is, they will send it to us, we'll send it to the landlord. We'll do gift cards through email and stuff like that.
DEB: So well, Brittany has become a little creative. But we've figured it out. We're in Sheridan, which is North Central Wyoming. But our birth moms are all over the state. Somehow the word has gotten out that we're here. So it's only as a last resort that I go to the adoptive couple.
AMANDA: That totally makes sense. So can you walk us through an example kind of from moment that maybe from a hopeful adoptive parents perspective that they reach out to you and how you might be matching or not matching based upon what's legal in your state with your expectant parents that you have already been working with all the way through to kind of the finalization stage.
BRITTANI: So for adoptive couples, we keep profiles at our office, People can make those on Snapfish, Shutterfly, however they want to do it, and we have a whole stack of books here and we'll take them from anywhere in the United States, we work with a great gal in Arizona who sends us all of her families, so we have people from all over the place, including Canada. And so if a birth mom comes to us and says, You know I'm interested in adoption but I need help finding a family. We have 60 profiles here for her to look at. That has seemed to be changing for us. It seems like more and more we get birth moms coming to us that have already picked a family from an agency or I have noticed a lot of people matching on the internet. A lot of people matching through my friend’s cousin’s wife kind of thing. But we do have profiles here. So that's how we kind of get started with the adoptive couples. And we do represent adoptive couples as well, not just birth moms. So we can help finalize adoptions here in Wyoming too. So if we match our birth mom with an adoptive couple, again, depending on where they live, if it's Wyoming, it's pretty easy on us. But we just, you know, usually get them together to meet first or if they're not in state, we'll do a zoom meeting. And we usually try to encourage girls, I think, to talk to a few families. Deb, do you want to jump in here?
DEB: Yeah. So this is such an interesting thing. I have noticed over my 34 years of doing this, if a birth mom comes to me, and she has not already picked, it's not unusual for her to say, I want you to take my baby, which my husband from the other end of the building hears that and yells, no. Why do I bring this up? Because picking the family is an incredibly important tool to help her down the line. So I say to her no, I'm gonna give you these profiles, and we're gonna go through them. And then you go through them with somebody you trust. Sometimes that's just Brittani and I. Sometimes it's a boyfriend or grandma, whatever. Because she has to do that. That's critical. And then we set up a Skype or in person interview kind of thing. She comes to the interview, and we come to it with questions. Now. Let me throw one other thing out there. And this may not be very popular, but it's true. There are no rules in Wyoming on what kind of communication a birth mom and adoptive couple can have. I recommend strongly though, with my birth moms, and the adoptive couple don't exchange emails, Facebook's? Oh, yeah. Don't do that. Why is that? Here's why. In Wyoming, the only way to revoke a consent now remember, she can't sign anything that has any significance until after baby is born. But once she signs she's done, the only way that can be undone is through fraud or duress. How do I protect my birth mom? Yeah, I protect my birth mom by saying please, please, please. I'm not trying to be nosy. Brittani's not trying to be nosy. But can we please be in the background? We want to be included? Because we're the witness that there's been no fraud and no duress, that's a protection to my birth mom. It's also protection to an adoptive couple. They are dying to have communication. But sometimes there can be birth moms out there who are not as reputable as they should be. And they will take an adoptive couple for a ride if they're allowed. And so this is a way to protect both sides.
BRITTANI: So, when she decides who she wants to meet, you know, one family, two families, we've had girls want to meet five families. That's fine. We've had girls say, I still don't know I want to talk to everyone again. We'll kind of do whatever we always tell her she’s the queen. Then once she picks who she wants, we just kind of start making our plan. And again, if it's a Wyoming couple, we say you get this attorney and we'll represent birth mom, or if it's not a state couple, we say go find an attorney, have them contact us and we just start working through the process. Again, once we get to delivery day, that goes to the hospital that day or the day after, again, depending on the situation. Sometimes I'm already there. I get the call to drive them to the hospital in the middle of the night and I'm happy to do it and I'm happy to do all of the things at the hospital. Just keep your mind open and do whatever.
DEB: I'm gonna throw in here if we have time, and if birth mom has come to us, and there's plenty of time before delivering, we'll get into all kinds of issues, not just what she wants to do after baby is born and making her life on a trajectory that looks upward. But I like to actually work on the handoff. I think the handoff is critical. I think she actually has to talk that through what does she want that to look like? What's a healthy way to do that? Because, again, that's another one of those really solid monuments in your mind that you can keep going back to. I did the right thing. I have had one birth mother in 34 years, who surprised me. And when I left the hospital to go get adoptive couple and bring them she had left. And her mother did the hand off. And that was 10 years ago. And she said to me, I regret that every day.
