My name is Kiersten Connolly Hatch. In 2015, my fiancé, James, and I welcomed beautiful, perfectly healthy boy/girl twin babies into the world, Jameson and Dorothy. They were born at 40 weeks and didn't need a second of NICU time. We brought them home thinking we were in the clear. We had been bombarded with the worry of all that can go wrong during twin pregnancy for the previous 9 months. What we didn't know is what I know now about safe sleep. Our beautiful babies slept virtually every single sleep in their matching Rock n Plays. At that point in time, the RnP was THE hottest baby item on the market. There wasn't a parent around that didn't tout its wonders.

However, on May 16th, just 6 weeks after their birth, we put them to sleep in their Rock n Plays for the last time. We awoke to our perfect son, Jameson, not breathing. Despite paramedic efforts, we were not able to revive him. That night began a life of hell for my family that I wouldn't wish on anyone. I fell into the deepest, scariest depression I had ever experienced, and James had to step up to the plate and care for our surviving infant. He wasn't afforded the opportunity to grieve.

I slowly began to crawl out of my hole, and we tried to carry on as best we could. I did not realize how badly James was suffering, how he wasn't coping. We fell pregnant with another baby and found out it was a boy. The news was bittersweet to me, but terrified James. He was the most incredible father to our surviving twin Dorothy, but the idea of losing another baby tormented him. One otherwise normal afternoon, he went into our back woods and hung himself from a tree in the woods he used to play in as a child.

I was now left with two very young children to raise while grieving the loss of a child and my partner.

James took anything that remained of me that day. I just trudged through surviving in a fog.

I delved deeply into the why's and the how's of our son's death and my partner's death. I discovered safe sleep and realized we had done everything wrong.

In 2019, Fisher-Price announced the recall of their Rock n Play that had come about not because they suddenly decided to do the right thing and take their death trap off the market, but because they had been forced to remove it by the tireless action of loss parents like myself.

Yet even in their recall announcement, they insisted on their innocence and the safety of their product and doubled down on blaming the loss of parents for their infants' deaths. They insisted, "when used properly it's perfectly safe," and the public latched on to this narrative and continued to use the product.

That is also when I began my legal fight against the infant and child product Goliaths Fisher-Price and Mattel. We filed suit not even three months after the recall. I have been fighting tirelessly and agonizingly since that date 6 years ago. I have had to fly to CA from NY to hear their attorneys argue the most soulless things in court. To listen to their empty and disgusting platitudes. I have had the case dismissed two years ago on statute of limitations grounds and yet continued the fight on appeal. NY has a two-year statute of limitations on these cases and even though we did not receive Jameson's official death certificate for 18 months after his death, they still upheld that I should have filed suit in that 24-month time frame, during which Fisher-Price and Mattel were covering up the death and injury reports they were receiving and denying culpability.

This has all recently come to a head when we argued our appellate case in front of a CA judge in December and despite my highest of hopes, the appellate court has decided to uphold the lower court's dismissal on statute of limitations grounds. What's even worse is the attorneys that have been representing me from the beginning no longer can continue on contingency.

I, however, cannot, will not let this be the end, not like this, not on these grounds. I have all the fight left in me. I have turned down 4 separate settlement offers from the defendants in the past because they were nothing short of insulting. I cannot let this be how this tremendous and arduous fight ends, but I need help, and I am up against an insanely loud ticking clock. I have to file the petition with the CA Supreme Court by March 10th. I have been frantically searching for new representation, but no one seems to be willing to take the case on contingency. I need over $700 just for the filing fees. Additionally, I need the retainer for a CA attorney, which will cost anywhere from $6,000 to $15,000.

I don't even know if it's possible to get this done with the pressures, timelines, and requirements before me, but I just cannot give up. The thought of lying down and letting the clock run out while Fisher-Price and Mattel mucky mucks celebrate behind the scenes enrages me. I am a solo, widowed mother with two young kids, living in a tiny rental, barely getting by month to month, while the people responsible for the hell we live in live lives of luxury. I am pleading for any help that you are compelled to provide and thank you from the bottom of my heart just for reading and sending positive thoughts.

Thank you!