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Janina Eulenburg (left) and Christina Klitzsch-Eulenburg with their son in Berlin
Photo: Dominik Butzmann / DER SPIEGEL
Christina Klitzsch-Eulenburg pushes the stroller through a park in Berlin, next to her is her wife, Janina Eulenburg, who carries the four-month-old baby wrapped in a sling in front of her breast.
"I thought it would be great to be a mother," says Klitzsch-Eulenburg, "but having so much more love in life is indescribable."
It was not Klitzsch-Eulenburg who gave birth to her son, but her wife.
Although the two are married, the legislature in Germany does not recognize that she is also the mother of the child.
She would have to adopt her son - via stepchild adoption.
For mothers like Klitzsch-Eulenburg, this is currently the only way to be legally recognized as a parent.
To change that, she and her wife founded the "Nodoption" initiative.
It is different for men: Paragraph 1592 of the Civil Code regulates paternity.
According to this, a father is whoever is married to the mother at the time of the child's birth, who recognizes paternity or whoever a court determines that he is the father.
At least in the first two cases the biological relationship is not examined.
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