HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Brandon Marteliz has been fighting to see his 2-year-old daughter since she was born.
Standing in an empty bedroom meant for his baby girl, next to a crib she's now outgrown, he told the ABC Action News I-Team he goes into the room less and less.
"It's just, it's not easy. Sometimes I sit in here too long. Just wondering what she's doing or, you know, what she looks like even," he said.
The I-Team first met Marteliz last year, as part of an investigation into unmarried fathers who have lost their right to custody when the mother puts a child up for adoption. The stories are rarely told because the cases aren't made public.
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Marteliz's story gained national attention.
Last year, Marteliz told the I-Team he was told that his daughter had passed away. In a court filing, he said the mother of his child told him their daughter had died due to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
"I couldn’t accept it, I needed to see. I’m going to hospitals and they’re calling security on me because I’m in there looking for my daughter. And I can’t find her," Marteliz said, in tears.
Then, nearly three weeks after their daughter was born, Marteliz received two texts:
"I have her."
"I got the baby."
According to court documents, the day after his baby was born, before Marteliz said he even knew, the mother consented to adoption and named him as a man who may have interest in the child.
Talking with the adoption agency, Marteliz said, “They were trying to ask me — that she’s going to a great home and all this and I couldn’t hear that, I cut her off and I said, no she’s not. Over my dead body, no, she’s not.”
In October, a judge ruled that his consent was not required for a private adoption to move forward because he did not provide any financial or medical support to his daughter since she was born. Marteliz said he wasn't given enough information to do that.
Marteliz told the I-Team he was ready to talk after losing that court battle for his daughter, a devastating blow.
"These laws must be changed, things must be changed," Marteliz said.
In the year since the I-Team first met Marteliz, he marked the uncertainty surrounding a fight for his baby girl with a permanent reminder — two tattoos on his face. While the I-Team was told the adoptive parents changed Marteliz's daughter's name, he said, "I named her, her name is Amiya and her birthday is January 10, 2022."
Marteliz said when the clock ran out on the deadline to file an appeal after a judge said his consent was not needed to move forward, that was when reality set in.
"This is not something that's designed for fathers or parents to win. This is designed for — it's a system. It's a business," Marteliz said. “I don't see how you can not need a biological father's consent.”
In December, an attorney representing the adoption agency in Marteliz's case, Heart of Adoptions, told the I-Team he, "... was afforded every right he was entitled to under the law, and that the court simply reached a decision that Mr. Marteliz disagrees with."
Jeanne Tate, with Heart of Adoptions, is a board-certified, longtime adoption attorney based in Tampa.
“Florida law has very strict confidentiality laws about adoption, and it prohibits us from talking about the specifics of any case," Tate said.
Tate agreed to sit down with the I-Team to speak more broadly about these types of cases.
After watching reporting from the I-Team on unmarried fathers' rights, the I-Team asked Tate what they've missed in their coverage.
"The most important thing to know is the legislature has worked hard over many decades now to provide a fair balance between the rights of all parties to the adoption triad. The birth father. The birth mother. The child, most importantly. And the adoptive parents," Tate said. "And they have given the father every opportunity to interfere with and prevent an adoption plan even if the mother doesn’t tell him she’s pregnant, even if the mother lies to them about the identity of the father, even if the mother lies to them and tells them she miscarried. Even if the mother doesn’t tell him about her adoption plan."
When asked why when a father comes forward and says, 'This is my child, I want to be a parent, I want to raise that child,' that is not enough for an unmarried father, Tate said, "A father’s oral objection to an adoption plan of the mother is not sufficient in and of itself to stop an adoption."
Tate told the I-Team, "I can't tell you how many fathers say they object — and you never hear from them again."
Marteliz said that's not him and that he will continue to share his story, hoping one day he will get to meet his daughter.
“I know that once my daughter, you know, grows older, she's going to be very proud of her father for stepping up and fighting," Marteliz said.
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