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Thanks, for the advice.  The final custody and visitation hearing will be next month, so the final visitation schedule will be decided then.
I've already utilized the parenting plans on this site; however the lawyer said that they will come up with one for us. (They probably just have a standard one also and will customize as needed.)

No, the visitation is every weekend (Sat and Sun) with 10 days advance notice given, and 3 phone calls per week.

This was the Temporary Restraining Order hearing in family court.  We got the TRO because the law says you can obtain one if there is a good possibility that the other parent may take the child from the state.

The same judge is going to hear/make the final judgement, so hopefully it will also be in my husband's favor.

Well here's another update...

We had the hearing yesterday where BM had the chance to prove why the TRO should not be kept in effect.  She was not able to hire an attorney but did manage to get to Arizona.

Anyways, BM's arguments about my husband being an alcoholic, drug addict, etc. etc. etc did not go over too well with the judge because he actually said to her..."if you were so concerned with all of these problems before then why did you leave your daughter with him for 2 years?"  (Plus all of his past "rocky" history was 7-10 years ago when he was still in Nevada.  There are no blemishes on his record since his moved to Arizona, not even a speeding ticket.)

Then she kept arguing that she deserved the child support and claiming my SD as a dependant on her taxes for 2004 and 2005 even though my SD lived with us in AZ.  For the 2005 tax year BM said that she would not return my SD to Arizona unless my husband and I signed an agreement that we would not claim her.  We showed that agreement to the judge, and as you can imagine it proves that BM is using her daughter for money.  The judge said to BM that regardless what she says, BM used "her daughter as leverage to get what she wanted."  She looked horrible.

Needless to say the judge kept the TRO in full effect and granted sole physical custody to my husband with reasonable visitation to BM until the final hearing in March.

I've used this site off and on over the past 5 years.  I really owe a lot of my knowledge concerning family law to this site and the resources it provides.

Today my husband and I were able to obtain a Temporary Restraining Order against my SD's BM.

SD has been living with us for 2 years, and because BM still had a Child Support order, she wanted my husband to keep paying this whole time.  Anytime there was any irregularity in the child support payment or any minor disagreement, BM would threaten to come pick up SD at our house in AZ and take her back to her house in NV.

Finally we got the money together to hire an attorney.  We filed the petition for custody etc this past December.  Now the BM's threats have gotten worse and more frequent.  So last week we had our attorney start the TRO.

Today the Judge signed the order!!!!!!!  No more worrying about my SD being uprooted from her stable life, school, etc.

BM has the chance to prove why the order should not be in effect one week from tomorrow, but she has to come 800 miles to do it!!!  Not to mention she has one week to prepare!

So for all of you out there...don't give up hope, your chance will come.  We have been waiting 5 years for this day!!!  It just took a little patience and a lot of preparation!

We hired the laywer and they are in the process of preparing to file the Temporary Order to give custody to my husband on the basis that BM has threatened to remove my SD from us and therefore this jurisdiction.

I'm just really on edge and cannot think about anything else.  Our time schedule has been really cut short because our family is supposed to drive up to Nevada to visit my husband's family and to let my SD visit her BM for her winter break.

What I am worried about is that if we do not get this Temp Order in place before we leave and BM takes my SD for her scheduled visit then she decides not to give her back, we are out of luck.

On the other side, if we do succeed in getting the Temp Order in place before we leave then BM will know about it and there might be a chance that she will not return my SD after her scheduled visit.  So would it then be okay based on this concern to say that BM cannot see my SD while we are in NV?

Anyone that has any experience with Temp Orders, please offer advice if you have it? Thanks!

So tomorrow we are going to hire the lawyer we've been talking to.  I think though with the way BM has been talking that we need to try to push through a temporary order giving my husband custody until the regular court date.  This seems to be the only way to ensure that BM will not come down to take my SD back to Nevada now.

Does anyone have any experience with temporary orders?  Can we do this to prevent BM from taking her?

