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[Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity]

I live in Illinois and when my children were born I was on the birth certificate and my childrens mother and I signed a Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity. If you are not married when your children are born you have to file this through the court system yourself. If you do not do this you have no rights to your own children.

I am going through a similar situation right now with my ex. She has taken away my  children completely from me. I signed the paternity paperwork at the hospital but was not aware that I had to file them with the court system. Im not trying to scare you but this is the harsh reality of it. If I were you I would go the hospital where your child was born and get a copy of the paternity paperwork from the records dept. Then as fast as you can get to the court and file it. As of right now you have nothing. I wish this was something that someone at the hospital would tell fathers that are not married, but they dont and that screws us dads over.

I have everything that I need to prove that our children belong with me. Our childrens mother is just dragging this out as long as possible. We havnt gotten to the point of needing to bring in any witnesses or any of my evidence. Is there anything that I can do to hurry this at all.

My ex girlfriend and I were living together for 3 years we had two wonderful kids in that time. Our daughter is 22 months and our son is 9 months. We seperated last my August after I had gotten a order of protection on her for hurting my daughter yet again. I had the children in my custody when that happened. We then went to court and her lawyer told me that if I didnt drop the order I would not see our children again and that the judge was already planning on dropping the order. I did not have a lawyer at this time because nobody in my area wanted to take the case. I had pictures and plenty of evidence to keep the order going but I felt that I should drop the order because I was scared of not being able to see our children again. I have a incredible relationship with both of our children. I dropped the order and she got custody back and moved in with her parents. During this time she was dating a new guy and refering to him a daddy to my children as I have a witness to this. We had set up a voluntary visitation time. That was going well for a couple weeks until one day when I pick up our children for visitation. I was changing our daughters diaper and when I had opened it up she had diaper rash so bad that it was blistered and bleeding. I took our daughter to the emergency room and called dcfs. My mother called our childrens mother and told her that I was taking our daughter to the er. When she arrived she was yelling at the reseptionist insisting on them not taking care of our daughter and that she wanted  our daughter to leave with her. I then called the cops in and they forced her to stay. I had to leave because my visitation time was up. That was the last time that I had seen our children. That was October 29, 2008 it is now January 17, 2009. We have gone back to court a couple times since then and she is screwing around and dragging out time as much as possible. We were court ordered to do medeation. I got my part done in the time that it was supposed to be done. We were both supposed to split the bill for it. I paid my half right away. She still hasnt paid her half of it. At our last court date I decided that I would pay for her half so that we could get it done so that our children could have visitation with me. Now as soon as that gets paid she will screw around with making a time for the medeation just to keep our children away from me. Now our children belong with me. She has hurt our daughter many times and left marks. She has done many lewd things with other men in front of them also. She goes to the bars on a regular basis. Our children frequently do not get the medical attention that they need because she forgets or has something "more important to do". I have pictures and I have kept a journal of events that have happend. I can fill up the court room with witnesses that are on my side. I am tired of this and our children and I deserve our time together. What can I do. Any help would be appreciated.