Anyone knows about Lesbians signing the birth certificate without a Second Parent Adoption???...

[ValzQueen]

Greetings,

My wife and I are new to the Mothering Message Board. We are impressed and excited about reading all the news on here and TTC again. We are big fans of Joanne and Midwest Sperm Bank. Joanne is very sweet. We TTC in September of 2010 with Donor 330, unfortunately we did not conceive. We are preparing to try again and time everything to the tea this time. In September we TTC using at-home insemination and will use that method again this time around. I should ovulate later this month. Wish us luck :)

We did have a few questions that you all may have opinions, answers, and information about.

Question 1. Is there anyone using MSB now, currently pregnant using the at-home insemination method? If so what pointers would you give us in order to higher the chances of conceiving? Also what Donor has the highest sperm count so far from MSB?

Question 2. Is there any lesbian parents that has conceived and already have or will be signing the birth certificate at the hospital without a Second Parent Adoption process??? (This is a big question for us)

We did CONFIRM that a hospital in the State of New Jersey will let us sign the birth certificate together once the baby is born as long as we show proof of the Donor receipt. We are legally married (June 2010 in Connecticut) and currently reside in Missouri. We do not mind taking the trip to have the baby be born in New Jersey (since that is where my spouse is from) in order to be able to the sign birth certificate of our child TOGETHER, however we would like to see if there are any other places where this can happen that are closer to Missouri. We did a ton of research and found this information out about New Jersey so we understand it is something we have to ask around about in order to find new information. We would love to sign the birth certificate without any adoption process, afterall we paid enough to conceive and technically the baby would be ours.

I've typed enough. :) Please if anyone has any information on these questions please feel free to post the information and do not hesitiate to ask us any questions.

Thanks again Blowing Baby Dust to all....

Mia & Val

[Letitia]

Well, it probably makes no difference to you since we're so far away, but just signing the birth certificate did nothing for us in New Mexico.  Our lawyer urged us to give it a try, I think to push the system a little.  Didn't work, it came back corrected and we just proceeded with the second parent adoption.  The adoption itself was very easy and painless, and the judge apologized to us that we had to do it.

Good luck getting pregnant.

[AmyPDX]

Ditto what Letitia said. We live in Oregon, where my name and DP's name will automatically be on the birth certificate at birth (Oregon has domestic partnership, with all of the same state benefits and responsibilities of marriage). However, in the research I've done, I've learned that a 2nd parent adoption is still a good idea - other states do not need to recognize that birth certificate (states recognize each others' court orders thanks to the Full Faith and Credit Clause of the constitution, but a birth certificate is not a court order).

This may be especially concerning to you, as you'll be leaving New Jersey (or wherever you can both be on the birth certificate) and living in Missouri. Missouri may not recognize your partner as a legal parent, despite both names on that birth certificate. We've personally thought about putting off the 2nd parent adoption, as we'll be living in Oregon for the foreseeable future and don't travel much - but then I've also learned that the federal adoption tax credit can be used to cover the costs of a 2nd parent adoption. 

Maybe talk to a family law attorney to get specific legal advice as part of your research? We may do that soon before we decide. 

Good luck TTC!

[ValzQueen]

Thank you ladies for your input. Hmmmm that is something to consider....It's funny because Missouri doesn't recognize our marriage however they changed my name on my legal documents after providing our marriage license, so I don't know. We will research more and definitely consult with a lawyer. Also Illinios just accepted it into law to recognize gay marriage and give us full benefits of a heterosexual marriage so that's a good thing. If we lived in New Jersey we wouldn't have to worry about it, however since Illinois just took that into law I wonder if they will let us sign the birth certificate now???? We will move there...it's 30mins away....lol...smh....hmmmm still have a lot of research to do. Thanks again and let me know if anything changes....Oregon is waaaayyy closer to us...lol

Mia

[AmandaHope]

One more thing: Come on over to Queer TTC!  It is a wonderful board whose members are knowledgeable on all sorts of trying to conceive and parenting-related matters. 

[atlantafemme]

Our lawyer told us that even if we lived in a state where we could get legally married (we don't), it would still be imperative to obtain a 2nd parent adoption because the non-birth parent's custody would still be able to be challenged in other state courts as well as federal court. The 2nd parent adoption process was annoying and expensive but ultimately worth it for our family's peace of mind. Good luck!

[2moms3kids]

Our first daughter was born in MA where we were legally married. We were both signed the birth certificate, but we still did a 2nd parent adoption to be safe. Both #2 and #3 are/will be born in Maine where our marriage is not recognized so only the Bio mom signed the birth certificate in the hospital (the father part was left blank), but we did a 2nd parent adoption and then both moms were on the birth certificate within the first year of life. The adoption were an easy process, and this next time we are not using a lawyer at all b/c it is a waste of money. I would just do it!

We conceived all times using Xytex Sperm bank and this last baby was conceived on the first try at home. All I can say is relax and doing an IUI, the sperm count etc. isn't terrily important but from what I hear, MSB generally has good numbers.

[stel]

I wish you good luck with TTC.  Our child was born in MA and both my wife and I are on the birth certificate as we are legally married and we used a donor from a bank. However, even in MA, the legal recommendation is to complete a second parent adoption because if we happen to drive through another state and get in a car accident, it is possible that that state might not recognize my partner's right to see the baby or make decisions for him, if I cannot. While this is obviously a worse case scenario, we didn't want to take any chances that we would have to test out the limits of the birth certificate's power during a crisis in our lives so we completed a very easy and celebratory second parent adoption within two months of our son's birth. While it is a pain, and unfair to have to do it, we welcomed the opportunity to be as legally secure as possible and we turned it into a day to celebrate my partner's parenthood with my son. 