BRITTANI: And also, before we go to the hospital, we try to talk about this but emotions always change minds, who do you want in the room for delivery? Deb and I will kick anybody out of a delivery room, you just give me the eye, we usually have a little signal, so I say just give me the signal, say the word and I will make an excuse to get adoptive mom who's very excited that out of the room. The nurses here at our hospital are great. But we try to talk about who do you want in the room. Our hospital’s great about giving adoptive couples their own room in the hospital. And so you know, depending on what we're doing for feeding and what everyone's decided on, how much time is baby going to spend in the room with you? What kind of what are we going to do again, minds change, but we just try to have, let's try to think about these things. Before we get there. Let's think about things that we can have in the hospital to distract us. Let's bring in iPads so we can watch our favorite show or let's bring a coloring book if like to color or you know, we tried to build a plan.
DEB: Let me throw one thing in there. This might be interesting to potential adoptive couples watching your podcast. Sometimes my birth moms, they change their mind, of course, because this is a momentous decision. Of course, she gets to make every single decision until the moment she signs and if at the moment she signs she says no, I won't sign, my job is to protect her from anyone who would say otherwise. But sometimes my birth moms say, and we know this because I've experienced it, I want to nurse that baby. And the nurses always go, oh, Deb, that's a bad idea. And I say no, no, no. That's a tool. I don't know any baby that does not wake up and cry at 2, 3, 4, the most inconvenient time in the morning. Right? And birth mom is tired. And she's exhausted. And she's doing her best. And here's this baby. And she says I can't do that. And I say yeah, right. That's right. That's yet another tool. Maybe she says I can do this. Okay, then we should not be signing this paper. So it is not unusual that my birth moms will say I want to nurse and that is another tool she uses to say I did everything I could to give this baby the best start it could have including given colostrum. That always freaks people out. And it really shouldn't quite frankly. I've actually never had a birth mother say no, after nursing her baby.
AMANDA: So this has been so helpful in understanding the process from start to finish. And honestly also just It's so heartwarming to hear how you're really looking after birth mom, I think that is one of those steps in the process as a hopeful adoptive family, you want to help but you're not quite sure where to help and how to help and what doesn't constitute like stepping over the line. Right. And I often coach hopeful adoptive families as it relates to you want to give the support that you can support from a lifetime perspective right? You don't want to start off this relationship in an overly supportive mode that you won't continue for a lifetime. Because then your relationship is really not built on a solid foundation. And so I think having the appropriate support for her all around and you as a hopeful adoptive family as part of that because you are forming a lifelong relationship but having other support you know folks around her is really important. Thank you so much for doing that for our community. That is really great. I'd love if you would just share kind of any parting thoughts on if you're a hopeful adoptive family watching this, what you would like for them to know about adoption in the state of Wyoming.
DEB: I think this is a pretty great place to come and adopt a baby. We do adoptions all over the state, our hospitals are good. And they all know us. Our nurses are good. They're very protective of birth moms. But once the nurse can be convinced that yes, this is what birth mom wants, then they're very protective of the adoptive couple. We love adoptive couples coming from out of state, because we like educating them on where this baby came from. And Wyoming's probably the easiest state you will ever adopt from, whether that's good or bad legally, I don't know. But it's easy.
AMANDA: Well, thank you both for your time today. Thank you so much for taking the time to explain adoption law and really helping us understand more about the process in the state of Wyoming. If folks are considering either adopting from Wyoming or live in Wyoming and considering adopting, how can they get in touch with you to learn a little bit more about the services that you offer?
BRITTANI: I should also add we also do step parent adoptions. We work with DFS, and we do foster adoptions. So that's another thing I think adoptive couples should know. But yeah, we can just be reached here in our office here in Sheridan, usually by phone or email is the best way. Are you going to link all that or do you want?
AMANDA: Yes I'll link to you through either your website or Google in the show notes.
BRITTANI: We're a small office, so we're easy to find and get a hold of.
AMANDA: Awesome. Well, thank you both so much for joining us today. We really appreciate you. Well, there you have it, my friend an overview of the adoption law in the state of Wyoming.
If you're looking to learn how to adopt a baby in any state in the United States, then make sure you check out the private adoption program. Inside the private adoption program I teach you how to adopt step by step from start to finish. Remember my friend anything's possible with the right plan and support and I'm only a message away. I'll see you soon.
Disclaimer: The information contained herein is not to be considered legal advice. We are not attorneys. Should you wish to hire the attorney mentioned in this post, please contact them directly.
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