Research for court

Spring of 2008 is when my husband decided to go balls to the wall and fight for custody of Bob. He would have done it several years ago, but unfortunately a court will not take away a child from their mother based on stupidity alone. There has to be concrete proof of abuse and/or neglect for the court to even consider removing a child from their home, and even then there is no guarantee. There is however, a magic number that gave us a little more hope and ammunition to start with the court proceedings. That number is 14. The lovely number 14 is the age in which a judge will take into account the testimony and desire of the child. (Of course we would never let on that although Bob was now physically 14, we'd be lucky to pass him off mentally as a 10 year old.)

Despite the desperate attempts of the egg donor to convince Bob that his father is a monster and that we would make him into our own personal slave if he lived with us, Bob still wanted to make the move. She tried to convince him that he would never have any fun and that he would be our live-in babysitter. It was so hard to hold my tongue and not tell her that I would NEVER, I mean NEVER allow Bob to babysit my children. I'm pretty sure my six year old would be more competent and able to babysit.

We started off nice by trying to talk to the egg donor (which lets face it is the equivalent of talking to a rock). We let her know of Bob's desires to live with his father and tried to convince her that this would save a lot of time and money for everyone if we could work out an arrangement. My husband was even willing to give it a try for one year and told the egg donor that she would not have to pay child support for that year. (Yeah, I wasn't real thrilled about that idea at all! Another kid to take care of and no money? Nice. But being the supportive wife I am, I let it go...I knew it was in Bob's best interest to live with us.) Of course the egg donor wouldn't comply or even entertain the idea of Bob living with us. We were in for a long battle....a long EXPENSIVE battle. *sigh*

Once we knew where the egg donor stood, we began digging. Digging for anything and everything that would help prove our case in court. It was heartbreaking to see file after file of counseling and medical records come in. The notes from doctors and nurses were sickening at best. The school records and counselors were of so much help as well. At first the school counselor didn't like the idea of a step-mom calling and discussing Bob, but soon warmed up to me and eventually liked me more than the egg donor...ha ha ha, like that was even a competition. :) Oh the egg donor was mad about that! She marched herself right into that school and let them have it. How dare they share information with Bob's father and step-mom?? What an inbred piece of garbage she looked like that day! That just sealed the deal with the school liking my husband and me....and it played into our favor nicely.

After gathering as much information as possible, we tried calling attorney after attorney, each time getting the same response...'well, it's hard to take a child away from a biological mother, unless there's proof of abuse'. Are you kidding? Even when the child himself expresses the desire and necessity of getting away from the egg donor? We felt hopelessness and sadness for Bob. Again we tried reasoning with the egg donor to please let Bob come live with us for one year. After that year we would re-evaluate and see how he felt and what was best for him. Of course her answer was no.

Well, we ended up finding an attorney that was willing to take the case and seemed very hopeful and optimistic that there was a 95% chance we would have Bob living with us. This is what we had been waiting to hear. I was so excited...UNTIL he told us the retainer fee amount. It was triple what all the other attorneys charged. All I could think is, 'oh we better win this....or else Bob will be working during every visitation to pay off the debt!' ha ha ha. Just kidding...kind of. :)

So, with the help and support of some wonderful family members, we retained the attorney. We were in for a crazy, emotional ride...