Vee,
H and I have contact with Lil Bit. She is 14 months old now and the light of my life.
Let me start way back at the beginning…
In ’99, H and I began seriously trying to get pregnant. After 6 yrs of not preventing and on and off trying, I went to the Dr to get help. The first month of fertility pills I conceived. 6 wks into the pregnancy, I miscarried. I was devastated.. so was H.
I fell into a deep depression, not thinking that H cared about how I felt about the loss of our child. We stopped communicating… It took me almost a year to pull myself out of the depression. I got a new job and began to climb slowly back to where I thought I used to be. I didn’t realize that I had been giving H a cold shoulder… I didn’t know he thought I didn’t want him anymore.
I began talking about trying to start our family… and he just nodded or absently agreed.
After 3 months of my new job… out of the blue H asked me for a separation… I was horrified… I asked if there were someone else, of course he lied and said no. In an attempt to do what I could to save my marriage, I agreed to move out.
3 wks after having moved out, I got a phone call telling me about OW and the fact she was pg. Again, I was horrified!
After all that we had been through, NOW this! I was ready to throw in the towel… I consulted an attorney… and began making plans for my new life alone. Then I was struck with another horrific blow… I realized I was miscarrying, yet again. 2 solid wks of pain and agony. I was too wrapped up in other things (dealing with feelings of abandonment and such) so I did not go to the Dr. I wish I had… but its too late now.
I finally told H about the pg and miscarriage. He was furious at me for not telling him. I told him that I didn’t know… so how could I have told him. It was this drastic event that seemed to pull my H out of the fog… at least long enough to remember who I was and what we had. He reached out and held me… It was in this moment… I knew… I still loved him… and needed him… and I would FIGHT for my Marriage!
Now, I wanted NO CONTACT with OC, much less OW. I did not want to have to see the child that he had given this bimbo… when he should have given it to me. I was still furious about the fact that it was MY RIGHT to have his child, not some strange *!#$% off the street!
He refused to let go. He wanted contact with the child AND he wanted our marriage. He had already been basically cut out of his son’s life by his exW and he didn’t want to lose the chance to be a father to this child.
Along the way, we began to get information about exOW. We got a lawyer and began proceedings for establishing paternity and legitimating the baby. Our lawyer did a background check on exOW and we found that she has a long history of domestic violence and some petty theft.
Her son had been removed from her custody for failure to protect him from beating by her exbf and was in the shared custody of her mother and grandmother.
This is what changed my mind about contact. Here was a child…going to be brought into the world… and was going to be placed into a potentially dangerous life. And here we were, able to have contact… and to possibly deter some of that danger just by our very presence in her life.
So DNA was done, Paternity proven… and we began watching Lil Bit every day, she was 5 wks old. So tiny, so helpless.
3 wks later, H reported exOW to Child Services for leaving the baby filthy. And by filthy I mean feces crusted inside her little privates and in the folds of her skin… This had happened over and over and H could take no more.
After a strange weekend of events… exOW moved back in with her mother and DCS allowed her to have Lil Bit back. We didn’t see Lil Bit for an entire month. Then the Courts established our Parenting time.
Our Parenting time is from Wednesday evenings at 7 until Sunday mornings at 9. Custody was established as Joint. This arrangement gives H and me 86 hours out of the week with Lil Bit. We have a set place that we exchange Lil Bit, public and neutral.
7 weeks ago, exOW called saying her babysitter was going into the hospital for 2 wks and she had no one to watch Lil Bit. H told her to bring her to him and he would watch her. (H works 3rd shift, exOW and I both work 1st) So, 7 wks later the Day Care situation is still H watching Lil Bit on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for exOW.
ExOW gets one thing that she has been wanting for months… Time alone with H. He picks up Lil Bit on his way home in the mornings, so that means I am not present at these exchanges. I am grateful that H tells me what is going on every morning, but I do so hate that exOW has manipulated this time with him and is messing with MY life, I have had to change my schedule at work to accommodate this morning exchange. I am afraid that I may lose my job because of the number of days that this has caused me to be late to work.
But she does not get time alone with him in the afternoons or the Wednesday evening or Sunday morning exchanges. I am present for all court appearances… I was even able to be at the mediation for the holiday schedule. I am fully involved with this entire process and she hates it. I say too bad… She slept with my H and now she has to DEAL WITH ME! (This is exactly what the GAL told her in a conference between the parties and their lawyers, and I say BRAVO!)
If you go back and read some of my posts, you will see that I am, as my dear friend Mary Janes put it so eloquently, BABY CRAZY. (Maybe I should change my moniker <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> )
I love Lil Bit to death. I would do anything for her. I miss her immediately after exchanges and I hate being away from her.
I now see her more time over all than exOW does(her time with us is now up to 114 hrs per week), and it is becoming more and more evident. Lil Bit calls me Mommy; I have no idea what she calls exOW. She has reached for me at exchanges and when they don’t allow her to come to me, she cries and calls “Mommy, Mommy!” It breaks my heart to hear these cries knowing that I can’t just walk up and gather her in my arms to comfort her.
I am her Mommy and I always will be. It matters not that our DNA do not match… our Hearts do and that is what counts.
Contact is not easy. It’s not for all marriages. Like I have said so many times before, POJA and RH have been what have gotten us through this. And I pray that it continues on this way.
Sorry I have rambled on… I guess I could have just posted a link to my entire story… huh?
Hugs and prayers for you, Vee.
