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Well, I haven't asked the police in her home town about a civil standby, but that's an option.
When I had my first visit with my son in NC, his mom had asked the court to make me let her come inspect my house.  My wife was very upset by this, since the judge said yes, but we had to let her.
My wife wanted to get a police officer at our house for that day, but none in our area would come, since there was no history of domestic violence.
But maybe once I file the report the police might be willing to do that.  If not, I have every intention of hiring a security person, i.e. bodyguard, for the exchanges, and asking the judge to make an allowance in my support for the need for this expense.
I'm trying not to be paranoid, and hopefully won't delete this post too, but I am really starting to wonder if my every move isn't being monitored.
My child's grandfather was more upset about some suppossed offense to his wife than anything else.  And I know for a fact that I never aid anything to her or about her to anyone else in that family.  It's made me think that they are "bugging" me and yes, in the privacy of my home or phone calls to my friends and family I have no problem expressing what a see you next tuesday she is.
I really doubt this pack of inbred hillbilly bumpkins has the cognitive abilities to spy on me, and probably the mom or the grandmom lied to the grandad to get him angry enough to do something, but still part of me worries about what I say making it's way back into court.
The most frustrating thing is that I have a ton of evidence about what kind of person this woman is.  I believe I have plenty of proof that she is not fit to be raising a child, and numerous instances where she has thwarted my attempts to be with my son.  And when I bring any of this up to my lawyer, he simply says "Let's sit on it until we have enough." Which makes sense, but still, she calls me every name in the book to the judge and the judge has never heard a deragatory thing about her out of my mouth.  I would really like for the Judge to know who this person really is and stop taking the high road all the time.

I have a similar situation, and am dealing with a lot of the same things.
My son is only 20 months old, and I live 400 miles away from his mother.
I've fought long and hard, and finally got 4 days every three weeks with him. I asked to meet half-way, but the mom claimed she doesn't have a dependable enough car to feel safe driving 3 hours to meet me, so the Judge said I have to go the full distance, and gave me a small credit towards my child support each month.
I also asked for a neutral location, but the only state sponsored place in the city has closed, so there wasn't a viable option for the Judge to order.
Of course, that's hopefully going to change soon considering that at the last drop off the mom had organized an assualt on me by her family when I dropped my son off.  I fully intend to take her back into court and if I can't get full custody, I'm at least going to ask for meeting halfway at a local Police Station so I don't have to worry about getting my brains blown out.
As far as her getting time to "re-connect" during your visits, I must say I was floored.  I have issues with my son's mom calling him more than once during my visit.  I can't imagine how pissed I would be if I had to give up my time with him so that she could actually see him in person.
I say take it to court.  She is proving she does not have your child's best interest at heart by making the visits so traumatic.  Let the Judge see you are an interested father who only wants to spend time with his son.  For that matter, a Judge will probably arrange it so you don't always have to be paying for her to fly as well.

I really need some clarity on this and talking with my family is only feeding my anger.
My son is 20 months old, and lives in West Virginia. I live in North Carolina. Even though the mother fought me long and hard, trying to prevent me from having any visitation with him at all, I have court ordered visits every three weeks for four days. This schedule was set up so I could actually have time to bring my son back to NC for the visits.
Each and every visit I've had with him, local or back in NC, the mom or the grandmom has called me right before the visit to tell me how sick my son is and maybe I shouldn't get him that weekend. This happened again this past visit.
I got a call that my son had an ear infection and that driving on such a trip could burst his ear drums. I told the mom that if he was that sick, I would probably just exercise my visit in town that weekend. I then called his doctor and found out the truth. The fact was my son had the beginnings of an ear infection, and the doctor had even prescribed antibiotics only because he knew we would be traveling and as a preventative measure in case the journey made things any worse.
When I picked my son up, I could tell he felt fine and was fine to travel, but to compromise I decided to take him to my mother's home in Cincinnati, rather than all the way to NC.
My son's mother was furious that I was going against her orders to not take him out of town for the weekend. And she made this fact clear by her repetitive calls to me all weekend to check on our son and to speak with him. I finally had enough and told her that her constant calls were intrusive and harassing and that she needed to stop. As soon as I told her that she started screaming at me that she had a right to call her son whenever she wanted. Well, the court order says differently and I had had my fill of her abuse, so I told her to shut up.
Well, when I brought my son home on Monday, I arrived to find her entire family awaiting us. After I got my son out of the car and said goodbye to him, his mother began following me back to the car claiming she needed to talk to me. I told her to call me, that I would not talk to her in front of my son and with all of these people present.
At that point, her father pulled his crane-truck next to my car keeping me from pulling out or even getting out of my car. He then got out of his truck and began screaming and yelling at me that if I ever said anything derogatory about his daughter or his wife, I would not like the consequences. He also went on to say that if I "called the law on him" I really wouldn't like the consequences.
The entire time he's yelling at me, my son's mother is also trying to get her licks in as well. She kept trying to step in front of her dad and out yell him. Each time she did, he would grab her and sling her out of the way very violently. Now, bear in mind, that all of this is happening on the front lawn where I had just dropped off my 20 month old son.
Eventually I was able to get my car out and to leave. I called my attorney and told him of the altercation, and at that point he sounded optimistic that this might be something we can use to get custody of my son.
But since that call Monday night he's done nothing. I called him Tuesday and left a message that I would like to know that they did not abuse my son after I left, and he did nothing to try and get someone to see my son and make sure he was OK. He hasn't read my detailed email about what happened, and he hasn't even listened to the audio recording of the entire confrontation (I record every pick up and drop off and most phone calls).
I don't know if I'm being unreasonable expecting him to move a little quicker on this or not. I know he has other clients, but at least touching base with me, instead of me feeling like I have to hound him to get him to talk to me, would be nice.
And what about filing charges against the father? I know I have up to a year to do so, but I really don't want to keep waiting. At the same time, I don't want to file until I have gotten advice from my attorney about that.
Am I over-reacting? Should I sit back and give my attorney time, or is he dragging his feet too much?
Also, what does anyone else think about my chances of full custody based on this? She is obviously accustomed to physical abuse from her father. She is obviously not afraid or worried about exposing her son to physical abuse. How long before she finds a husband who abuses her and possibly my son?