A: Adam’s answer: Actually, if you effectively terminate your parental rights, that would remove any obligation you may have for future child support (unless you agree otherwise in Court). There is a formal Court proceeding involved.

A termination of parental rights may be voluntarily or involuntarily. A voluntary termination occurs when both parents agree, and involuntary termination occurs when only one parent agrees to it. You could also terminate your parental rights in a parallel adoption proceeding (if there is a father wanting to adopt).

Minn. Stat. § 260C.301, subd. 1(a) provides that parental rights may be terminated voluntarily with the written consent of a parent who for good cause desires to terminate his or her parental rights. So, even if all parties agree to the termination of parental rights, the Court must rule on whether the termination of parental rights is for a good cause. "Good cause" may mean to legally remove a child from a destructive or unhealthy home environment without the consent of the natural parents or to facilitate adoption procedures by providing a means by which existing parental rights may be voluntarily terminated.

Minnesota Courts have routinely maintained that a voluntary termination of parental rights for reasons other than to facilitate adoption works a substantial detrimental effect on a child, who will be forced to look solely to his custodial parent to meet all of his needs. Therefore, judges are extremely reluctant to terminate a parent's rights voluntarily and certainly not where the termination is not agreed upon by the custodial parent.

If the child is receiving any kind of public assistance, the County will likely oppose the termination of parental rights - they want to ensure that there are two parents out there to support the child (which would be the case if an adoption was occurring).

A: Adam’s answer: The previous answer was correct - when a child is born outside of a marriage, the mother has sole custody until a Court Order provides otherwise. However, there are a couple issues that you should be cognizant of. First, you don't want to be overly secretive about your whereabouts, because it may potentially have an adverse impact on you in a possible future custody proceeding (e.g. the dad may claim that you intentionally prevented him from having any contact with the child).

Second, you should be aware of the jurisdictional issues here. The Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) dictates which State could exercise jurisdiction over any possible child custody proceeding in the future.

The UCCJEA vests "exclusive [and] continuing jurisdiction" for child custody litigation in the courts of the child's "home state," which is defined as the state where the child has lived with a parent for six consecutive months prior to the commencement of the proceeding (or since birth for children younger than six months). Both Minnesota and Michigan have adopted the UCCJEA. Therefore, if you have the child in Minnesota, but plan on moving to Michigan in the near future, it would be possible for the father to commence a custody proceeding in Minnesota before you leave. Further, if you have your child in Minnesota, and then move to Michigan, you would have to reside in Michigan for six continuous months before Michigan would be considered the child's "home state" entitling Michigan to exclusive jurisdiction over the child custody proceedings.

These jurisdictional issues can get complicated. But, the "long and short of it" is, if you are planning on moving to Michigan, and you move to Michigan prior to having your baby, then Michigan would absolutely be entitled to exercise jurisdiction over the custody proceeding.

A: Adam’s answer: The problem with many provisions in divorce decrees pertaining to the payment of out-of-pocket/unreimbursed medical expenses for children, is that such provisions are worded to provide that the other party shall "reimburse" to you such expenses. Thus, you must first incur the expense, submit it to any applicable health insurance company for possible deductions, and then submit it to your ex-husband for him to reimburse to you, said 80%. If he refuses to do so, you can submit to him an "Affidavit of Health Care Expenses." This affidavit and instructions regarding the same can be found at: https://edocs.dhs.state.mn.us/lfserver/Public/D....

If he still does not pay the required amount for the unreimbursed medical expenses, you can then submit the affidavit to the County (where the child support order/divorce decree is filed) and they will withhold the medical expenses as additional child support. Please note, that any unpaid medical expenses over two years old cannot be collected through this process.

This is the process to enforce your ex-husband's payment of the medical expenses, but this can be quite cumbersome when you have a monthly payment of $145 for three years. You might want to go through the process every few months.

Hope this help!