Adoption question

[Ceinwen]

I think this belongs here, more than in adoption.

My gf and I are getting married next year, and then we'd like to conceive a baby together (with me carrying). We live in Ontario, and I'm trying to find out if the baby would need to be legally adopted by my (then) wife, or is legal right away, since the baby is born into a marriage?

I tried looking online, but I just keep coming up with issues re: two lesbians adopting a non-bio child. TIA!

[FtMPapa]

Contact EGALE for the definitive word on this, but I believe if you're married, it's automatic.

You may wish to do a second parent adoption or get some sort of legal letter attesting to parenthood or something drawn up for international travel, aprticularly if you intend to travel to the US at any point, or if you intend that one of you will travel outside Canada alone with the child (but even well-informed straight people do that in those situations).

[carmen358]

The last I heard from a queer family lawyer in BC is that your partner has to legally adopt even if you are married. Which is crazy because if your partner was a male but not the bio father and you two were married when you gave birth - he would not have to adopt. If you find out anything different, I'd be interested as well.

In BC, your partner cannot adopt until 6 months after the birth (this may be different if you're married) but you can get a declaration of parentage to "protect" you until the adoption goes through. The lawyer I spoke to however said the process for the declaration can take almost as long as 6 months and is pricy so unless it is a real issue that a known donor will try and get custody or rights then it's not necessarily worth it.