Testify

Today was the day we testified in favor of SB113.  This is what I wrote out to say at the hearing:

Mr. Chair, members of the Committee, We are Joe and Chantelle Watt from Las Vegas, NV. We are representing ourselves as adoptive parents, and are in favor of SB113.We have been trying to have a baby for 6 ½ years. Within that time I have had 7 surgeries and a miscarriage. We were done with the heartache of trying to conceive so we decided to adopt, mistakenly thinking that it would be less painful.

After 2 years of waiting we were finally picked by a birth mother to be parents to her little girl due in July 2012. From that time we were with her at Dr. appointments and even helped pay some bills that, because of the pregnancy, were hard for her to pay. We became very close. Close enough that I was in the operating room when she gave birth to our beautiful daughter. I was the first one to hear our baby cry and to touch our sweet little one. We named her Anayah, which is a Hebrew name meaning “answered prayers”.  She truly was the answer to our prayers.  We spent every waking minute of the next three days in the hospital holding and caring for our little girl. We were amazed at how quickly we bonded. We watched her sleep and couldn’t believe that we were finally holding our little angel. Three days after she was born the birth mother relinquished her parental rights and we were able to take her home. We were on top of the world.  We couldn’t even begin to imagine the stark contrast to that happiness that we would feel in just a few short days.  Six days after the birth of our daughter, her birth father came forward. We were devastated. How could this man who knew about this little girl from before we ever knew of her, who clearly stated he wanted nothing to do with her, who ignored several attempts of contact, who ignored the certified letter sent to him, have enough power to disrupt this adoption? We held on for dear life thinking we had enough evidence against him. We didn’t think that he should be able to come in and disrupt the adoption. He had 9 months to decide what he wanted. When we went to court the judge told our lawyer that he would have to rule in favor of the birth father.  It didn’t matter that he “wanted nothing to do with her” before placement because we have no laws to protect adoptive families against this in Nevada. Our birth father’s excuse when the judge asked him why he hadn’t come forward earlier was that he didn’t want to deal with our agency or the birth mom and he didn’t want to give them any information. If what he said were true, he could’ve signed the registry and that would’ve all stayed confidential.  Anayah would’ve never been placed with us and all three of us would’ve never had to deal with the traumatic loss.  So after the hearing that day, we made the horrific trip to the agency to drop off our sweet angel, never to see her again. We were broken, worse than we had ever been before. We couldn’t believe that there were no laws that would protect us, or the child from this. We were the ones who were there for her from the beginning. Why didn’t we have any rights? We decided that this needed to change.  That day we asked what we could do to get a law in place to protect everyone from this traumatic experience.  We decided that it was time Nevada adopted this Responsible Father Registry that 36 states already have in place. We didn’t want anyone to ever go through this pain again.  We also realize that, in most cases, birth moms place their babies because the burden of parenting is too much. If the birth father is able to disrupt that, he is forcing that mother into a position where she would have to parent.   That being said, we feel that this bill can help all parties.  The Birth Father, who’s privacy is kept, the birth mother, who has made the tough decision to place, the child who doesn’t have to be pulled from the only life they know, and the adoptive parents who wouldn’t have to deal with such a loss when they’ve already dealt with much loss before they even decided to adopt. We ask that you pass SB113 and help Nevada join the 36 other states that have registries that help responsible birth fathers, and families like ours.  Please help us protect all affected by adoption.  Thank you for your time.
 

Unfortunately, this is not what I said!  When we got there we were in a room with a tv set up and a table with microphones and some chairs.  The monitor had a webcam that captured every moment in real time.  We signed in and waited for the meeting to start.  We met a really nice woman who was there to support the bill and it was cool because she thought the exact same way about it as we did.  Before long, our dear friend Amy was there.  It was so nice to have her there to support us.  She helped me feel a little better about my extreme fear of speaking in public.  Finally things got started.  Senator Scott Hammond opened it up by introducing the bill and explaining about the benefits.  Then Senator Justin Jones told his story about his adoptions.  His story hit so close to home with what we went through with Anayah that I lost it right there.  Up until that point I didn't even feel any emotion other than fear.  A little while later, it was finally our turn to speak.  I got up there and stated our names and went right into our story.  I didn't even get one sentence in before I started crying.  I don't know what I said, I couldn't tell you any specifics.  I don't remember speaking at all.  But what ever it was, we have heard that it was quite powerful.  It was from the heart and that's what needs to be heard sometimes.  I hope what we did will help.  There was only one person who was not in favor of the bill, and he got shot down pretty quick.  Scott Hammond said that it looks like it'll pass the senate.  Now, the hard part, we have to get it to pass the assembly.  So this isn't over.  I hope that we can make a difference.  I hope that's something Anayah can have accomplished for this state!