Lawyer Update

So I forgot to give the oh so important lawyer update.

So the office is 3 minutes from our house. And of course CS was late...but she was coming from downtown and we live in the burbs. When I went to the building the firm was in I asked the front desk , "Um, where is suite 400?" They said "Fourth Floor, they have the whole floor." (oh they fancy huh?!). I went upstairs and after finally remembering the name of the lawyer we were meeting with I went to the receptionist desk and told them I was there. I was taken to the conference room and the receptionist asked me if I wanted some coffee or tea...once again, oh you fancy huh??! We met with Lawyer Mark, who was very nice, very competent and very gay. Our meeting was at 5:30pm and I am pretty sure we were done by 6:27pm. 1 hour = $350. After that hour I decided to become a lawyer...* In addition to learning that lawyers really do make a shite ton of money, we also we learned that in Maryland a known donor contract is not legally enforceable but that it does go towards intent if there ever was a custody battle**. In addition, we learned that since we are doing at home inseminations we will need to keep a log of each and every time we inseminate so that when KD terminates him parental rights and CS does the second adoption we will have documentation to verify that KD was actually the kd and that it could not be anyone else. In addition to all the known donor stuff, Lawyer Mark will also be doing our wills, power of attorney and advanced medical directives. Lawyer Mark also let us know that once a bambino is born that our KD will need to then sign over his parental rights and in Maryland there is a 30 day period in which he can change his mind. After the 30 days and with no changes in the termination of parental rights then CS can file for a second parent adoption. The second parent adoption will take at most 90 days. Lawyer Mark said that basically he will do all the leg work and just make sure that we sign on the right lines. At the end of it all, we are looking at between $6,000 and $10,000.

In addition to all the legal stuff, Lawyer Mark likes to over share: he let us know he has gotten married to his partner in CA and MA, had a civil union in NJ, is slated to go on the largest gay cruise out there (this is after just coming back from the Keys.).*** He also let us know that we are on the right page and that he has a client that found a known donor online and once she had a baby the known donor then proceeded to try to gain full custody. They did not have a known donor contract.

So there you have it. Our lawyer update.
Have a wonderful Sunday!

*this is just another drop in my "i have no idea if my career is what I want to be doing" bucket
** We dont think that this will be an issue, but better safe than sorry
***once again...can I be a lawyer?