 Happy Thursday, everyone. Welcome to Geeks are sexy. I'm Jason Laduke taking over the fourth Thursday of the month for Michelle Davis who hosts this show the rest of the weeks of the rest of the weeks of the month and we are back I know I haven't been around for a while if you want to know the story behind that hit me up on social media or something Like that because I don't want to take time away from our guest to talk about my things So we are so glad you're doing better. I'm glad I'm doing better too But please hit me up if you want to know the story before we get into our first guess I do want to let everyone know this month our show is actually being sponsored We've been our first sponsor and we're being sponsored by 5am global Which is a strategic marketing agency that helps companies and brands achieve exponential growth of their revenue right here in Las Vegas Owned by our good friend Sean was who's been a guest in the show a couple of times And what I want to talk about the 5am global does that's so great is branding and not just your logo or your marketing collateral That kind of stuff Well, don't really do is sit down and understand why you started this company help you develop that culture fit Help you develop that mission statement that description if you need that or if you've already got that figured out Help you turn that into really great branding. So thanks to our friends at 5am global this month for sponsoring the show And now I want to introduce our first guest Suzanne Hobbs who's here talking about safe haven. Thank you for being here Suzanne today Suzanne He's an Idaho native who moved to Las Vegas a few years ago You're going to tell us about all about why you did that But up in Idaho, you were a news reporter. So be gentle on me as I try to as I try to do my show here But you're a news reporter and an anchor and you left that career behind To do what you're going to talk about today. And I think that's going to be great You're also the author of a amazon best-selling children's book Called the hungry snake. We're going to talk a little bit about that You've been on Oprah. Yes, and you were telling us how this is much better than Oprah Big deal compared to Oprah. Hear me now. Hear me now. Believe me later audience And um, you've also been named one of the most 100 most inspiring women in the world. Yes. Thank you for being here today Thank you so much for joining us and being so sexy this month Absolutely I'm really excited to be here because any chance that I get to talk about the safe haven law and make sure that Everyone knows about the law. It's a win. So thank you for having me on Well, tell us all about it. But before you get to the nuts of bolts of safe haven And you came across this this really changed your life in the year 2000 So tell us that story and then you can tell us what the nuts and bolts of the safe haven law are into that All right, so I was living in Idaho Falls, Idaho in october of 2000 I was an investigative television news reporter and I got a tip from a cop that a body of a newborn baby was found dead in a Dumbster So my photographer and I rushed over to the scene and we see the crime scene tape being put across the alley We watched the police and the man from the funeral home and the Investigators taking the body of a baby wrapped in a towel out of the dumpster putting it in the van for the funeral home to Go have an autopsy done and at the time I was married. We could not have children We were considering adoption and I was thinking I would have taken that child anyone would have gladly taken that child So I got an exclusive interview with that girl They found out it was a teenage girl who did her pregnancy from her dad The dad then told me that there was this law called a safe haven law I had never heard of the safe haven law before and he said Idaho should have had this law a long time ago And then maybe my daughter would have used that law and wouldn't now be facing criminal charges for throwing her baby in a dumpster So I made that my mission to get the safe haven law passed in Idaho And about two years later my husband and I were on the adoption list to adopt a baby And incredibly the state of Idaho health and welfare chose us as the parents of the fifth baby surrendered under that safe haven law So lily is now almost 16 years old And fortunately her birth mother made a brave and beautiful decision To surrender lily at a hospital a few days after she was born So I'm very thankful that that this little cool story has happened and I now advocate for it 100 all the time It's it's amazing when something like that could impact our lives in such a way where it's not it's not just Wow, that was impactful, but that was so impactful I want to get involved and and then to even go further and say I I want to I want to bring one of these Children into my life as well. I had to be part of my family so so inspiring. So That's your story how you got here Tell us about the Nevada safe haven law. Tell us about kind of the nuts and bolts of safe haven Yeah, so the law varies from state to state But in every state you can safely surrender your newborn at a hospital and that is the case here in Nevada as well So you can Hand off your baby to anyone it has to be physically the baby needs to be physically handed off To someone that works at that hospital. You can also hand the baby off at fire stations as well Any medical office? So it's important that That if you decide you cannot keep your child, you know Within the first few days of birth that you are able to legally surrender that baby Under that law and you can turn around and walk away. No questions asked And what is the time frame? It's usually 30 days 30 days here in Nevada It's 30 days if you're watching somewhere else it may be different. So check But but it's typically 30 days and you can go to the national safe haven alliance.org It's kind of a long name, but there's a map of the united states The national safe haven alliance.org click on that map and you can learn the law it varies from state to state