But the infant in my arms calmed as she recognized my voice and opened her eyes wide to gaze into the face of one of her mothers - my face.

It was my decision not to get pregnant. Though I'd wanted a child for years, by the time my partner, Kristin, and I were ready to bring a child into our family I was a graduate student working for a nonprofit organization that was too small to provide me health insurance.

I was older than Kristin, I was the one with the desire to get pregnant, but she was the one with the fantastic health insurance. And so, I deferred my dream of pregnancy for the larger dream of a healthy family and acted in the best interest of a child I hadn't met yet. It was Kristin who got pregnant and carried our child to term.

The way my daughter and I interact, there is no doubt that I am her mother and that she and Kristin and I are a family. Unfortunately we aren't allowed to be a legally protected family. We've thought of moving to a state with fair adoption laws, but this is our home. Our support systems, our jobs, my family, are all here.

I find myself angry at the thought that we have to leave our home and move to a different state in order to fully protect my daughter. If my daughter gets sick, I want to be able to take family leave to care for her. If I die while she's still a child I want her to receive my Social Security. If Kristin dies I want to know that our daughter will be able to stay with me, her mother, rather than being taken into the state's custody and given to strangers in the absence of a legal parent.

All I want is to be able to adopt my child.

For the past two years I've endured invasive fertility procedures and taken powerful drugs in an attempt to get pregnant with our second child. As I talk to people about my attempts to conceive, I am repeatedly asked the same question: Why don't you adopt?

I am still surprised by how many people aren't aware that the adoption laws were changed in 1999 to prevent qualified, loving, co-habitating adults - like me - from adopting and fostering.

There are children who don't have homes because of this law. There are children like mine who have homes and parents but few legal protections. But most people didn't notice the law change - and today they can't understand why I'm not allowed to adopt my daughter.

So our family sits here, trapped by law in a house of tissue-paper protection, held together by love, working for change.

At least we're not working alone. House Bill 318, sponsored by Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck, D-Salt Lake City, would remove the cohabitation clause from Utah's adoption laws.

If you and your family are impacted by the current law, if you know someone affected by the law as it stands, or if you simply believe that my child (and my relationship to her) deserves equal protection under the law, here are two ways to take action: 1) Contact your legislators and ask them to support HB 318, and 2) join us at a rally at the Capitol on Feb. 13 at 6 p.m.

Let's make sure the Legislature knows that it's time to do right by our children.

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* TRISTA EMMER, her partner, Kristin Midyett, and their daughter live in Sugar House.