When doing the right thing turns out to be the wrong, and oh how hit bites ya...

This blog is just a huge vent. Ignore, skip past or endure because you're just plain bored.

So, most or many of you know or have heard my backwards story about Derrick and I. It wasn't until The Real Housewives of DC that I heard something that summarized us in a nutshell. One of the cast members said she and her husband "met, fell in love, got married and had a baby... just not it that order." Well that's us perfectly.

In our backwardness I decided what I thought was right all things considered. I was in CA, he was in TX and we were far from the happily married couple we are today. Not in a million years did I expect that three and a half years later we'd be on speakng terms let alone getting married. Honestly, I didn't think I would ever speak to him again (on both our accords). 

September 22, 1993 Melanie was born and I decided, to be fair to her and Derrick, that I would give her my last name. Fair to her because I didn't want her growing up wondering why she was different than the rest of the family that surrounded her, and fair to Derrick because I felt like he should have a say in giving his name to someone else.

Wow has this decision bit me in the ass time and time again.

(Now mom, if you're reading this I blame you for some of the run around I've gotten and don't you worry, I'll get to why in just a second.)

In 1997 we have our whirlwind craziness (I may have a blog about it, but you'll have to scroll a good long ways to find it) which included a wedding. Shortly after that I updated my drivers license with my new last name but I probably waited 2 years before legally changing my name through social security and for whatever reason, I didn't think to switch Melanie's at the time.  It wasn't until we enrolled her in school that I realized my mistake.

I attempted to do what my mother had done when she married her second husband, she changed her last name and ours to her married name. I applied for a name change using the documents she had used. An original birth certificate and my marriage license. I assumed because Derrick is her biological father AND on the birth certificate that these documents would be enough. Apparently 10 years makes tons of difference. I was told that Derrick would need to adopt her, his own daughter, in order for her to take his name. We moved from CA to NC, deployments happened and happened again then we were in Okinawa (where more deployments ensued). Family legal issues like this are hard to do from there so we choose to wait until coming back. Now we're back.

I decided since it had been another almost ten years I'd give Social Security a call and see if anything had changed. Thirty plus minutes of being transferred put on hold and finally... SCORE! All is a go. Fill out an application and bring in previously mentioned documents and presto chango, we have a Cordova!

But we don't. We made the trek- an hour each way. Waited almost an hour and hit the same roadblock we'd hit before. Apparently the gentleman we spoke to was a little confused. So with a very emotional Melanie in tow we left the SSA building. It was devastating for her (and I). We were told it was a go, even in the office they told her she would be leaving a Cordova then in the last minute the woman changed her story. Melanie was so excited and for them to tell her it isn't going to happen, it broke my heart. Is it bad that that I got a little pleasure in the fact that her emotional breakdown made the woman at the SSA office teary too?

On the drive home we started making phone calls. The courthouse was a bit rude and base legal was ... well, base legal (you military folks know what I mean).

Another week and a half and we're finally starting to make some headway. Derrick does not need to adopt his own child but we do have to go through the courts to change her name. I had to laugh this morning when our lawyer explained the barbaric process we have to go through to do it but I guess in some wierd twisted North Carolina way it makes sense. So through the hurdles we will go and hopefully by the middle of March (if not sooner) we will have our newest Cordova. :)

It's got to happen, and soon! Melanie said in no way, no how is she going to boot camp as a...

Private Johnson

(they already teased her this past weekend about that while she was at MEPS.
*& as a side note, this is clearly not the only reason for the name change)


A cautionary note to all unwed pregnant women, save the hassle- give the baby his/her daddy's last name from the get go. The Lord only know's what your future may hold.