PITA Birth Records

[judecorp]

(x-posted to july2007babies, sorry if you see it twice)

Oh, what a huge PITA.

So today Jen and I got a stack of papers we were supposed to get two months ago with a bunch of papers we'll need to bring to our birth center. You know, like releases and stuff. Well, one of them is a "birth certificate worksheet" and there's a whole bunch of info on "Mother of the Child" and then a whole bunch of info on "Father of the Child." Then on another sheet of paper there was a phone number and "Call Michelle with questions," so I did. Hello, Michelle.

Jen and I were a little baffled because a) we are not putting any "Father of the Child" information on our birth certificate, but b) Jen and I are married and therefore she is also legally responsible for our kid.

According to Michelle, what WE are supposed to do with our birth certificate information is this:

1. I am supposed to cross out everything that says "Father" and write in "Second Parent." (How professional.) And make sure that I check the box that says I am married.
2. When the kid is born, the birth center - instead of just sending the forms to the Town Clerk for immediate processing - has to fax my crossed-out document to the Records Department in Boston so they can check it over.
3. Then, our paperwork has to GO TO COURT in Boston so that a judge can "decide what to do with it." It is up to the judge whether they put the second parent information on or not.

"Michelle, what does the judge usually do?" Apparently the judge USUALLY puts the second parent on the birth certificate.

USUALLY? Like, sometimes the judge can just decide NOT to? Oh holy hell, Michelle, you say all of this with such a chipper voice and I just want to strangle you with my telephone cord.

Comments

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

You just mirrored a lot of my thoughts. I suspected that things like sperm donors had forced the state to iron out most these legal issues already, and that the only real difference here is that the non-biological parent is female and not male.

I would suspect that a lot of parents who use sperm donors simply write in the Husband's information and leave it at that. It's not like the state is going to do DNA testing on every child born to make sure the parents match.

Hopefully, 30 Year from now, the kids being born in this legal morass will hear stories about how the legal idiocy their parents went through, and wonder how such an unenlightened America could have existed.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Well, in MA if a woman is married (to a man), her husband is the de facto father on the birth certificate, even if he isn't the father. If a woman wants to name another man who is not her husband as the father, she has to fill out a bunch of "documents of non-paternity" and stuff like that.

So if a straight married couple uses a sperm donor (and sperm donors from sperm banks have no legal rights), the husband WOULD be the father on the birth certificate. MA law is like that.

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

Damn.

And here I was hoping the grief you're going through is just an artifact of legal issues around sperm Donors in general, instead of something that seems custom designed to harass same sex couples.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wish that was true also. But MA is a little too "old school puritanical" to do anything 100% cool. :)