File for Paternity if You Want to Be the Dad

Video Transcribed: Oh, crap. She’s pregnant. Now what? My name is Brian L. Jackson, I am a Tulsa fathers rights attorney here at Dads.Law where fathers are not disposable. And I want to talk to you guys about what you should do if you find out that the girl you’ve been sleeping with is pregnant unexpectedly.

I’m going to start by saying that your options, as far as whether or not a kid comes into being once you’ve had sex and she’s pregnant as a guy, are pretty limited because she has all the choices legally. She can choose to have an abortion. She can choose not to have an abortion.

So what should you as the potential father do? Well, the first thing I would suggest is to start paying some kind of support towards her without being ordered to. You’re going to get ordered at some point. If she carries the child to term, you will be ordered to pay child support, more than likely, unless you become custodial. And at least from an initial standpoint, if it’s a child born out of wedlock, she has custody by default under Title 10.

So from that standpoint, it makes sense, to start offering support for the pregnancy and start offering to help cover some of her expenses. That could protect you later from getting a big judgment against you in terms of arrearages and cost of the birth.

So that’s one thing. Another thing is if you want to be in the child’s life, if she’s going to carry the child to term and you want to be in the child’s life, get after filing something early. Don’t wait for her to file something. Because the likely way this would play out, if you let her file something, she’ll probably file it in admin court.

You’ll be very quickly ordered to pay child support. You may be ordered to pay her an arrearage. And you get no rights to the kid. So if you want rights to the kid, then you should file something in district courts yourself and assert those rights.

Get yourself adjudicated the father, assert your rights. Don’t wait for her to file some crap in admin court where you can’t get any rights. And getting after it sooner is better than later. Have a realistic idea too, by the way, guys, as to what you want to do and what your capabilities are.

Obviously, for example, if you’re a long-distance trucker, you’re not going to have full custody of a child. No court’s going to order a child to sit in the back of your cab while you drive. So be aware of that. And that’s just an instance. Be realistic about what you can do.

But those are some first steps to take immediately if you out that the girl you were with got pregnant. If you have reason to think the child’s not yours, obviously DNA is an option. If you are pretty sure the kid is yours and you want the kid, you can also sign an acknowledgment of paternity at the birth which makes any paternity proceedings go faster.

And it puts you in a better position to get a relationship with that kid early on. So those are some initial steps. If you have questions about any of this contact a Tulsa Paternity Lawyer, feel free to go to dads.law, where fathers are not disposable.