Yeah, we'll put that in a show notes. So you guys don't have to try to remember that But we'll put that up. We'll link we'll put that link in so you guys can just click on that if you're interested in that So 30 days here in Nevada That's typical of please look before before you and here in Nevada. You must hand it to a person. Yes, right? So you can't Don't it's not it's not like tv. You can't just leave it on the doorstep So so you so to to be eligible for the safe haven wall You really you have to have it for a person, but if you go to a hospital If you go to a fire station, they're all trained if you tell them what you're doing They know just to take it and that you don't have to answer any questions Sadly, we still find babies abandoned in places that are unsafe And either the baby has died or the baby is still alive But we don't want to have to try to find where these babies are just hand them off No questions asked walk away knowing you did the right thing So but we we've saved over 4,000 babies from this law in Nevada in the united states in over 20 years Yeah, over 4,000 babies have been safely surrendered and then adopted into loving homes. That's great. That's wonderful now The next step every state has their individual law So what's the next step for safe haven laws? I would personally love to see the law become more federal So the education so the law can become the same in all of the states And it's easier to educate when it's the same and then we can get more funding to help educate because I want this I want some education in schools as well I want signs in every bathroom stall at all the you know restaurants and convenience stores and you know airports But everybody needs to know about this law because you really don't know who's hiding a pregnancy You don't know who's just had a baby and realizes. I can't do this And sadly parents are making wrong sad harboring decisions that impact not only the baby's life, but their life forever as well Forever, yeah Yeah, that's um, so that's that's what we're trying to do and how can people How can they get involved to help if they want to help with that campaign always looking for volunteers You can reach out to us on our facebook page at the national safe haven alliance dot org And you can just message us or comment and we're always looking for people who want to help set up boosts Who want to just promote it through their social media anything you can do, you know Sharing this podcast is going to be valuable, but just let people know about the safety even more Well, that's something oprah never did for you. Did she she never she never gave you she never gave you a video You could put on your facebook page. Did she so so Sorry oprah. Don't don't ruin my life. I know you're powerful Um, okay, so that so we talked about say haven't long That's really what you came on to talk about but also what is very interesting to me because you were an amazon best-selling author Of the hungry snake. Yep. I wrote a great children's book about this and Tell us about the hungry snake. Tell us how you got started with the idea of writing a book until it's about what you learned while writing a book It was quite challenging and i'm glad I did and I would encourage anyone that has a story to tell to get your book published I did some self publishing with a company out of new york But yeah, but so the book it's a bedtime story that I made up for lily one night And it became her favorite story and it's not about the safe haven law But I have a page in the back that explains a little bit about safe haven law So i'm using this as a tool But it's just a cute little story for kids and newborn to maybe age about 10 And it's available on amazon and yes, it did really well in its first few weeks. I have a lot of great support And so um, it actually beat out jk rolling and rl stein in the number one spot on amazon children's books in a couple categories That jk rolling and uh rl stein Spumps, right? I think I don't know those were a little after my time But I have I have read all the harry potter book. So again jk rowing don't ruin my life I love your books. That's right. So you can get the hungry snake on amazon or my website susanne hobs.com There's a link there But the proceeds that I make is an author on sales of this book then help me promote the safe haven law So if you buy a copy of this book or two, then it helps me So we're not going to tell you what happens the hungry snake go buy the book The book is called the hungry snake. You can get it exclusively on amazon, right exclusively on amazon So if you're a prime customer, go take care of it now. It'll be like in an hour, right? So, um, that's great. So you're the first of two guests where amazon best-selling authors on the show this week And that's that's amazing. So last thing Tell us who you want to connect with and tell us how they can reach you as we wrap up Okay, I'm always looking for donations to the national safe haven alliance.org So if you have any funds that you want to donate to help us get our public All of our messaging out there If you want to be out there, um, if there's an opportunity to have me come and speak at a conference of any sort I'd be happy to do that and you can find me. What kind of conferences? Women's groups, you know Law enforcement groups, right anybody, but truly it's it's anyone who is passionate about families passionate about children But you know a lot of women's groups and organizations and things But it's a very powerful and inspirational story about women's adoption and the safe haven law And so I learned to do my public speaking You can find me at susan hobbs.com. Okay, susan hobbs.com. You have great social media Do you want to promote your instagram? You bet. Um, instagram and facebook is susan hobbs 365 because i'm promoting safe haven 365 days a year Absolutely, find me and follow me. All right. Well, thank you for tuning in stick around for the next segment We have pristine turtles from social booth lv coming up. Stay right here. This is geeks are sexy. I'm jason laduke