To Summarize

Okay so bring everyone up to speed to where we are right now, as I did not start this at the beginning, the deal is this...
March 2009, my son's father, who has served his role part time at best; decided to take me to court and sue me for full
custody of our 9 year old son. I being out of work since I was injured at my previous job, have no attorney. But I still felt
confident I would retain custody, after all, his father has never bothered to establish his rights up until now, and I have been
the main caretaker all of my boys life.
Well after months of comtinuances and settlement hearings and domestic relations counseling, we finally went to trial,
I made sure I had plenty of evidence to prove myself a fit and caring mother, who has for the past 10 years raised this
child with little or no help from his father. How his father has intimidated him, even in my opinion, abused his. How I
have a strong bond with my son and that he is actually afraid of his father. The trial takes 2 days, during which time
opposing counsel berates me and makes me seem like the anti-christ. I hold up, and I keep pointing out the truth of the
situation, despite the fathers lies.
The trial ends in early November, we are told we will be notified by mail the judges decision regarding custody.
And so we wait. And wait.
And finally the day after Christmas we get the judgement in the mail. And I nearly died. I quite literally couldn't breathe.
This judge decided after 10 years of raising my son, having never abused or neglected him, was suddenly not capable of
providing for his best interests. One reason he cited was that "mothers plate is too full balancing the needs of her 3 older
children, 2 of whom have significant special needs" Now to clarify what is actually fact, in my home I have 2 other sons
that live with my full time, I have a daughter who hasn't lived with me in a year and a half, who has graduated college and
is on her own, I have a step-daughter who visits every other weekend and then part of the summer. My older 2 sons who
live at home are 17 and 22. Their "significant special needs" are that one of them is mentally retarded and has the maturity
level of about a 9 or 10 year old. He is highly functioning, able to care for all his own personal living skills and fix himself
meals (microwave). My other son, has bipolar disorder with hyper mania. He is med compliant, able to perform all necessary personal daily living skills, can manage and keep a budget, balance a checkbook, hold a part time job and attend school full
time. Neither child needs me to provide anything, except emotional support and guidance, transportation, housing and medication refills. They are both legally disabled, but can hold part time jobs and have or will soon graduate high school at the
accepted age level.
So, after receiving this devastating news I took my workmans compensation check, that I finally received and went to an
attorney. I was not going to let my son, be bullied by his father for any longer than absolutely necessary.
We immediately launched into legal battle to try to reverse the judges decision. We cited many legal and emotional reasons
why my son would be better off with me and the judge just dismissed us without a moments consideration. That was last week
on March 4, 2010.
So onto the next step. We are filing our appeal to the Court of Appeals for our district and praying that this 3 judge panel will
see what the first judge failed to. We have multiple legal issues with which to base our case on. Plus the fact that my son is
miserable at his father's house.
He keeps asking me, why this is all happening to him, why his father did this to him.
I wish I had an answer for him.
Since December when my boy had to move out of my house, he has been forced to change his last name, change schools (he had been in the same one since kindergarten and was halfway through 4th grade), change pediatricians, change dentists, & change psychiatrists ( he has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder since May of 2009 and put on medications, because he
would vomit repeatedly when he had to go to his father's house on weekends; yes the judge was made aware of this information during the trial ).
We may have to wait 90 days to hear on the status of our appeal. The appeals court has the right to grant a hearing to have motions be heard, or they can just deny the motion to appeal all together. If they decide to grant the motion to appeal, we can argue to them the validity of our legal evidence and they can overturn the first judges decision and then: a. grant a new trial
b. award custody to me c. order a modification of the current order, or d. uphold the orginal trial judges decision.
Of course the best thing would be a reversal of the original trial judges decision and for my son to come back home, immediately, but the way this whole thing has been going, I won't hold my breath. I am just seriously hoping for a chance to
have a new trial, with a new judge, and a new Guardian Ad Litem. I think the originals in our case were seriously biased.
Maybe even bought off. After all, who decides to take a child away from a competent mother who has raised 3 other children and gives him to a father who has barely been involved for 10 years. Oh did I mention, he is also a recovering drug addict/alcoholic who has 2 DUI's on his record, and that I am a nationally registered Paramedic???
Yeah, you do the math. Someone screwed the pooch on this case.
Anyway, that's the current goings on. I will update this when we have a date or denial by the appellate courts.