When we first met with the lawyer, we were told we had a very real shot at having the kids move out to live with us. This was exactly what we had been hoping, partly expecting, to hear. It was “in their best interest”, which was a term I had read a whole lot about when it came to child custody.
All that was required to start was a hefty deposit and a timeline of events between my guy and bio mom from the very beginning. Easy enough! We were ready, hopeful, excited. We anticipated that this was the beginning of a much-needed journey, one that would result in giving the kids a better life.
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Reality setting in…
The first shock was the discrepancies in my guy’s story and hers. The way she recounted their lives was so different from his. Reading through her statement only gave us more hope that the judge would see things as we did.
There were hours upon hours spent going through old emails, text messages, bank statements. Gathering all of the evidence, sorting through, putting it together in a nice pretty package. We would be ready to present to the judge, that was what we had planned anyway.
We were charged per email through our lawyer, bio mom was not. It was extremely stressful when she would agree to something when talking to my guy and then her lawyer would send a contradicting email to our lawyer. This happened a lot.
Mediation was recommended by our lawyer. This came as a shock because, in our first meeting, we were told this step would be pointless with the history of disagreements.
It was also explained to us that the likelihood of a judge ordering the kids to move across the country was slim to none.
We were shattered.
We discussed what we were willing to accept and he went into mediation with a realistic idea of how things would play out.
Mediation day was here. It was hours of back and forth, resulting in pretty much what we had come to hope for. The kids would spend the majority of their summer with us, every other Christmas break. When we would travel there, they were to agree to reasonable visitation. Communication was now to go through Our Family Wizard, a tool designed to help with better communication and could be used as evidence in court if needed. We would never give up the hope to have the kids full time, however, in our new reality, this was a win for now.
If we could go back and do it again we would:
- Try mediation before retaining a lawyer
- Be more specific about what “reasonable visitation” meant for when we travel back to see the kids
- Let go of the expectation that the court would investigate further into the situation than he said she said of the parent’s statements.
Did you have to live through a court battle?