How do I prevent my husband from being named as the father of my child if the divorce is not final? 4 Answers as of January 19, 2012

In Georgia, any child born during wedlock is presumed to be the legal child of the husband if you are married at the time the child is born. You need to get your divorce finalized, and then have language inserted into the final decree that indicates that the child born to you is not the natural or the legal child of your husband. You also need to get an attorney to assist you with this.

First of all, you need a lawyer. Let me stress that. You need a lawyer. You will screw up the lives of two men, the child and yourself forever unless you get counsel. Legally the child is your husband's. The only way to change that is to have the court determine paternity as part of the divorce before it is granted. It will be cheapest if both men cooperate and agree to testing. With those tests a lawyer can file a divorce, seek a determination that the husband is not the father, and also do a legitimization later so that the real dad is the dad. This is a project that screams for a lawyer. You will never pull this off correctly pro se, and once you mess it up in the divorce, you likely never can fix it.

Yes, it is true. In Georgia, if you are married your husband automatically becomes the legal father. Because of this, your boyfriend will not be able to sign the birth certificate or voluntarily legitimate the child at the hospital. He will have to file a petition in court seeking to legitimate the child, terminate your husband's parental rights, be recognized as the legal father, and have the child's birth certificate modified to include him as the father. The only other alternative would be to get divorced (obtain a Final Judgment and Decree of Divorce) before the baby is born.

The law usually presumes that a child born during the marriage is the product of that marriage. However, a DNA test can and will rebut that presumption. Arrange for your boyfriend to have such a test as soon as possible after the child is born so his name can be on the birth certificate.