My question involves adoption law for the State of: North Carolina
My boyfriend's ex-wife signed over all parental and custody rights. He has sole legal and physical custody of his son. She is allowed visitation 2 days a year.
I want to adopt my boyfriend's son so that in the event of a medical emergency I can make calls, or if anything were to ever happen to my boyfriend, he wouldn't have to be uprooted from his life here to live with his biological mom, just because she is his biological mom. How do I do that? Where do I begin? What sort of legal procedures am I looking to go through, and what sort of costs should I plan to be spending? Also, we're getting married, do I wait until after?
Any advice would be incredibly helpful! Like I said, I don't even know where square one on this issue is-thus my enrollment to this forum.

