EDITOR'S NOTE: Last month, Judge Mark Jones finally threw the bogus child abuse charges against Nick and Carrie Nowatney out of court— but only after the Florida Dept. of Children & Families had held their two young children hostage for 200 days and State Attorney Kirk Zuelch had forced the this young couple to go through a long, expensive trial.
Another week has passed and more feelings are emerging as my family and I continue to heal. I think the most prominent feeling right now is frustration at wanting to get on with our normal, active lives, but not having the financial means to do it. After months of skimping to start paying off our mountain of legal bills, Nick and I finally splurged and went out on a date by ourselves for the first time since the kids have been returned to our care. Some friends from church volunteered to baby-sit for free. We dined in the elegance of a local fast food restaurant and then cuddled together at the movies . . . our first since moving to the island a year ago.
I also splurged on a haircut this month. When you've become financially devastated it's amazing how pampered you can feel by the things you used to take for granted. Haircuts, movies, and fast food have never given me such a rush before.
When I reflect on what happened in our case, I often wonder about all those other people that have been wrongly accused and didn't have the resources or the support to even begin to fight our broken system. My heart goes out to all those unfortunate parents that are nameless to me.
I hope to start a support group in the near future for parents who have been or are now dealing with false allegations of abuse. At first I thought there might not be enough people for a support group, but the more I learn about the system here in Southern Florida, I fear I may have problems finding a place large enough for everyone to meet.
Not a day goes by when I don't wonder whether any of the employees of the DCF can comprehend the financial strain that has been placed on our family because of those false allegations of child abuse. If we don't get reimbursed from the state, it will take us years to fully recover financially from this ordeal— 5.7 years to be exact. Read on.
Do they realize that at my husband's current pay grade, all the fees and expenses that we incurred because of this case add up to 3.3 years of his income. If every cent we made went to the costs incurred, it would take us three years and four months to pay the debt.
Thanks to our life savings and the benevolent acts of others, at this time we only owe a mere 1.4 years of Nick's income. If we continue to pay one-third of our income per month, we can have this huge bill all paid off in 3.5 years.
But we now realize that paying one-third of our income every month has become unrealistic. Our vehicle needs new tires and a tune up. I need new glasses. We ran out of heart worm medicine for our dogs last month and their shots are 6 months over due. Still other areas of our lives are begging to be tended to.
If I could just get all of this stuff to rhyme maybe I could take on a second job writing country songs.
Ready for the new numbers? Paying one-fourth of our income per month will mean that it will take us 5.7 years to pay our debt and still have money left over to cover mechanics, optometrists, and veterinarians.
Want to hear something really funny?
In 5.7 years Nick will be eligible for retirement having completed 20 years in the Army. Guess what? We will not have been able to save a dime. I guess retirement won't be an option for us. All thanks to the State of Florida and your local DCF.
Speaking of second jobs, Nick has been moonlighting to supplement our income and get our legal bills paid off a little sooner. So now, on top of his military scuba diving instructor schedule that keeps him busy for at least 12 hours a day, he comes home and works another two to three hours a night at his second job.
Despite this hectic schedule he still finds the time to help with dishes and bath time and attempt some meaningful conversation with me, his frazzled, frustrated wife.
We have tried our best to return to a normal life with the kids. The first step in that direction was a kind person donating cable to us so our children could watch Blue's Clues and Franklin again. Everyone but Nathan was getting tired of our 6-hour-long Teletubbie's tape.
I took the kids to "mommy and me" gymnastics for a while until it became a choice between a bag of groceries or gymnastics.
I spoke with one of our neighbors recently who has her sons in swimming lessons at the college. I asked her all about the program. As I came to the question of cost, I suddenly thought to myself, "why am I even bothering with this conversation? The price for these lessons wouldn't be right unless it's free."
I just spoke with another mom on the island today who has both of her children in dance classes. Natalie is very petite, very feminine, and always fluttering around the house (wearing the not- yet her size ballet slippers I snatched at a garage sale) saying, "look at me, Mommy, I'm a ballerina!" I again found myself asking all about the program offered at that particular facility and came to the price question. Why do I even bother initiating these conversations?
Don't worry Natalie, maybe in 5.7 years we will have the money to put you in dance lessons.