[ValzQueen]

Thank you to all that have replied, all of your information, advice, and opinions were very helpful. We are looking into all of the information received and considering all options. Blessings to you all.

Mia & Val

[quinnsmommy]

I'm wondering if I can ask a question here?

I live in MA and have a 1yr old with my wife(gay marriage)

Both our names are on the birth certificate. We used a known donor from the Boston area.

I want my wife to be able to second parent adopt our daughter but known donor doesn't want to be known as far as the

courts are concerned. Has anyone experienced this type of situation? I'm frustrated because it seems like my only other

choice is to have him served and that seems crappy.

Thank you and I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to post here!

[ValzQueen]

Quinnsmommy,

My wife and I (legally married in connecticut) are in the process of trying to conceive through artificial insemination at home. We have done a ton of research. One thing we did find out is that when choosing to use a known donor, it makes things that much more difficult to finalize the process to fully adopt the child conceived through AI. This is mainly because of the "Known Donor" aspect of the situation. When choosing a known donor even though he doesn't want to be known, he is. If there is no proof that the baby was concieved using donor sperm from a sperm bank then unfortunately the known donor will need to be served and he will have to sign the papers to consent to the adoption of "his" child, according to the law. The bright side is that you are in a much gay friendlier state than we are, therefore you may get a judge that will allow him to sign his rights over. Here in Missouri the courts will still majority of the time enforce child support on the known donor and I read about a case in Iowa (a state that recognizes gay marriage) that even though the Known Donor wanted to sign all his rights over to lesbian married couple, the courts did not let him, and instead forced the known donor to pay child support to the lesbian mother that conceived the child, now he is a co-parent and that wasn't the initial deal.

This situation and aspects of this process is very sticky. Please do ALL of your research for your state before you take it to the courts, because they can eventually make it worse, when in reality just remaining on the birth certificate could have been enough. Choosing a known donor is a very delicate choice.

I wish you both the best and I promise I am not trying to add any additional overwhelming to you, I can imagine you have enough frustration, however I would want someone to explain, advise, and inform me on all they knew before I decided, especially on something like this.

My prayers go out to you and and yours and I'm sure you will find the best solution.

Mia

[atlantafemme]

Quinnsmommy--

As far as I know, there is no state that will allow a child to have more than 2 legal parents. Even though your wife is on the birth certificate, your known donor could claim his parental rights and the courts would likely side with him b/c he'd be viewed as a biological parent. The only way to prevent this and to formalize your partner's legal parent status is through 2nd parent adoption, which would require your donor to sign a form permanently relinquishing his parental rights. 

When you say he "doesn't want to be known" to the courts, does he just not want to be involved in the process or do you think he'd be unwilling to relinquish his parental rights?

[Magistra]

Quinsmommy-

Did you use a doctor to do the insemination?  In many states, using a doctor as an intermediary removes the donor's parental rights or, at the very least, would allow him to be declared "legally unknown" for court purposes.

Valzqueen-

Ditto to what others have said about going ahead with second-parent adoption.  This is what we've been counseled to do, despite having both of us on the birth certificate.  We're not legally married in our state, but they also don't not recognize our Canadian marriage (if that makes sense), so we were able to get the birth certificate with that and a letter from our attorney.

[quinnsmommy]

Hi All,

Thank you for writing back! The donor does not want to have any rights to our child. He is totally willing to give up his "rights". He just doesn't want his name on any legal documents. He wants the courts to recognize him as anonymous. I don't know why he wants it that way. The court says that can not happen, he has to give his name. I was also told I could serve him papers and he could ignore them. Then I would have to list something in the newspaper and he could again ignore and then we could proceed without him. That will work, but it seems so weird. I was just wondering if there was something else I could do.

I did not use a clinic or a doctor with known donor. He came to our house and we used a syringe.

Donor has donated and created 33 babies thus far. One family has succeeded in adoption but they live in Canada. He was allowed to use anonymous according to him in Canada.

[brue]

ValzQueen -- my partner and I are in Missouri as well.  Can you expand upon your Iowa marriage/name change?  So you went to IA, got married, and changed your name at that time, correct?  When you came back to Missouri, you just changed your legal docs (drivers license, etc), and they honored it no problem?  Do you live in St Louis?  Which court house did you go to?  We're pregnant and in the process of trying to figure this all out.  I want to change my name before the baby is born, but don't want to screw up any of the adoption process.  Thanks for any insight you can provide!

[ValzQueen]

Brue check your inbox and contact me. Answered your question there.

Thanks Mia :)

[breeinmak]

Can I have the info that you found, as well?  Im in Missouri, also and we used a donor from MSB.  We are so nervous to have our baby here as I wont be recognized on the birth certificate .  Why does it all have to be so hard.?..sigh.

[Disco Infiltrator]

We have a KD and we've done one second parent adoption and will do DD's in August.  I can't imagine a KD could truly be anonymous after having gone through the process.  The court had to contact our babydaddy and confirm with him that he was giving up rights.  He had to sign paperwork.  

As for the birth certificate, I am non-bio for DD and my name is on the birth cert.  There's been no problem, no correction.  My name could be a man's name in certain cultures so maybe that's it, but WA state also has a same-as-marriage DP law so maybe not.  Now we're paying lots of $$$ we don't have to do a second parent adoption and when DW adopted DS the 2nd parent adoption put her name on the birth cert, which is already done for DD.  I guess it truly severs DD's ties to our KD, but those are severed because my name is on the birth cert and we used artificial insemination (syringe) so it's just more of the queer tax we pay to have a family in this country.  ::grump::