SPARC Forums

Hello.

All parties reside in VA. CP is mom. Child is nine months of age. CP and NCP have been involved with the child since birth. I am the NCP.

Last week (Feb 24) was the first of my court-ordered visitation, Sat's for four hours. This Sat., CP did not honor visitation, claimed the child had a medical emergency.

CP stated (on audiotape) that the emergency, which was the evening before/morning of Sat., was a fever due to teething. She had means, but did not take the child to the ER or to see a doctor, yet visitation was denied.

CP has a history of frustrating parenting access, however, documented evidence has not yet been heard in court as of yet.

Should I issue a show cause, and what's likely to happen (if anything)?

You should probably ask Soc about the show cause action.  

When you say "visitation was denied" do you mean that she called you and said you couldn't pick up the child on Saturday because of fever?

Do you have anything in your visitation agreement that stipulates how illnesses are to be handled?  If not, you may have a hard time with a show cause order, since her cause is going to be a fever.  She can't prove the child DID have a fever, but you also can't prove that it didn't - so a judge may be hesitant to make a ruling unless you have plenty of documentation to show a pattern.

Do you have make-up visitation written in anywhere?  You might be able to go that route.  You could ask CP to give you make-up visitation for what you missed.