Just call me "Dad"

I am annoyed. I feel guilty about feeling this way, given my recent gratitude-filled post about our family and the overall acceptance that we feel from our community. But, I had to fill in my name as my child's father on two different forms today and it just really pissed me off.

We're planning a trip out of the country during the summer and suddenly realized last week that we need to get a passport for Talia. Mateo already has one, having been schlepped to Mexico when he was three months old.

However, in this case, in classic second kid fashion, we have already managed to lose Natalia's birth certificate. The one with both our names on it. The one we paid nearly a thousand dollars to get. (Well, technically, thanks to good new state laws, my name automatically went on it, although this absolutely confounded the hospital person in charge of birth certificate forms, but we did the second-parent adoption process anyway because we want to be able to leave the state and be legally secure.)

So, I gathered up the relevant documents - her social security card, our adoption decree, etc - and we went down to Vital Records to get another copy of the certificate (after dropping Mateo off at preschool). I was apprehensive, probably for no reason, but because being the non-bio mom makes me feel vulnerable at times such as these, when Sacha isn't there with us. I'm always afraid of some kind of "you're not her REAL mom" confrontation. We got there and had to fill out a form had sections only for "mother" and "father," despite the new law that says domestic partners automatically go on the birth certificate, and despite the gayby boom currently happening here and everywhere else. The forms (or the government) apparently haven't caught up yet. I filled in my name as the father, because what else was I going to do?, and then entered into some confusion with the woman behind the counter.

I explained that we were domestic partners and both Natalia's legal parents and I had the adoption decree there to prove it. Bizarrely, she was fixated on our mutual lack of maiden names. She wanted me to change Sacha's last name to her maiden name. No, that IS her maiden name, I said. Well, then I should change mine to my maiden name. We couldn't just have the same last name without one of us having a maiden name! But that's not on the birth certificate, I said. She changed it anyway.

Then, bizarrely and sweetly, when they called me up to get the official papers, both counter ladies congratulated me and told me how beautiful Natalia was....like I had just adopted her right there in front of them! It was really sweet, although I just kept thinking, but I've always been her mom and, for that matter, I officially adopted her when she was just two months old!

Anyway, the passport paperwork turned out to have a similar issue. I really didn't want to mess up anything for her passport, so I called the passport helpline and they hemmed and hawed and finally told me to mark myself as her father and then write a letter explaining the situation, and then attach it to the rest of the documents. Which I did. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. In this day and age, would it be so hard to just have sections for "parent 1" and "parent 2"?

Plus, I might add, Natalia and Mateo both already have a father, and a great one, at that.

It just left me feeling weird and hypocritical, because normally I am gushingly grateful that I could adopt her (and vice versa for Sacha and Mateo) and that we can have the legal protections that we do. But, somehow, the fact that there was no place for me on that form made me feel bad. And yet, I guess, still grateful that the people in charge were willing to work with me to make it work out anyway. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I think I'll leave it there. I'm sure it will be long forgotten this summer when we're basking in the sun and enjoying the best perk of being married to a teacher - summer vacation!