We were blessed to find a wonderful lady in town who offers music lessons for $5/half hour. That's a steal anywhere. Natalie and I split the time, she took piano and I took violin lessons. This kind woman even lent me a violin. We took advantage of that for six weeks, but now the teacher has left town until the fall.
Not being able to afford the "extra's" of lessons and dates really frustrates us.
Also depressing is the fact that our growing boy Nathan (now outweighing two pounds) needs new clothes and both children need new shoes. We will be doing our shopping at the Salvation Army next month as this month's income has been divvied out already.
It's not like I've ever bought whole brand new wardrobes for the kids; I haven't. I'm used to shopping at garage sales and taking whatever hand-me-downs I can get to save money. I have no problem with the principle of thrift.
What upsets me right now is that I do not have a choice to buy brand new clothes. I have to by second hand. I am upset because my choice has been taken away; my freedom has been violated.
I guess the rest of our summer will be spent biking out to Higgs beach every day. There is always a bright side, however. I'll have some killer quads from pulling 75 pounds worth of kid and beach paraphernalia the 50 minute round trip. We can't forget the awesome tan I'll have either.
On a more serious note, I do have plans for the summer. I am pursuing becoming a volunteer and hopefully, eventually, a leader in La Leche League, an international breastfeeding support group. Becoming a leader is a rigorous, lengthy process. I have chosen this pursuit because I want to give back to other women the support that I desperately needed and received in the most nightmarish time in my life— when Nathan was taken away from me while breatfeeding.
I also have this faint hope of trying to educate the DCF about the benefits of breastfeeding and the special bond that is created between mother and child. I was devastated by how little regard the DCF had for the breastfeeding relationship between Nathan and I. I wish I had had more energy then to fight them on this issue, when the children were first taken.
Another endeavor I hope to embark on this summer is starting up a quilting club like the one back in my hometown of Emden, Illinois. Every Tuesday 6-10 women gather and transform old sheets, curtains, and remnants into beautiful baby quilts. These beautiful quilts could easily be sold for $50 a piece. They make 500 of them a year. They donate them to the WIC program to be awarded to women who breastfeed their babies past thesix-month point and don't take out any vouchers for formula. They also donate them for the women with babies at the domestic abuse shelters in the area.
I've been to several of these "quilt fests" over the years when visiting in Emden and once sat and admired each quilt in the huge pile and imagined the expression on the mother's face as she received her quilt. I imagined what the quilt would look like after years of use and countless washings as it became some child's special "wubee". The aura at these gatherings was almost magical. Each stitch of every quilt was filled with love. I want that magic and love to be a part of my life. Any quilters on Key West?
Out of the magic and back to reality, Nick and I have asked for an audience with Governor Jeb Bush to kindly request our money back: all $140,000 of it. Wish us luck.
To keep up on how our case is going with the State of Florida, visit http://www.keysdigital.com/~nowatneyc/case.html
EDITOR'S NOTE: Are you outraged yet? If so, here are two ways you can help.
First of all, you can contribute to the Nowatney's legal defense fund. Make your check payable to "The Nowatneys" and drop it by the Key West The Newspaper offices, 422 Fleming, or mail it to us at PO Box 567, Key West FL 33041. If you want to make "in kind" contributions, call Dennis Cooper at 292-2108.
Here's the other thing you can do: Work to vote State Attorney Kirk Zuelch out of office. Zuelch is the one man who could have ordered, at any time, that the charges against the Nowatneys be dropped. He didn't do that.
He is up for reelection this year after serving a full career of 20 years. One of his challengers is Attorney Michael Barnes, who successfully represented Nick and Carrie. In fact, Carrie insisted on being his campaign treasurer.
If you're a Republican, you can vote for Barnes in the primary on Sept. 5. If you're not registered to vote, register as a Republican— and encourage your friends to register— to help ensure that Barnes can go head-to-head with Zuelch in the general election on Nov. 7.
If you're registered as a Democrat or an Independent and you feel strongly about what happened to the Nowatneys, you may want to consider at least temporarily changing your party affiliation to be able to support Barnes in the primary.
If you're not registered Republican, you can't vote in the Republican primary. Temporarily changing your affiliation will not affect how you can vote for other candidates in the general election.
You have until Aug. 7 to register to vote or to change your party affiliation.
According to the folks in the Supervisor of Elections Office, you can register to vote or change your affiliation by mail, on line or by coming into the office on Whitehead at Southard. Info: 292-3416.