Re: unwed mothers rights vs. fathers

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I'm not sure if any of you can assist me with this, or how your luck has gone thus far. My
daughter is 14 months old. Since last March, upon her fathers return from Iraq, I have been
attempting to get him into court for support. I fully understood this opens his rights, but was
under the impression that there would be some adjustment time for her. Well on March 28, due to
an emergency hearing, we were able to get in to court. It has been a long messy battle, and the
morning I went into court, he had only seen our little girl 16 times, his mother had seen her 5
times, there was no attempt to support her and no attempt to establish a relationship, the
emergency hearing was called for temporary financial relief to at least start support. Now, our
little girl, who all I want is what is in her best interest, and I do not feel that taking her out of the
only environment that she has known and away from the only people she has known, by his
choosing to put her in an environment that she is not familiar with, with people that the few times
she has seen she refuses to go to, is in her best interest, until there is some adjustment or
attempt to first form a bond. The 16 times he had seen her, I had to contact him and basically
coax him into it, and we had scheduled over 30 visits, only 16 of which he showed for and half of
the ones he didn't show for, he didn't even bother to call, but several of the ones he did there was
literally 24 hours or less notice for 95% of them with him asking me to stop what I was doing so
he could see her. I know this is a bunch of details most judges don't want to hear, but I don't
understand how what happened happened. We left the courtroom with the month and a half that
her dad is home, he gets her every afternoon when he gets off work for 4 hours and 2 weekends in
a month and a half. I would understand this being in the babies best interest, if he had a
relationship with her, but it seems as though he is being pushed to do this by his mother, who
refuses to come see the baby even when I have invited her, but then went to the emergency
hearing trying to request unsupervised visits. The first day that her dad was supposed to pick her
up from daycare, he was 3 hours late and tried to have his mom pick her up, which she brought in
the court order and tried to convince the daycare that she was on the order to pick up the baby. I
guess there isn't much I can do about this, but I'm trying to figure out if there is anything. He has
had her twice now and both times she has come home a mess, she has made it home after dinner
time and he has said that he didn't have time to feed her. I don't understand how this could be in
the best interest of the child, when the child has no clue where she is going. She is having serious
attatchment issues in the past two days and has a fit if I am more than about 5 ft from her, which
is not at all like her, because she doesn't know what is going on or where she is at. Any help or
reference would be awesome.

On 2/15/08, sharwinston wrote:
> Do about what?
> What's your issue with all of this?
> If you want nothing to do with the alleged biodad and you want him to
> have no contact with your child, then do nothing.
>
> On 2/15/08, Ashley wrote:
>> I found out I was Pregnant at 27 weeks due to a huge mistake by my
>> doctor. NO time to plan and that was very stressful much less the fact
>> my whole life changed in one doc appt. I had to think about who was
>> the father of my son and how to explain this to him. I had 2 men to
>> test. The first was not a match, the second was positive and I didn't
>> want him to have anything to do with my son. I decided not to tell
>> him, and I now I fear that I will get into trouble. I just wanted what
>> is best for my son. This man has 3 children and I have never seen him
>> take care of them. And I have just learned that he has another on the
>> way. I have excepted the fact that I am taking full responsibility for
>> my son and don't want to have to face any problems, but I need advice
>> on what to do. I am afraid to tell anyone because I don't want to mess
>> up any relationship he has with his kids, Or do I want to confront him
>> about my son, I don't feel he has the time or money to support my
>> child, nor do I need or want any help. What should I do? Please any
>> advice will do!