Lesbian couple wins right to have names on children’s birth certificates

By LAURA KEBEDE Richmond Times-Dispatch Richmond.com – January 25, 2015

When Maria Hayman delivered her twins, Merida and Finn, on June 13, 2013, at St. Francis Medical Center, there was no doubt in her mind as to who the other parent was.

Her wife, Joani Hayman, had contributed eggs that were placed in Maria after being fertilized with sperm from a donor who had revoked his parental rights.

But Joani’s name was not allowed on the children’s birth certificates because egg donors do not have parental rights, according to the Code of Virginia.

But after an 18-month game of wait-and-see as the issue of gay marriage was being settled in Virginia, Richmond Judge Designate T.J. Markow last month ordered the Office of Vital Records in the Virginia Department of Health to amend the birth certificates to show Maria and Joani as the “only parents of the children.”

The Haymans initially contemplated pursuing a custody order, or what their attorney, Colleen Quinn, says was called “LGBT two-parent protocol” in Virginia by lawyers familiar with same-sex couple cases.

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