Second Parent Adoption Fundraiser

10/26/23 UPDATE:

You all have been amazing. I mean, catch my breath and wipe some tears amazing. A couple of quick things. One, to add a little more information on second parent adoption...While I may be okay as far parental rights in the moment, the current path state and federal legislators are taking and the only fairly recent addition of 2 moms being allowed on a birth certificate in NC (past several years) means that my legal rights as a parent are a bit unstable. Additionally, if something were to happen to me, Shiloh would not able to claim my social security benefits because of the way the policies are written, which would leave Lauren and Shiloh without that financial support at a critical time. To the best of my knowledge, no, a heterosexual couple doing the same embryo adoption process would not need to take this step or at least would not be vulnerable in the area of social security benefits due to policies that cover the loss of a mother or father but not two mothers or two fathers. So this not only secures my parental rights, but also protects Shiloh and Lauren.

The good news, I've found an attorney (also a lesbian who did a second parent adoption with an embryo transfer) who is willing to handle this for about $1,800 instead of $2,000-$3,000 so I adjusted down the fundraising goal! I've already retained her, and we are now waiting on the embryo clinic to send us the paperwork stating that the donors relinquished parental rights when they donated. After that, she'll start the process.

Hello friends,

As most of you know, we have the joy of being Shiloh's moms thanks to embryo adoption. While we are both equally Shiloh's moms, since I am neither genetically related (neither of us is) nor did I carry, our current state and federal laws make our family vulnerable until I complete the process of a second parent adoption. I'm on the birth certificate, but it's essentially just a clerical document.

The cost for this is approximately $2,000-$3,000 While our goal was always to pay for this ourselves; life expenses, medical expenses, the general expenses of childcare, and short-term disability not paying out over maternity the way we expected means it's taking longer than expected to raise that extra money when we need to have this taken care of as soon as possible.

It's big ask; we thought that we would put the goal out to our lovely and supportive community in case anyone had a desire to chip in to help us reach this goal in a more timely manner.

Meg (and Lauren and Shiloh)