The Advocate reports that “two women will be listed as parents on the birth certificate of a baby born this week in New Jersey, one of the first implications of a state supreme court ruling that gives same-sex couples access to the same rights as married couples.”

This parentage decision, by a New Jersey family court, is not so surprising, given that even prior to the Supreme Court ruling, New Jersey lesbian couples have obtained pre-birth court orders to put both partners on birth certificates. The first instance of this happening when one woman conceived using her own egg and donor sperm was in July 2005. Two years before that, in early 2003, a couple who conceived by one woman donating an egg to her partner (and using anonymous donor sperm) obtained such an order (followed, two months later, by the similar case of myself and my partner). What the Supreme Court ruling will hopefully do, though, is eliminate the court process for each and every case, putting same-sex parents on the same footing as opposite-sex ones.

It may not be as simple as that, however. The National Center for Lesbian Rights warned, in speaking of a California law that allows both same-sex parents to be put immediately on a birth certificate:

Even if you are successful in having your partner’s name put on the birth certificate, you should still obtain a court judgment declaring both of you to be your child’s legal parent. This is extremely important. If you do not have such a judgment, it is possible that you will experience difficulties in having your legal parent-child relationship honored when traveling to other states or when dealing with the federal government.

There is already one case in which another state,­ Virginia,­ is refusing to recognize the legal parentage of the civil union spouse where the second parent never received a judgment of parentage and is asserting her parentage based solely on the fact that the child was born into a Vermont civil union. We also are concerned that federal agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, may require court judgments before they honor the parentage of children born into California domestic partnerships.

For these reasons, NCLR is strongly recommending that all registered domestic partners that have children after January 1, 2005 still go through a court adoption or parentage proceeding and obtain a judgment declaring both of you to be your child’s legal parents. Judgments of parentage or adoption must be honored by other states under the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. constitution.

I’m assuming (though I’m not a lawyer), that a similar warning applies to Jersey couples. One more thing that hurts this lesbian mom’s brain. Bottom line, if you’re a same-sex couple expecting a child in New Jersey (or, frankly, anywhere in the U. S.), speak with an attorney.