I know my husband has an excellent case to gain custody, but we are just worried that the moment we file and she is served, she will explode.  She will most certainly try to get her back to NV that instant.  And then what?

We're just worried and having lawyers with different opinions is not helping.  We're just scared going into the unknown like this! Especially if the case gets kicked back to Nevada somehow.

Brief History:

BM and my Husband were never married.  My husband took care of his daughter for 1 year before BM filed for Child Support in 2000 and won.  And for 1 year after that he continued to be the primary caretaker while still paying the BM.  Then he moved in 2001 from NV, where BM still resides, and moved to AZ to be with me, (now the stepmom).

Over the next few years it was a struggle to agree on visitation and such because there was never a Custody Order.  The only mention of custody in any paper work is in the Child Support order where it states that BM is "custodial parent by operation of the law until further order of the court."  BM has used this lack of specificity in the paperwork to wield ultimate power concerning my SD.  BM always has the final say in everything!

Here's where it gets juicy! So BM had a gastric bypass surgery back in 2002.  She has never fully recovered because she did not follow her recovery instructions which ended up in her loosing a lot of her blood over the next 1.5-2 years.  She was so sick that she couldn't physically take care of her children anymore so she called up my husband and asked if we could take my SD temporarily because she was in and out of hospitals not to mention her and her new husband of 2 years were having problems. (They were divorced not too long after.) This was in March of 2004.

Also by this time she has defaulted on the loan of her townhome and is now living on total state support, housing, food, medical.  She then decides while my SD is living with us that she is going to get a federal job which means that the State of Nevada will no longer support her.  She thereby loses her subsidized house and moves in with her mother and much younger brother with her two other children.  The duplex only has 2 bedrooms.

So this was in 2004 and now we are fast approaching 2006 and who still has my SD? We do!  But the catcher is that BM still wanted child support while SD has been in AZ, so she has been getting her child support for NO CHILD!  Meanwhile, my husband and I have been paying for childcare the entire time, and she just started Kindergarten here in August.  And BM rarely calls! I am the one who facilitates most of the contact she has even stayed at our house a few times!

Current Situation:

Anyways, my husband and I have realized that this cannot go on forever.  We could really use the child support he is paying to pay for the child.  We are stretched pretty thin between the new house we just bought, daycare for my SD and our 2 year old son, among other things!

We have gone to two laywers in Arizona that say it would be best to go to Nevada to file for custody because of the existing Child Support order.

However, we have gone to 2 lawyers in Nevada that say it would be best to pursue custody in Arizona.  One of which is the president of the State Bar of Nevada!

The discrepancy lies in the fact that all there is is this Child Support Order.  There is no Custody/Visitation Order.  The lawyers in Nevada say that this means we are free to file for an initial custody order in Arizona, however the Arizona lawyers aren't so sure.

Any advice? Anyone gone through something that might apply?

BM is now reverting to her ultimate power trip again, and we are afraid that she might try to take her back at any moment even though she has no house, no car, and nothing but a job!

I am intrigued by your story.  We are looking at hiring a lawyer and going to court at the end of this year or early next year.  We are in Tucson, so it'll be interesting to see how the courts are here.  Our battle should hopefully be "easy" because we are going to try to change jurisdiction from Nevada to Arizona.  I would say there is a 75% chance the BM won't even show up (It's an 18 hour drive down here).  Well looking foward to the rest of your story.

She was born in Nevada and has lived there most of her life.  As her BM cannot take care of her, we are sure that we will have her for at least six months in Arizona which will give us the grounds to change jurisdiction from Nevada to Arizona.  And if we can do that, there is not a very good chance that the BM will not even make the trip down here to the court hearing.
Also as a side note: At the end of this year she will have lived with us in Arizona for over half the year, and yet we are still required to pay the BM her monthly CS.  (She was here from March-May.  And she got here at the beginning of August.)