Friedlander, J.
During the course of their same-sex domestic partnership, N.J. (Mother) and A.C. (Partner) decided to have a child together. Mother was artificially inseminated with donor semen and gave birth to C.J. (Child), and for a time, Mother, Partner, and Child functioned as a family unit. When Child was two years old, Mother and Partner ended their relationship. Thereafter, Partner exercised regular visitation with Child for several months, until Mother stopped all contact between Partner and Child. Partner then filed a petition seeking joint custody and visitation, which the trial court denied. Partner now appeals, raising the following restated issues:
1. Did the trial court err in declining to enforce the parties’ agreement that Partner would be a parent to Child?
2. Did the trial court err in denying Partner’s request for joint custody?
3. Did the trial court err in concluding Partner lacked standing to be granted visitation?
…
Until that happens, however, we must do the best we can to resolve the issues that come before us. In the present case, what little guidance there is comes in the form of a reversal of this court’s opinion in In re A.B. In that case, we held that when two women in a domestic partnership agree to join together in raising a child conceived by artificial insemination of one of the partners with donor semen, both women are the legal parents of the resulting child. Our Supreme Court, however, granted transfer and vacated that opinion in full. Although the Court did not expressly disapprove of this court’s holding in In re A.B., we believe its decision to vacate our opinion and decide the case on a much narrower procedural basis amounts to the same thing; the Court’s discomfort with the breadth of our holding bespeaks its disapproval. Therefore, we decline to reach the same result here. In the absence of a legislative directive, if full parental rights are to be recognized in a former same-sex partner under the circumstances presented here, that recognition must come from our Supreme Court.
….
We believe the Court’s decision in King v. S.B. signaled its amenability to expanding the class of petitioners with standing to seek third-party visitation to include individuals situated similarly to Partner. Thus, in the particular factual circumstances of this case, a partner who did not give birth to the child has standing to seek visitation with the child. This is not to say that a former domestic partner is automatically entitled to visitation in these circumstances—it must still be established that visitation is in the child’s best interests. We therefore reverse the trial court’s conclusion that Partner lacked standing to seek visitation with Child and remand with instructions to reconsider Partner’s request for visitation under the standard set forth in our third-party visitation cases.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded with instructions.
BAKER, J., and VAIDIK, J., concur.