EXCITING NEWS!!

For some of you, this may sound weird, silly or even unfathomable...but put yourself in a "single-mother's" perspective for a moment and maybe you'll be able to feel the excitement and thrill of today.

I received in the mail today, Mikaelyn's NEW birth certificate! The birth certificate with Anthony's name as the father and with her name legally hyphenated. (I'm just not ready to give up my last name if there isn't a ring on my finger!) :o)

When I found out that I was pregnant, it was a SHOCK to both myself and Anthony...let alone my family! (Birth control pills DO NOT always work, Mikaelyn is living proof of that) Without going into too much detail, throughout the pregnancy, I wasn't sure what Anthony's role would be in Mikaelyn's life as I left it completely up to him how he wanted to move forward. As the birth became closer and more eminent, Anthony started to feel the joy of what having a little girl would be and became very excited about being a Daddy to this little baby girl. Although we decided to co-parent as much as possible (seeing that he didn't live with us and had a busy schedule amongst other things), we also decided that to avoid having to deal with child support and such, we would leave his name off of the birth certificate.

Some may not understand my stance on child support, but I do not want a "pay check" father for my child...I want their time, care and love for my child...money is just money, love is EVERYTHING! Sadly, the State of Washington (and I'm sure many other states), make it very difficult for Father's when it comes to child support and I didn't want that to be a factor in whether my daughter had a father or a "dad". I never wanted her to be the victim of resentful feelings because of the money having to be given.

So for the last 4 years, Mikaelyn has not had anybody listed as her father. It's really not that big of a deal, but it was never far from my mind or my heart. I never felt like she was complete without that name legally on a piece of paper, even though she had a stay at home dad that showed and proved his love for her on a daily basis.

But, with my trip to Uganda coming up, I felt it necessary that I handle some "business" as far providing for my family was concerned. I got myself a life insurance policy in case anything happened to me, I'm also working on finally having my will drawn up and getting Anthony on the birth certificate was at the top of this list. If something happened to me, Mikaelyn would automatically go to my parents. Now, I don't have a problem with this as my parents LOVE Mikaelyn dearly and would raise her with the utmost care and concern for her well being...but I wouldn't want to uproot her and take her away from her Father and the life that she knows. Not now, not after everything we have worked towards the last 4 years. Now, if this happened, Anthony could fight for her (which he would), but he would have to go through hoops to prove paternity and then all kinds of things that I would never want to not only put Mikaelyn through, but make him go through after losing me and possibly losing his daughter.

This may sound all a bit morbid, but when you have a child, you HAVE to think of the future and you have to prepare for the worst at some point.

So, with all of these things in mind, we finally decided to sign the paternity affadavit to prove that Anthony is the father!! After mailing it in a few weeks ago and paying the small fee to not only add him, but to legally hyphenate her name (she can decide what she wants to go by when she grows up), I recieved her "Certificate of Live Birth" today in the mail!

I am beyond thrilled to finally have documentation for my little girl. I feel relieved that if anything were to happen to me, that my family would be taken care of and that there is NO QUESTION who my daughter is and who she belongs to.

Today is a good day...and I'm going to go celebrate with Mikaelyn Joy Groenink-Hodge! :o)

Here we are...The Groenink-Hodge Family! :o)