my partner and i had our baby in San Francisco. his birth certificate has both of our names on it. i am listed as the father since she was the one who carried the baby. even with my name on the birth certificate we were still afraid that we might have a problem if he were to get ill in other states. so we applied for me to legally adopt him. we had an social worker to come and visit and check my background. in 6 plus months i became his adopted parent. we went to court and got sworn in and sign papers. Now I carry a copy of his birth certificate and the legal paper that shows i am his legal parent in my wallet. it is scary and we did everything to try to protect him and us. we started to write our will too.