Searching for Emma: Father Fights for Daughter Given Up for Adoption

Comment from unhappygrammy
Just as John Wyatt has been denied his rights to raise his daughter, my two grandchildren's father's have been denied rights to their children. The difference in these cases in Nashua, NH, DCYF gave the court a fictitious mans name as my granddaughter's father. We were unable to locate her father when she was illegally placed in foster care. When we finally located him, he filed for custody and paternity testing twice and was denied both times. The Probate Court Judge stated he had no standing and granted adoption of my granddaughter knowing her real father's rights were NOT terminated. The Judge even lied in his decision, stating my daughter never filed an affidavit with the court stating the baby's father, yet a copy of the affidavit was in an objection brief filed by the NH Attorney Generals office months before, not to mention the father's name was in many of my daughter's medical record's.My grandson's father's rights were never legally terminated either. DCYF chose a man with the same name, twenty years younger, who lived in Nashua. When they were told this man was not my grandsons father, their response,"So what. No big deal." My grandson was illegally adopted also.I met another mother in Nashua whose rights were terminated over her three children. One of them has a different father than the other two and his name is on the birth certificate. Instead of terminating his rights, they terminated the other mans rights for all three kids.NH DCYF and the NH Judicial system clearly do NOT follow the law. This corruption and abuse toward men as well as all other family member's need's to stop. Terminating a fictitious mans rights makes it easier and faster to terminate the mother's rights, making sure DCYF's incentive money is paid to them faster. These men don't have a chance in hell to fight for their children, any more than the rest of the relatives do.

Searching for Emma: Father Fights for Daughter Given Up for Adoption
John Wyatt Said Ex-Girlfriend Had No Right to Give Daughter to Utah Couple

167 comments By SARAH NETTER
April 16, 2010

John Wyatt never got a chance to hold his daughter. He's never even seen her. All he has are a few pictures.


John Wyatt is in a custody dispute with ex-girlfriend over baby Emma.
He hopes that will eventually change.

Wyatt, 21, is embroiled in a multi-state custody dispute after his ex-girlfriend gave their daughter, Emma, up for adoption without his consent.

"I talked about raising the baby everytime I saw her. To me there was never really an option," he told "Good Morning America" today. "I knew that I would do anything to be there for my child because I know what it's like to grow up without a father."

When Colleen Fahland got pregnant at 19, Wyatt said, he was very clear that he wanted to raise their daughter.

"Every time we talked together it was clear we were going to make a decision together," he said.

But Emma, now 1, was adopted by a family in Utah, a state known for siding with mothers in out-of-wedlock cases.

Wyatt said that he told Fahland the night before the birth that he wanted to be in the delivery room. The next day, he couldn't reach her and panicked.


Wyatt said he went with the hospital, but was told she wasn't there. But she was there and had told the hospital not to list her as a patient. He tried to enter the nursery to see his daughter and was threatened with arrest.

He tried for days to find out what happened to Fahland and his baby and was devastated to find out Fahland had given the baby up to Utah couple.

Wyatt went to court in Virginia and won custody of the infant, setting off a legal dispute between Virginia and Utah.

"It's the worst experience I have ever been through in my life," he said.

Lawyers for Fahland told ABC News that she now has "regrets" about how the situation was handled.

Wyatt's lawyer, Stanton Phillips, said Utah has made such situations "impossible" for birth fathers.

"We're being told that Utah law overrides Virginia," Phillips said, accusing Utah of ignoring federal kidnapping laws that gives the child's home state, Virgnia in this case, the authority to decide custody.

The Utah couple who adopted Emma issued a statement to ABC News that they are "saddened that Mr. Wyatt has chosen to try this case in the media, rather than the courts where it belongs."

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/baby-emma-father-fights-daughter-adoption/story?id=10392464