Legally Confused

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It’s been far too long since I’ve updated everyone on how the puzzle campaign is going. That being said, I could list to you the millions of reasons, why but I won’t! Instead, I will fill you in piece by piece on how our journey is progressing. I had to break it into a few posts, because well…my OCD brain couldn’t handle it all in one.

As you may have guessed from my “oh-so-creative” post title, this one is about the legality of the whole thing (It’s actual more interesting than you would think…so keep reading…).

We are currently in the midst of legal stuff…lots, and lots, and lots, of legal STUFF! Our lawyer is wonderful and thank goodness because it’s an exhausting and confusing process!

In late July we met with him for this first time and instantly felt great about our decision to change lawyers (I won’t go into detail on this right now). We spent HOURS discussing all the protocol and legal things we were about to embark on! It was EXHAUSTING and our brains were FRIED after our meeting, Ambree and Lucas were there and were champs through the tedious, wordy mumble jumble. So here’s the scoop…

Our lawyer’s main job in this process is to draft a contract between myself, Lucas, Derek and Ambree (my sister and brother-in-law). We have been discussing this contract for months now because it is a MAJOR part of the process. The contract is a good thing to have to make sure all parties are taken care of and have their input.

It’s been an interesting process for sure. As parents, we have had to make some serious decisions about a child we don’t even have yet, probably much sooner than others may have to. We have to work through a lot of feelings on what lengths we will go to for our baby while at the same time making sure my sister is taken care of, safe, and is going to still be able to be a good mom to Gavin and Maycee while carrying our baby.

The contract is being written right now and should be completed in a week or two.

Now for the remainder of the legal stuff, my brain has had to process a lot so I hope this information is all accurate (this is my disclaimer that it may not be) but I’ll do my best.

Once we have a contract we will need to present it to a judge for approval. This is basically a “go ahead” to start the medical process. This will be a happy, glorious day for us that we are all looking forward to.

HOWEVER, because the state of Utah treats gestational carriers like adoption, we have to go through a very similar process. We are petitioning to get the home visit waved (because it’s about $1,000) extra. It’s normally waved in nearly all g.c. cases so we are crossing our fingers this will be same for us. We just submitted our fingerprints for FBI background checks and are collecting letters stating we will make good parents now!

Despite our frustration, and downright anger at times, that we have to go through all of this to have OUR OWN BABY, we are hanging in and doing what we need to do. HOWEVER, we have BIG plans down the road to push for many changes in this process. Some days the anger mounts, and mounts, and mounts but we move forward…

(I’m sure you will hear more ranting about this down the road, but this was my “nice way of saying it” for the time being.)

Our lawyer will also help with things once we have a live birth. As it stands today, when the baby is born, my sister and MY husband will be listed as the parents until we go to court for me to get custody of MY OWN baby. Yep, let that one sink in for a bit!

I think that was enough detail for the time being on the legal end of things. Again we love our lawyer and our very thankful he is working so hard on our case and taking as much stress off of us as he possibly can…what a relief!