seeking custody

[whitedoveh]

whitedove

My girlfriend and I have terminated our relationship.  We have a 2 and half year old son, which both of us love dearly.  We were doing fine up until January 15th with shared parenting.  I started paying child support in November and have not missed a payment.  She has no basis whatsoever, but in Jan, she decided that I was not going to see him until I got a court order.

I have hired a lawyer and we have a hearing scheduled for next Thurs (Apr 7th)  My problem here is the judicial system.  I hired a lawyer the first of Feb.  Well, there was a lot of red tape....getting records transferred from one county to another.  It seems the system favors the Mom and the Dad is already a deadbeat.  Doesn't it seem that since I was abiding by the law and paying the child support that she couldn't have kept him from me all this time?  She had nothing to prove that I was unfit, and who would I have gone to with this problem other than a lawyer..  So why am I the one that suffered and she called all the shots?  Why couldn't there have been a temporary order so that I could have seen my son until the hearing?

Her problem started with me confronting her in a lie that he had to be enrolled in the daycare that she works at so that Job and Family Services would pay for it.  Which wasn't true.  I called the J & F S. and they assured me they would pay for partime.  When I posed this to her, she went off on me and that's when she told me I couldn't see my son anymore.  Is this legal?  Does she have this right?  What are the laws?
My lawyer is usually too busy to return my calls and I can't get any answers from him.  When I look up these questions on web sites all I get is what the laws say that are decided in court.

Maybe there is something already written that both parents have equal rights before court.  I haven't been able to find them.

If you could please help me, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[Lawmoe]

If you are adjudicated as the father of the child, she has no legal right to preclude you from seeing the child or vice versa. The problem here is not a gender bias. the problem,is that she had the children first. If you had them first, arguably, you could have done the same thing with the same impunity until a court hearing could be held.

Unfortunatly, the only way for that issue to be resolved is in court and it is not a basis for an emergency ex parte order to seek immediate contact.  Her failure to allow you access could backfire, however, and will undoubetedly not sit well with the court.