Why I adopted my own son after giving birth to him

One of the first questions the judge asked in Zoom court was the color of our son’s eyes. My heart started racing because I didn’t really know the answer. Babies aren’t born with their permanent eye color, and at only a few weeks old, his were still a sort of hazel-blue-gray guessing game.

My wife and I told the judge as much, but it felt like the wrong answer. I tried to remind myself this whole thing was just a formality, that the boy I gave birth to was already ours. But being tested like that, being asked questions to confirm we really knew him, was a bit unsettling.

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But as it turned out, the judge for our co-parent adoption could not have been kinder. She wasn’t asking these questions in a forceful or skeptical way. She wasn’t trying to challenge or stump us, and she certainly wasn’t looking for a gotcha moment.

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We all knew my wife and I were his parents, which is why the judge waved the need for a guardian ad litem that is often present for a minor in adoption procedures. I imagine the questions about his eyes and how he was sleeping and what he was like were just routine – or maybe just a way to fill time so the open-and-shut meeting lasted more than three minutes.

It was hard not to laugh when she asked us to tell her about him. Well, we explained in the politest way we could, he’s four weeks old, so he sleeps, he poops, he eats.

Adopting the boy I sang to for months as he kicked inside me was among the weirder situations I have found myself in. We had originally thought only my wife would have to adopt him because she was not the birth parent, but it turned out that to obtain equal custody, we would both have to go through the process.   

The meeting couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes long. The judge and our lawyer understood the straightforwardness of the situation, that there was really nothing to confirm but the spelling of our names. It was quick and easy and the smartest possible choice we could have made.

It was a major priority for us to make sure my wife and I were both seen as equal parents under the law. And while where we live does have more inclusive laws, we also know the rights of LGBTQ+ people are never fully secure. It just made sense to take extra steps.

Such is the advice provided by a new report on parentage from a coalition of LGBTQ+ rights organizations spearheaded by the Movement Advancement Project.

The report explained that in all 50 states, married couples, including LGBTQ+ couples, are extended a marital presumption of parentage, meaning that if a child is born to a married couple, they are both presumed the legal parents. But Shelbi Day, Chief Policy Officer for Family Equality, which contributed to the report, emphasized in an interview with LGBTQ Nation that married LGBTQ+ couples should not rely on the marital presumption and should take further steps to protect themselves.

She said that the presumption can be challenged in some states and that Family Equality “strongly suggests that parents take additional steps to establish legal parentage… no matter where people travel and no matter what happens between the parents in the future.” This is true even if both parents are on the child’s birth certificate.

“A birth certificate itself does not establish a legal parent-child relationship,” Day said. “While it is very helpful in navigating day-to-day life, it reflects a legal presumption that in some circumstances can be challenged. In other words, there is considerable vulnerability in relying solely on a legal presumption.”

Day pointed to the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills currently assaulting state legislative sessions to emphasize just how vulnerable our community is.

I knew going in I would be a little bit nervous to speak to the judge. It didn’t matter that we had nothing to worry about. Those kinds of things are always scary. A year prior, my wife and I also had to go to Zoom court when we were changing our last names, since we weren’t taking either of our then-current legal names. We had to raise our right hands and promise we weren’t doing it to get out of debt. I was 400% sure I wasn’t, but the question caught me off guard, and I still started to quiver when questioned under oath.

The experience of adopting our son was always going to be a little bit awkward and weird and intimidating, but I would do it one hundred more times if that’s what it took to protect my family.