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Hi- Sorry...I was not in the office yesterday. We walked away with joint legal custody, which we had none before. Same visitation schedule as before only 3 weeks instead of 2 vacation. Everyother year tax exemption and we agreed to pay 50% of all health costs. we didnt end up going to trial but settling outside the courtroom. It still took almost 8 hours of negotiating and we walked away not happy but not sad, we are content.  We have Wednesday overnights noow and BM wanted to put in agreement that they would cease once child became of school age, but we refused unless she was willing to determine then and there where the days would be made up. She refused, but we stuck in there and didnt give in, we ended up wording the agreement that both parties agreed that the minor child entering school was a major change in circumstance. This would not allow the BM to just take away our Wednesday when child started school. But if she was not willing to reach an agreement with us about a new vistiation schedulel that we liked, it would be HER responsibility to take us back to court in 3 years. (She is the type that would just take them away and that was that. We also got all federal holidays appended to he weekends we had her in our custody only problem is Labor Day and Memorial Day fall on the same parents weekend for 7 years in a row so we are discussing making those seperate holidays and rotating them. We ddefinately would've liked more visitation, but if we had gone to trial we probably wouldnt have gotten joint legal which is a plus. She has final decision making power though so i dont know how beneficial it will be to us.  I believe overall we did well, we accept the fact that we will probably be back in court in three years but until then we have our lives back. As for the daycare nothing was changed but wee made special note to all parties that we didnt agree with the arrangement and that any mishaps that became of her staying there were under the sole decision making of the BM. That way if something happens we can use it against the BM for making the bad choice. Its true in court you never WIN  and i dont feel a lot better or a lot worse. I am still dealing with the fact that this will be ongoing for the next 16 years.  It does bring some satisfaction in that the mother wanted to change her mind on the agreement at the last minute and wasnt allowed to . So atleast i know she left more upset then us, which to some may be cruel but to me is a small victory after the hell we have been through. We are still working through some small gliches like Memorial Day and Labor Day and I will let you know what comes of them. Aim high in what you want, but dont put all your hopes into it....be willing to JUST be satisfied. Good Luck to all of you fighting, who knows over the years the system may get better..lol

           This reply is coming from the stepmother.....and I am going to end this debate with "everyone can have their own opinion". My husband truly loves his daughter and would give anything to have more time with her. I understand that I am not her mother nor do I want to be, yes I want my own children but a little bit of respect for treating my SD like my own would be nice. I guess in some twisted way some BM would want the step parent to treat the child like crap so they would be considered better, but i wont do this. Yes she is not mine but i will absolutely treat her like she is. No her BM is not some horrble abusive drug addicted parent and we are not trying to say that at all, but neither is my husband so our inquiry was simply based on why BM are automatically given the heads up. Have you ever been told you could see your child 8 days a month? Obviously not, this is not for our ego's at all we simply want that little girl to know we want and love her just as much as our own chilldren. You can not tell me that by that little girl entering my home 8 days a month and especially after we have more childre she is going to feel comfortable.

Money
This is by far the least worries for us....no one can go through 2 years of court cost and lawyers and tell me we are doing it to pay less money. We pay BM $700 a month and thats not a concern for us. We are young and not rich but wee arent going to succumb to being deadbeats either. I would love to be able to pay for all of our childrens colleges, weddings, first home down payments, etc. but feasibly it wont happen. BM has offered us joint custody and 50/50 visitation if we continue to pay her for sole.....who is it about the money for? We decided against it b/c we refuse to sell our souls to the devil over it. My husbands abilities as a father and love for her should be enough. Oh and she filed not us.

You are right it was a one night stand and he should've known what could happen as she should've too. They are both adults but her opinion as is yours was that he was simply a sperm donor. We arent going to quit and we wan it over before SD gets old enough to know what is going on. I truly hope that your childrens father never puts you through this because it brings emotions you never knew existed. Ignorance to being open minded seems to stop many people from believing that we live back in the stone age when the mother was the child's rock. This is no longer true.

We will have our own children one day when I am ready , but I commend my husband "for stepping up from a one night stand" and being a real father. This is one of the main reasons I married him.

