Legal Stuff

I believe I've mentioned before about my attorney friend who is helping us to file a petition for a pre-birth order that would allow Shrike and I to both be on Peeper's birth certificate, from the git-go (as we say back home in Texas).

He's got the petition all written, and tonight I've been pulling together various supporting documents to include with it, to show that we are (in the attorney's words), "a legitimate couple and [we've] taken steps over the years to confirm [our] status as a couple."

Those documents include: birth certificates, name change court orders (when we hyphenated), wills, powers of attorney, mortgage papers, and a xerox of a check, showing that we have a joint bank account.

We'll also include the donor / recipient agreement that we signed before doing IVF, and maybe (yet) another "they're not too crazy to be parents" letter from Dr T.

The judge may also want our medical records, or a letter or testimony (hopefully just over the phone) from Dr. E, to back up our story about Peeper being made with Shrike's egg.

Tonight, I'll have Shrike sign the petition and tomorrow I'll make copies of everything to give to the attorney, along with a $47 check made out to "Red County Orphan's Court Clerk."

Orphan's Court?

That sounds like something out of Dickens!

(Not to mention that Peeper has, in fact, more than the requisite number of parents!)

He hopes to file it all later this week, and to get us a hearing scheduled for sometime in August.

So, here's the gist of the petition, if you're interested:

1. The petitioner is Whozat . . . .
   
2. The petitioner is also Shrike . . . .
   
3. The petitioners have resided together since May 10, 1998. The parties each changed their legal names pursuant to an October 19, 2001 Order. Said Order is attached hereto and incorporated herein.
   
4. The petitioners participated in a commitment ceremony on February 10, 2001.
   
5. Currently, the parties are undergoing a gestational surrogacy, whereby Petitioner Whozat is carrying a fertilized egg from Petitioner Shrike.
   
6. The parties executed an Agreement Regarding Egg Retrieval and Transfer, confirming terms of the in vitro fertilization process. Said Agreement shall be available for the Court’s review at the time of the hearing in this matter.
   
7. Whozat is scheduled to give birth to the child on November 25, 2008.

1. Petitioners desire to have a Pre-Birth Order, similar to the one attached hereto, whereby both parties can be added to the child’s birth certificate, at the time of the child’s birth.
   
2. With respect to a gestational surrogacy (e.g. where the carrier of the fertilized egg is not the genetic mother of the child), the BlueState Department of Health has formulated a procedure allowing for the originally issued birth certificate to identify the intended parents as the child’s parents. Said procedure requires: a) the completion and submission of a “Supplemental Report of Assisted Conception”; and b) the issuance of a court order, directing that any certified copies of the birth record of the child shall reflect the names of the intended parents.
   
3. Petitioners believe and therefore aver that they will comply with all other requirements to obtain a Pre-Birth Order. Petitioners are prepared to submit to a hearing to address matters of their overall fitness to be parents of the unborn child.

WHEREFORE, it is requested that the Court hold a hearing on this matter, and at the conclusion of said hearing, grant a Pre-birth Order, confirming that both petitioners shall appear on the birth certificate of unborn child.

Oh, and did I mention that it seems that we're the first people to ever ask for such a thing in our county?

They've done second-parent adoptions for gay couples, and have done "traditional" surrogacies, but this is the first pre-birth order for a donor/recipient lesbian couple to both be on the birth certificate.

Pretty cool, huh?