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I posted this topic several months ago. http://deltabravo.net/forum/index.php?topic=39407.0

I filed for sole custody last month, and my ex was served 3 weeks ago. As far as I'm aware, she has yet to respond. I'm a little confused- what happens if she doesn't respond? What do I do? I know custody cases generally drag on for quite awhile, but because of my daughter's disabilities her recovery can be severely impaired if she doesn't start getting the care she needs soon. Is there anything that can be done to speed the process up? I live in FL. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

That's a great idea. I'm going to start working on that.

No one is fighting for custody; as of right now, they have no idea I'm doing this. I imagine they will once I make my report with family services on Monday. The grandparents are under the false assumption that they have rights and power over my child (ex: "we LET you see her whenever you want"); grandma has threatened more then once to take me to court when I "get on her nerves" (i.e. try to spend more time with my daughter). I think they're going to try to fight me for custody, either through their daughter or on their own.

There's no formal visitation schedule, but it usually goes like this- we visit her at grandparents' house every evening and take her for the day on the weekends. However, because this schedule isn't set in stone, the grandparents often modify it wheneve they feel like. That's always been a big issue; the grandparents feel as though THEY are my daughter's parents, not me, and act as such.

II don't have any documentation of the bills at other address; Can those be subpeaned (probably didn't spell that right)? My daughter has had many doctors and therapists over the past few years, and only one (the neurologist) has actually met mom. All of the others assume that my fiance is her mother, because we both attend all of her appointments.

That's very encouraging to read. From what I've heard, fathers getting sole custody is very rare because of the bias toward mothers, but in cases like mine and your friend's, it NEEDS to happen. I have the time, resources, and physical capabilities to care for my disabled child, and the other party doesn't.

The mom doesn't live there, only pops in to pick up support checks... She's absent so much of the time that my daughter (while mentally very young, still active and aware) actually doesn't recognize her anymore.

We live in the same school district and my daughter has been going to a special ed school free of charge since shortly after she turned 3. Because she is now legally disabled, all of her therapy is provided free of charge so that's never been a problem, thankfully.

There has never been any formal custody arrangement, as far as actual court documentation goes... When we split up she applied for child support, and because we weren't married, they gave it to her. But even though there's nothing that says she's the primary custodial parent, I can't just take my daughter. They'd definitely call the police and I don't want that kind of situation to arise.

Going to DCF was actually my lawyer's idea. I know she has things (such as cable TV accounts) registered at other addresses, and she deposits my support checks (in their entirety) into an account under my daughter's name.

Thank you so much for your quick reply, by the way.

Sorry this is so long... I'll put a summary at the bottom.

I separated with my cheating ex in 2008. She moved back in with her parents and took our then one-year-old daughter with her, but about a month later moved out and left our daughter there. At that point I couldn't afford to take care of her solely on my income, so I had no choice but to let that continue, and they put me on child support. In 2009 I was making more money and (as long as I wasn't paying support) I would be financially able to take care of her, but my daughter had just been diagnosed with epilepsy, so I decided not to pursue a custody suit and instead focus on her health until she was more stable.

In the summer of 2010, when she was 2-and-a-half, her seizures went out of control (she was having one every 30 seconds or so) and they had to put her in a coma. Then they operated to remove the part of her brain where the seizures were coming from. When they brought her out of the coma, she couldn't walk due to the atrophy in her legs from having been immobile for so long, but she was otherwise normal. But suddenly a few weeks later she stopped talking, and had mentally regressed to maybe a 6-month-old baby (we still have no idea why this happened; that mystery is a completely separate issue). Today she has very few seizures and is stable, but mentally 10-11 months old, still can't walk, and can only say a few words.

During this entire time my ex has never been there. She doesn't care at all. She sees our daughter (who doesn't even recognize her) once every other week when she comes to pick up my child support checks, which still go to her parents' address (as well as the child support for her son from a previous relationship, who also lives with her parents) along with her paycheck and all of her mail. Her parents are the ones enabling this situation to continue, and they're too old and incapable to take care of a special needs child; they can't continue her physical therapy at home (if they could she would probably be walking by now) or do any of the things needed to facilitate her recovery.

My fiancé, on the other hand, is a wonderful mother and takes care of my daughter as though she were her own (my daughter even calls her 'mommy'- it's one of the few words she can say other than daddy, and she has NEVER called my ex that). We want so badly to have full custody of my daughter. My lawyer is in the process of filing a petition to have the custody arrangement changed, and I'm meeting with the Department of Children and Families in a few days to report my ex's lack of contact with our daughter and that she's basically stealing child support. But my lawyer says that, despite our mountain of evidence, it could still go either way because all it would take is a sympathetic judge or DCF agent that wants to give my ex another chance at being a parent (even though she neglects both of her kids). FL courts are very biased toward the moms.

What do I do? Are there any advocacy groups I can contact? Additional evidence I might need? My fiancé and I are terrified of losing our daughter.

To sum it up: I'm trying to get custody of my mentally and physically disabled daughter, who is in the custody of my deadbeat, defrauding ex but actually lives with her (the ex's) parents. I have a lawyer but he says this may not be the open-and-shut case it seems because the courts in FL are very biased toward the mom. What else can I do?