To thos of you fathers or families going through this it is a tough battle but worth it, I truly believe what goes around comes around and that in the end GOD will make it right. Good Luck

Update...Court is tomorrow at 10 am I will update with a new posting on the verdicts...please say a prayer for us

 

This reply is coming from the stepmother.....and I am going to end this debate with "everyone can have their own opinion". My husband truly loves his daughter and would give anything to have more time with her. I understand that I am not her mother nor do I want to be, yes I want my own children but a little bit of respect for treating my SD like my own would be nice. I guess in some twisted way some BM would want the step parent to treat the child like crap so they would be considered better, but i wont do this. Yes she is not mine but i will absolutely treat her like she is. No her BM is not some horrble abusive drug addicted parent and we are not trying to say that at all, but neither is my husband so our inquiry was simply based on why BM are automatically given the heads up. Have you ever been told you could see your child 8 days a month? Obviously not, this is not for our ego's at all we simply want that little girl to know we want and love her just as much as our own chilldren. You can not tell me that by that little girl entering my home 8 days a month and especially after we have more childre she is going to feel comfortable.

Money
This is by far the least worries for us....no one can go through 2 years of court cost and lawyers and tell me we are doing it to pay less money. We pay BM $700 a month and thats not a concern for us. We are young and not rich but wee arent going to succumb to being deadbeats either.  I would love to be able to pay for all of our childrens colleges, weddings, first home down payments, etc. but feasibly it wont happen. BM has offered us joint custody and 50/50 visitation if we continue to pay her for sole.....who is it about the money for? We decided against it b/c we refuse to sell our souls to the devil over it. My husbands abilities as a father and love for her should be enough. Oh and she filed not us.

You are right it was a one night stand and he should've known what could happen as she should've too. They are both adults but her opinion as is yours was that he was simply a sperm donor. We arent going to quit and we wan it over before SD gets old enough to know what is going on. I truly hope that your childrens father never puts you through this because it brings emotions you never knew existed. Ignorance to being open minded seems to stop many people from believing that we live back in the stone age when the mother was the child's rock. This is no longer true.

We will have our own children one day when I am ready , but I commend my husband "for stepping up from a one night stand" and being a real father. This is one of the main reasons I married him.

To thos of you fathers or families going through this it is a tough battle but worth it, I truly believe what goes around comes around and that in the end GOD will make it right. Good Luck

Update...Court is tomorrow at 10 am I will update with a new posting on the verdicts...please say a prayer for us

We are asking a lot? we have been treated like crap from the get go...the message people like you send is "don't be a dead beat dad and pay up, but don't think you deserve much in return". For us dad's who are out there busting our butts to prove our love all we get is "Just wait, give it more time" and all the while our children are growing up and we are missing out. I think the situation of seperated parents sucks all around if you can start younger the better, then the child wont remember all the crap in between. You are telling me that her mother's boyfriend and his parents should have more rights than me and my family (atleast for one more year). I have been fighting tooth and nail since the day my daughter is born and yet I continualy get punished, this is the reason for dead beat dad's. How about asking a lot from the father of such a young child, I wasn't allowed to see her taked her first step or say her first words so excuse me if I become extremely offended. I have gathered from your post that a child can not handle time away fromt he mother but is okay with out a father...I completely disagree.

Go to your courthouse and file, if she hasnt you will have the upper hand...dont tell her suprise her. You should always ask for more and use it as a bargaining tool during the process. You should have a lawyer but you can do more by educating yourself. Study your state laws and ask around. If you file first for sole custody you may not get it but the judge will definatley set up regular visitation. Rule of tumb  federal law says you dont have to pay more than 50% of your paycheck so get on your state guidelines and calculate it out. The judge is going to order mediation and such, so again ask for a lot and here is your chance to negotiate.

No, we go to court in two weeks now and that is a big issue we are dealing with....We dont pay the GP's directly but the BM has provided checks made out to them. We dont know for sure if they aren't just cashing them and giving them back to her. We have thought about approaching it from this angle but it will surely cause a battle. If BM would allow us to write half off we would half no problem, but she has refused to allow us any tax exemptions unless we agree to her terms. It is just hard at the end of the year becasue DH is self employed but cant claim child support-we may have to resort to going to this route if BM can't reach compromise soon. Thanks for all the great advice.

