Waiting to go to court... advise PLEASE?

Larissa - posted on 09/20/2011 ( 8 moms have responded )

So.. this is a bit of a long story, but I will try to keep it short. SDs of mine are 6 and 7. Ive been with my DH for 5 years. My SDs don't know life without me. BM has been with plenty of other men, and my SDs have watched BM wake up next to different guys a few times. DH and I were getting my SDs for weeks at a time last year and the year before because BM had other things to do (ie, dating or being lazy). Finally BM lost her job and her house last November. She let my SDs move in with us. At that time SD #1 (let's call her A) was in Kindergarten. BM had her in school for 2 months, during that time A had been late 13 days, and had missed 12 days of school. We had my SDs for almost 4 months and A never missed one day of school. (We live an hour away from BM and A was going to a different school) In February BM married her boyfriend that she was only dating for 3 months. She was still living at her parents house at this time, and now the stepdad is only 21 (shes 26) and he still lived at home with his parents and had no job and no car. He moved in with her and her parents. We then asked for custody because we were still paying child support and couldnt make any major decisions involving insurance and school because we weren't the ones with custody. She became angry and said she's think about it. The next Wednesday she drove to our house without telling us she was coming, knocked on our door, and told us she enrolled A into school back in her town and she was there to pick them up. We said no and called the cops (DH has joint custody) and cops made her leave. She came the next day and cops made her leave again. We met with our Lawyer the next day (friday) and then that evening BM came again with the cops. Cops came in and asked DH if he had a warrant because BM said he did. Turns out he had an inactivated warrant for child support from 2 years before that. The cops had to take him, even though they told us they wished they didnt have to because they felt it was best for the kids to stay with us. He had to be transferred to the county where it was in to pay bond which took a week, and he lost his job because of that. when DH got out of jail he called BM to ask for visitation, and BM said we could see them the following weekend. We called a few times before that weekend and she never answered and she didnt let us see them. We called everyday for 2 months and never got an answer from her. We had no clue where SDs were. 3 weeks after BM took them she called CPS on MEEEE saying I spanked them too hard and too often and they were now scared of me and scared to go to daddys house. When we finally made it to court she tried to ask that DH only have supervised visitation at her parents house. Judge all but laughed in her face and said he didnt believe it (cps threw case out right away) and SDs were going to be visiting us the following weekend at our house no supervision needed. We were then ordered to both pay $50 for a casa (court appointed person who checks both homes and talks to SDs and tells the judge who he thinks the kids should live with.) within 30 days. She paid the fee 35 days later (shouldnt that be contempt of court?) That was april 18th... its now Sept 20th and we have yet to have a visit. I have so much proof on how bad of a mother she is. SDs tell us how much they want to live with us again and talk about how BM smokes in the car with them and ashes fly back and burn them, they talk about how BM has them staying at BMs parents house, BMs husbands parents house (sleeping on floor) BMs sisters house (floor) and even my DH fathers (we do not get along with DHs father) house (on the floor) during school nights. They stay out all night with BM too. BM only gets them clothes from friends YOUNGER daughters, yet buys herself a new car and IPHONE. BM works part time at mcdonalds, and stepdad works at taco bell. SDs tell us stepdad is mean to them. BM says A has asthma (which she doesn't, she only seems like it because she's around smokers all day everyday) and we have a picture that BM posted on facebook of her smoking a cig right behind A. We have posts on FB that BM is talking about buying alcohol for DHs 15 year old sister. DH and I dont smoke, SDs slept at our hous in their own beds EVERY night for the four months they lived here. We called the casa and they said we are next on the list, but who knows how long that will take?? Is there anything we can do to get this moving faster? Poor SDs have to deal with this everyday and theres nothing we can do until we get in court! Anyone think we DONT have a chance of getting custody once we get into the courtroom? Wow, I could write a book about this!! There's so much more, but I think this is good for now lol... PS DH and I are both working great jobs now and things are great here. we have our own house, SDs have their own room and bunk beds. :) BM and step dad (who have told DHs sister shes not happy with him) live at BMs parents house. BMs dad talks on facebook about taking oxy and washing it down with beer to help him pass out because BMs parents are now going through a divorce. :( Please let me know what you think i can do to speed this up. Im afraid i dont have enough proof for cps to take the kids right out of the house, and if i dont have enough proof the judge will think im only calling to get her back for lying to cps about me. help? And thanks for reading all of this. :)