OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Heather Finstuen doesn’t consider herself an activist.

She and longtime partner, Anne Magro, deliberated for months before they decided to become part of a lawsuit challenging an amendment to the Oklahoma Adoption Code that barred state officials from recognizing same-sex adoptions from other states or countries.

And while it took some time and two federal court rulings, the outcome legally restored her place in the lives of her and Magro’s daughters.

“I can’t tell you how relieved we are,” Finstuen said. “Our goal was really and has always been to protect our kids and to make sure they have both moms to take care of them.

“If anything were to happen to Anne, I would be able to step in and keep our family intact.”

The dispute appeared to be headed for another round in federal court when the Oklahoma State Department of Health opted not to appeal a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the agency.

The Health Department became involved after a same-sex couple from Seattle sought a supplemental birth certificate for their Oklahoma-born daughter, indicating both men as her legal parents.

Ed Swaya and Greg Hampel, who went through a wedding ceremony in 1999, filled out the paperwork to get the document but received a certificate back from the Health Department that listed Hampel as the father, but left off Swaya’s name, he said.

“It said they couldn’t establish maternity for Mr. Swaya, so they left my name off the birth certificate,” Swaya said. “They didn’t want to put two men’s names on the birth certificate.”

The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund sent a letter on behalf of Swaya, 46, a marriage counselor, and Hampel, 38, a first-grade teacher, to the Health Department, which then sought an opinion from Attorney General Drew Edmondson’s office.

The opinion concluded that if a couple of the same gender received an adoption decree in another state for an Oklahoma-born child, and the decree listed both partners as parents, the Health Department would have to issue a supplementary birth certificate, also listing both partners as parents.

“The Department of Health complied and that should’ve been the end of the story,” said Kenneth Upton, an attorney for Lambda Legal Defense in Dallas. “But apparently some people in the Legislature became very upset that the state of Oklahoma issued a birth certificate with two parents listed of the same sex.”

At the end of the 2004 legislative session, state lawmakers pushed through a new law stating Oklahoma doesn’t recognize adoption of children of two people of the same sex.

That’s when Finstuen, Magro and another lesbian couple, Jennifer and Lucy Doel, got involved, suing the Health Department, Gov. Brad Henry and Edmondson.