Figuring out the legality of how having two moms worked was a stream of confusion up until the day she was here. On July 9, 2015, same-sex marriage became legal in the United States and a year later we got married on our 6 year anniversary. With this law change you would think that it would change laws regarding parentage, adoption, and the legality of a same-sex couple having kids; this did not happen unfortunately at the time we had Emma. Things did not change until September 2017 when a court case brought to the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that a married same-sex couple has the same legal parental rights. In our state we have a law called the “Assumption of Parentage” which in basic terms states if a couple is married for 10 months prior to birth it is assumed that the husband is the biological father and takes on all legal rights over the child. The Supreme Court Ruling made it so the law is gender neutral and applies to married same-sex couples who went into the journey of making a biological child.
Unfortunately, because all of the lovely law changes above happened AFTER we had Emma things did not go as smoothly as we wanted. We did our research and found that at the time only California and New York had birth certificates that did not state Mother & Father, instead Parent & Parent. We were very close to take leave from our jobs early and find a physician in California that would see us prior to the birth and take us on as patients solely for the birth of our child so we could both be on the birth certificate. After deciding this was not an option emotionally, physically, or financially we decided to stay in AZ for the birth. We looked up lawyers using the Arizona Pride Guide because we knew we needed someone with real experience in this situation who knew about LGBT laws. We also reached out to both the ACLU and HRC to get a little more information. We found one lawyer who had a free “information giving” email so we contacted them to get more info. Once we received our response things got even worse from there. The lawyer wanted a huge $1600 fee solely for a consultation and the information they gave us hadn’t been updated since the marriage ruling so her information was null and void and the fee was a no go for us. In the meantime we received information from the ACLU regarding the “assumption of parentage” law and we knew that if something ever did happen in the future we could use that law in our or my favor. We put in numerous calls to the state, the hospital we were giving birth in, and finally the department of health services. The state referred us to the other two we contacted; the hospital referred us to DHS. Finally we received information from Vital Records within DHS; they said that I could be put as the “Father” on Emma’s birth certificate and that Diana would remain “Mother” because she gave birth.
The look on people’s faces when I say that I’m the Father is fantastic, especially when I add that I got her pregnant (see the Making Emma Pt 1 for reference) it makes things even more comical for myself. Now when filling out paperwork for Emma’s school or a physician’s office if there are only spots for Mother & Father, I have to put my information down as Father. Typically I will cross out the word “Father” and write in “Mother” because people get real confused when they see the three of us at an appointment and don’t know who is who when we pass her back and forth or I answer questions but Diana is holding her. If I had a nickel for the amount of times I have been told I’m such a great friend/family member for being so involved in Emma’s life, I would be rich and have no need to work for a living. Luckily for us, once we explain who we are, we haven’t really had too much of an issue from the offices we go to or her school. The big issue was figuring out how this will translate for the rest of her life and how this legally protects us as a family going forward. Per DHS, due to me legally being on the birth certificate and our marriage being legally recognized in the US we have no issue here on American soil. I legally can’t be thrown out of a hospital room where she is being treated or not be counted as her parent anywhere. An issue would only arise should we travel outside of the US to a country that does not recognize same-sex marriage. There it would be a completely different issue and we could have problems where I would not be recognized as her parent. For us though, we have no future plans to visit anywhere that doesn’t recognize our marriage because we don’t feel those are safe places to be.
We have toyed with the idea of me legally adopting Emma should we need to in the future. Currently there isn’t a need for us to go through that process, we are putting that decision off until we have another child or plan a major trip out of the country. When we did our initial research due to the way we had Emma, the only adoption we could do would be “Step-Parent Adoption” which states Diana and I would have to be married for longer than 6 months and I would have to be involved in the child’s life for that amount of time as well. We are hoping this law changes and that it would be a standard adoption by the time we would be reconsidering. Another reason we decided against it is because of the cost. Making a baby the way we did did not come cheap so we couldn’t afford the costs of a lawyer to navigate us through the adoption process. We haven’t looked at the legal aspect of adoption or costs in quite some time so this section is a bit off so please take the time to check these things out if the laws have changed recently and let me know if they have. For now we are both happy with the way things are and know in the future things might have to change.
Emma Has Two Moms 