Legal rights of unmarried partner?

[LatinGirl]

My boyfriend and I are planning a homebirth, but I'm starting to wonder about legal issues in case we end up having to transfer to a hospital.

If, for any reason, I'm unconscious or unable to make medical decisions for myself and the baby, will he legally be able to make medical decisions for me? Just for the baby? If he doesn't have that right, who would make decisions for me?

If you have any experience with this, I'd love your input. We're planning to get married eventually (just enough money for the baby, no extra for a decent wedding right now), but if this is a big deal, we could always do a secret city-hall wedding for legal reasons and one for show later.

[Mamabeakley]

You can create a legal document that should give him that right. Google "living will" or "durable power of attorney" and your state and you'll probably find lots of info. Although depending on your situation it may also make good financial (tax) sense to get married sooner rather than later.

[GoestoShow]

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Edited by GoestoShow - 1/3/11 at 12:05pm

[luv-my-boys]

If you want him to be able to make medical decisions for both you and your baby you will need to make it legal with a living will/power of attorney. You can specify (depending on your state) what you want him to be informed of or what types of decisions he would be able to make (ie medical/financial/etc) Even though he is your partner and the father if (god forbid) something were to happen the decision making would fall to your next of kin, if the baby is already born that he could make decisions for the baby (then again some hospitals would err on side of baby if they can not automatically determine parentage) to be safe I would due a living will and also document that he is the father of your child (simple notarized affadavit) would help in those cases. Also remember because of HIPPA they may not release information concerning you to him for *privacy* issues. This dosent mean you have to marry now if your not ready. Simply have legal documentation signed for you. Most hospitals have living wills (fill in type) for you so you might want to check with the hospital you would transfer to in case. If not if you google your state and living will you should find something. It can be notarized at places like mailbox etcs, post offices,banks and some other places.

[mamatolevi]

Contact your hospital and ask what forms they need and if they need to be notarized. They should have some that you just fill in the blanks for your wishes. At each of my births they hadme fill out forms as I was registering/being checked in.

About HIPPA: you may need to have a specific document that says he is allowed to know about your condition. Again, the hospital deals with this fairly often and should have a release form for you to fill out.

Lastly, MAKE A WILL! In most states if you are not married all your assets won't automatically go to him; the state determines what happens. Same goes if something happens to him. You should get a lawyer for this, but if you keep it simple it shouldn't be too terribly expensive.

[LatinGirl]

Thanks for the quick replies and helpful info! I'll check into all your suggestions, and maybe put off the getting married until I can look good in a wedding dress again.

[hapersmion]

Power of Attorney for Health Care is the specific thing you need, at least in my state. A regular Power of Attorney specifically excludes healthcare decisions, IIRC. I went ahead and got the whole slew of documents for my husband before our first child was born - Living Will, Power of Attorney, and Power of Attorney for Health Care - and a will is a good idea too, we just didn't get it all set up in time. Of course, we didn't need any of the documents. But now we have them if we do need them sometime.

We went the easy route and skipped the lawyer, since we weren't trying for anything too complicated. You can actually get a kit for all these documents from a store like Office Depot, which tells you how to set them up, if you don't feel like you need a lawyer. Also, a notary public is inexpensive - you can even find them at weird places like the UPS store.

[bjorker]

From one of my favourite websites:

http://www.unmarried.org/legal-financial-f.a.q.html


This site appears to have the documents you need, sorted by state:

http://www.ecarediary.com/LegalDocuments.aspx