Our son had to wait 2555 days before seeing both his mothers recognized

2555 days, 84 months, 336 weeks: 7 years. Although they may seem boring, numbers often serve to clarify the measure of what we live. 2555 are the days that my son Leon, who is now seven years old, had to wait before having both his mothers legally recognized. An enormous and meaningless period of time. Seven years of his and our life in which anything could happen. It was necessary to live them because my son was born in Italy and my wife Karole and I are not recognized by law in this country as homoparental family. Or rather, we weren’t until yesterday. The law from 2016 (law n.76 of 20 May) provides that two women or two men can unite civilly but Italy remains the last country in Western Europe not to include equal marriage (in Spain it has been legal since 2005, in total today in Europe there are 21 in which equal marriage is possible) and therefore no rights for parents in the case of children.

This is what happened to us and what happens every day to thousands of same-parent families in Italy. The day after the birth I went down to the ground floor of the hospital to register Leon’s name and when I was told that the recognition of the other mother was not foreseen, even though I already knew it, I materialized in front of me, on that sheet of paper, black on white, what it means not to enjoy the same rights as others. It’s what my wife experienced until yesterday, what my son experienced and what I experienced too, even though she is the biological mother. Because not a single day has passed in these seven years in which I haven’t thought: If I get sick or die and the sentence from the juvenile court has not yet arrived, what happens to Leon?

I stopped wondering about it a year ago, when the sentence arrived and Karole’s request for adoption was accepted. We took the photo you see at the opening of this article and we told it here, on the pages of Vanity Fair, in the issue edited by Michela Murgia which came out on newsstands during Pride month: “Family belongs to everyone”. I remember every moment of that morning, I will always remember our lawyer’s message Cathy La Torre that said: «accepted». We had started the whole process about four years earlier: preparing the documentation relating to our history, a chronology of our relationship, the documents we received in Spain when I underwent assisted fertilization, the civil union, the joint bank account, the bills for the same house in our names. And again: the interviews with the social workers sitting on those child-sized chairs, the neuropsychiatrist dictating the sentence to Leon and him telling her that he can read even faster because he knows how to write, the separated fathers lined up along the corridor, the foreign mothers looking for someone who spoke their language. That ice cream eaten outside the Juvenile Court on the day of the first hearing, the hands that shook in front of the judge for the signing of the report, the Lungotevere, Rome that hugs you every time you need it. Then the emails, so many, to our law firm always with the same question: “Has the sentence been recorded?”.

The answer was “Not yet” for a year. 365 days for a sentence signed by a judge and concerning the fate of a minor to be registered in the administrative electronic systems of a Municipality and a new birth certificate to be issued for the minor with the double surname, i.e. that of both mothers finally recognized also by law. To find out, our lawyer downloaded our family status from the online portal of the national registry, day after day, until, a few days ago, the double surname for Leon appeared on the family status. That day the law firm was finally able to send us an email different from the last dozen sent: “The adoption process is finally over.” We would have to propose a toast if it weren’t for the bitter taste this situation leaves on us. “Thank goodness,” my mom replied when I called her on the phone to tell her the news. Knowing you, I know that up until the end you feared that the current government might invent something to thwart the path of our sentence. The news of the last year on the subject of rights is clear: do you remember the birth certificates of the children with two mothers from Padua that the prosecutor’s office had asked to cancel? A few days ago, Carolina Varchi member of Fratelli d’Italia, first signatory of the bill which aims to make gestation for others a “universal crime”said: “none of the Pride demands will ever become law, as we promised our voters when we ran for office. On the contrary, we are working on measures that go against LGBT ideology, such as the establishment of the universal crime of surrogate motherhood.”

“I can’t say how I feel”, Karole replied when we spoke immediately after the email arrived. «There is no after in the relationship with our son Leon, I have always been a mother. There’s an after with me that I still have to metabolize. I can’t make my life a winning slogan. I need time to understand what they did to me. I feel dazed, with my joy trampled upon and the clear sensation that the obligation to explain love makes me want to shine in a sea of ​​sequins.”