This week is the third annual Freedom to Marry Week, and when better to discuss that than Valentine’s Day?

Yesterday, I posted about all the boringly practical things I’m planning to spend my 2007 bonus purchasing or fixing. What I didn’t say is how lucky I feel — the original plan for this bonus was that it would go straight into savings in order to pay for the roughly $3000 that it will cost my family for Jill to become Blur’s legal parent.

And that’s assuming that we don’t get assigned to the homophobic judge in our county and have to move. Again.

The only reason we can afford to do such scandalously frivolous things as garbage disposals and storage bins with that bonus check is because my company announced last week that they’re moving from annual bonuses to twice/year bonuses this year, and also giving retention bonuses. Both of those will be paid out much closer to the time that little Blur is due.

There will be no new tires with that money. That will be all about the lawyers.

When a couple is legally married, they are both automatically the legal parents of any child born during the marriage. They don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees, creating a legally binding relationship between the child and the parent who didn’t gestate the child.

And if that legally married family suffers a tragic accident, such as the death of that non-gestating parent, even a bran-new newborn will at least have the financial safety net of survivorship benefits from the deceased parent’s Social Security.

We spent nearly all of our savings on expenses related to Noah’s adoption, particularly with the unexpected fact of having to move to a new county after being assigned to the one judge in our county who flat out refuses to grant same sex couples second parent adoptions.

But it was worth it to have the security that provides.

I am by no means saying that Noah and I won’t be a serious mess if something were to happen to Jill. We would be!

But it helps a tiny bit to know that at least there would be a modest ongoing income for Noah’s support, through to his adulthood.

Can you imagine how unfair it would be for Noah to have that, but his equally loved and planned for future sibling to be left high and dry?

There are a myriad of other reasons why families like mine need to be free to legally marry, why civil unions, partnership agreements, registered domestic partnerships, and insurance benefits for domestic partners are not enough. For more personal stories about how important this is, check out Robin’s blog, The OTHER Mother, for bloggers participating in a cool week-long meme about it.

All those reasons are compelling and important too. But right now, as a mother who is pregnant with a so very wanted and planned for child, fear of the worst case scenario is the reason that wakes me up at night.