Thank you..finally someone thinks the same as us. My fiance feels very awkward going into their home since they are theBM's BF's parents but she gives him no choice. Its almost as if she takes pleasure in it. A lot of time when we are supposed to drop the baby off at the BM's she will call and tell us to bring her to the BF's parents home. They have been together for 4 years, its a long story, her BF cant have children so BM went out to the local bar until she got one. Only I dont think that either of them figured that some guy from the bar would fight for his child.  Yes we gave her temporary sole custody b/c she gave us the wednesday nights, but we have been fighting for the joint all along. She doesnt call if the baby is sick or tell us if she is going away and wont let us in on any decision making. Thats why we want the joint custody.  Here's some good advice: if the BM continuously refers to the child as "her child" you have a long road ahead of you. We shouldve asked for more but we didnt want to piss her off so now its down to keeping her on Sunday nights on our weekends instead of returning her to BM.  To those of you who only fight with the ex when you see them that is the perfect visitation schedule. If we get the sunday nights we won't even see the mother except for on holidays. That makes for so much better than constantly arguing with one another when you pick up the chil/drop them off. I believe the only reason we have so much time is b/c we only live 10 miles away its a quick 5 min drive and we are in the same school  district.  She gave us that we just hope the judge grants us the Sunday nights and the 4 weeks vacation.

thank you for your honesty...and mostly i agree. However I am a teacher and have always been taught quite the opposite when it comes to children learning social skills. At 2 they should begin a structured learning environment with other children. You see in MD preschool is all day whereas most states it is only half day. And now the requirements children must fulfill are way more in depth than a home can provide. We are willing to compromise and say she can remain their 2 days and go to a pre pre-school program the other three but she wont even hear our side.  I know how the joint legal can  not really be enforced and our order is very specific, but we dont want to be in court forever. We havent had any problems with her following the rules once they are set by the courts its just getting the courts to set them.  I was just wondering if we could do anything. And yes a lot of families do home daycare. My DH's mom stays at home with his little brother and has offered free daycare since the beginning but BM refuses. And the advice about asking to have the child if he is off work is something we had tried to go for since the beginning but to no prevail. You see my DH is constructive so during the winter months he only works 3-4 days a week. He asked that if he told BM the night before if he could have the child and she said no, that it wasnt fair to the daycare providers. So I dont know if we can get that.  She is only agreeing to 2 weeks vacation unconsecutive. We only live 5 miles from her so we dont see the big deal.  She has an amzing way of refusing all types of mediation and yet still making us look like the bad guys. But I truly appreciate the advice. We have been going through this for the past 18 months and I think that now that it is coming time for the decision we are just worried becasue she seems so sure of herself. I guess at this point we really dont have anything to lose

Does anyone know if their are any rules about daycare when it comes to the custody situation?
I am the SM to an 18month old SD, right now there is a temp. order giving mother full custody but we get visitation everyother weekend and Wednesday over night. We have wanted joint legal custody and four weeks vacation but mother has refused so our trial date is April 25. Other than her denying more visitation and joint custody our only issue has been daycare. Her BM has placed her with her boyfriends 75 year old parents every day. We pay $125 a week for them to watch her and have continuously tried to get her to change this. We know that the parents love the child and my SD loves them and we arent trying to break their bond. We just feel very uncomfortable with the age and physical abilities of these people. Nonetheless my SD is not in the presence of any other children at all. We have not really pushed the issue but as she approached 2 and becomes more active we are becoming increasingly nervouse about their ability to care for her. The BM opinion is that it is none of our business and that she has full custody. We dont argue with her on very much but this seems to be the major issue. Well now she has sent us letters saying how all DH does is argue with her and joint custody wouldnt be possible because they can never agree. None of this is tru but I guess that is how she expects to get the judge to deny joint.  We are also requesting four weeks unconsecutive vacation time because my husband change jobs at BM request and received more Vacation time. Does anyone know if this will likely be awarded or not? Three weeks seems so far away but yet I dont feel prepared. What should we ecpect at the trial?

PS - All of this stems from a one night stand there was never a relationship between them

My "nice Guy" and I are going through this now and we wish we would've come out guns flaring. It doesn't mean you have to argue with your ex, but always ask for the most that way you can barter in the end. Courts are reluctant to change custody arrangements if they have taken place for a period of time. But I am also fair in that unless the mother is truly unfit each of you only deserve 50/50. And if you can get her to agree to that and joint legal custody your doing better than most.
Good luck