Monday, February 23, 2009

Doppelgangers, First Impressions, Birth Certificates

Dopplegangers

Both my children play chess and through their classes my daughter met another girl about her age who could be their half siblings doppelganger. The resemblance is not perfect but close enough that my wife and I will occasionally remark about it.

We wonder if our daughter has noticed it (or even our son) as she and her brother have a picture of their half sibling in my son's room. Neither has said anything and we have commented about it to them but it is amusing.


First Impressions

I have not posted in about a month as work and life in general have been busy. We attended a NYC Gathering of donor conceived families and my impressions are posted on the Donor Conception New York blog. I also posted there my thoughts regarding the January meeting I attended of the Third Party Parenting Network here in NYC.


Birth Certificates

I have wanted to write a post regarding birth certificates as I read a couple of other blogs about this issue as it relates to donor conceived kids here in the US as well as the ongoing efforts in the UK to require notations on the certs of kids conceived via donor gametes. We also just submitted passport applications for the kids so the issue has been on my mind as I had to obtain certified copies of their certificates for the applications.

In the US there is a bill before the Missouri legislature that would grant donor conceived individuals greater rights regarding learning more about their donors and also includes provisions regarding birth certificates but the bill lacks teeth to require compliance by out of state cryobanks. I hope to write more about these issues soon.