Hi!

It’s us again!  You may remember the last time we sent an update we were all set to have our day in court.  On the day we ended up devastated that the Judge could not put through our application to have Lesley recognised as a legal parent to our daughter.  We could hardly talk on the day because we weren’t expecting it as we had everything in place to ‘sail through the day.’  The reason our case wasn’t heard that day was because District Court Rules weren’t in place throughout the country (Ireland) and therefore the Judge who was appointed to our case could not in good faith approve our application.  We felt sick about it but we knew waiting would be better than an approval that could be questioned.

Fast forward to today, September 1st, 2020, we were granted another sitting before a Judge.  I was nervous, Lesley was nervous, our solicitor (bless him) seemed really nervous too!  Talk about the cold sweats and buckets of emotions.  Judge Brennan was charming, compassionate and made our hearts smile.  He also APPROVED our application without question. He said that he was been a Judge for 36 years and never in his courtroom were there tears of joy.  He said he was delighted to be a part of such a monumental case and that we made his day.  

Approval of our application means that Lesley is now considered to be a legal parent to our beautiful little girl and our family unit is recognised under Irish law.  

We hope other same-sex parent families are soon to be automatically recognised.

We also want to thank each one of you who have been right behind us all the way throughout this, who took time to sign our petition and get the ball rolling, who have asked us how things were progressing, who have shared your own stories, who have helped us on this journey, we can only say thank you, thank you, thank you.  From the bottom of our hearts we will never forget what this petition has helped to achieve... awareness and justice for our family and perhaps the families of others.

For those families still in limbo, we are still here for you.

From our family to yours we send lots of love and and lots of hugs.

May love always prevail.

Amanda and Lesley, xXx