narrative.

It was the most peaceful birth you could imagine.

At 3:30am, contractions started. I awoke to a tightening in my monstrously swollen abdomen, a belly nine months pregnant plus five of the longest days of my life. I lay in bed in my tiny two-bedroom apartment in San Mateo, California, in the pitch blackness of night, knowing that the day would split me into two. This was my second time going through childbirth so I knew what to expect. Move quickly, I told myself, even though I didn’t want to acknowledge what was coming. They didn’t mess around, these contractions. The intense tightening around my swollen stomach let me know this was real labor, demanding my immediate attention as I breathed slowly through the first one. The pains had all of the rigor of a small military coup. A gradual tightening, leading to a painful crescendo, and then the tightening slowly subsided like a boa releasing an oxygen-starved mouse. I put my legs onto the side of the bed and then with an absence of grace, heaved forward the mountain that had become my body in the last nine months. Swaying from side to side, I slowly made my way downstairs and into the small kitchen. I made myself a cup of black tea with milk and took it with me as I got ready, sipping the hot, comforting liquid.  I called the hospital to let them know we were on our way. I took a quick bath, expecting to see blood between my legs but there was none. A few last-minute essentials, like my toothbrush and contact lens solutions, were grabbed from the bathroom of my apartment. Scott, who had slept on the sofa, walked my bags into the car. I woke sleepy Lauren, my firstborn. She was not impressed with what the day would hold and wanted to go back to sleep.  The three of us started out for the hospital within the hour, driving into the darkness of night.

I knew to get moving quickly. My first birth had been what some would call easy. The easy part wasn’t a word that I would use to describe it. I was the one the labor was crushing from the inside out. My water broke at four in the morning and a few minutes later, mild contractions started. Fred, who was now my ex-husband, thinking it would be quite a long and drawn-out day, yawned and went back to getting his rest. I got out of bed, unable to sleep at the sheer excitement of the day I would become a mother for the first time, and started my morning routine. Out our San Francisco flat I waddled, down the three flights of wooden, corkscrew stairs, watching the Golden Gate Bridge light up in the morning sun. I walked down to the gated driveway and retrieved the morning newspaper from the cold concrete. I walked back up the stairs, a strong contraction slowing me down midway, and was sure I wasn’t timing the contractions right. Two minutes and forty-five seconds apart? That couldn’t be right. No way.

I only lasted an hour by myself. Then I dragged my tired husband Fred out of bed. “The baby’s coming fast. I can’t take the pain,” I whined, insisting he drive me to the hospital right that minute. He seemed to take his time in the shower, even shaving his face with a straight razor while I moaned and complained. I wanted a natural birth, but the labor was worse than I had imagined.

 We arrived at the hospital after a ride in the very uncomfortable pick-up truck, instead of the cushioned Volvo, whose radiator had fallen out the night before. Fred went inside to grab a wheelchair I would never ride. I got the hell out of that stiff, bumpy truck, while he was wasting time looking for a help. No one could ease these blinding contractions. The pain was worse sitting down if that was even possible. I ran like mad up one flight of stairs to Labor & Delivery. After I belted through the stairway doors, into a small lobby outside of the elevators, another contraction hit and ran over me like a Mack truck. I braced myself, back against the cheerful flowered wallpapered wall, howling loudly through it. I could see the commotion I caused in the panic-stricken faces of the hushed people in the quiet nearby waiting room, barely visible in the periphery of the searing pain that enveloped me. Once the contraction subsided and I stopped yelling, I opened my eyes and bolted again, with all the grace I could muster at nine months pregnant. I had to get someone to help me before the next contraction hit. This time I made it to the Labor & Delivery nurses’ station. One look at me and the entire nurse’s station emptied out, all of them ushering me into the last available birthing room, turning down the bed, putting me in the bed, pushing papers at me to sign. When the next contraction hit, they yelled, Push! We can see the baby’s head. You’re nearly there.

Now, just beginning labor with my second baby, this newly formed A-team was headed to Marin General Hospital – my ex-boyfriend Scott, my nine-year old daughter Lauren, and me.

I wasn’t excited about having this baby. Nope, not this one. I was going to have this baby without having a husband and without having a partner. In a few short hours, if this labor was anything like the first one, I was going to be a single mother of two. While I tried to be upbeat about my future, and even excited about the baby, I couldn’t get to that place very often. I calculated our finances over and over again. Could I keep our apartment and feed us on my salary plus a little child support? I was worried for all of us, and not at all happy at the prospect of doing this alone.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Last Thanksgiving, after dating for a year and a half, Scott had asked me to marry him. I excitedly said yes. He used his late mother’s engagement ring to propose to me, which I loved, and we planned a small wedding in May. His father had balked at using his late wife’s engagement ring, because when he had proposed to Scott’s mom fifty years earlier, he hadn’t had much money. The diamond set in the ring was small. Small but beautiful, I thought. An emerald cut diamond in platinum. It fit my tiny hand perfectly.

One of the drivers for the wedding was that Scott was tired of the distance between us. I didn’t disagree, as we lived 40 miles apart. But I didn’t feel loved when he told me that there were two options in our relationship, either get married by his summer deadline and live together at his house, or break up. Wasn’t there some middle ground, I asked, trying to broker a compromise? No, Scott was unwavering. We could take either the north going road or the south going road, but nothing in between.

The February before the wedding, I became pregnant. Scott wasn’t happy about this, either. Even though we both wanted a baby together that we planned to start trying for after we were married, he was adamant that there was supposed to be the wedding first and then the baby second, and only in that order. “But Scott,” I tried to convince him, “you are getting both of the things you want. A baby and a marriage.”

We didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant, we were saving that piece of news for after the wedding, and the heaviness of my secret weighed me down.

I could see that it continually irked him, that I was pregnant before the wedding. Every time the pregnancy came up in one of our private conversations, his expression hardened. He seemed to be slightly but increasingly unhappy with our engagement and the prospect of our future together.

A month before our wedding date, his father announced his plans to marry the woman he loved in South Carolina. Everyone was so happy for him and his bride to be. They had found love together later in life after Scott’s mother died from breast cancer a couple of years before. I couldn’t travel with Scott because I was too tired and uncomfortable with the pregnancy, even though I was just 3 ½ months along. Besides, there was a fair amount of wedding chores that needed my attention. I asked Scott for some more help with the details of the wedding right before he left for South Carolina and he said, “If I thought you needed help, I would help you. But I don’t see that anything needs to be done.”

Scott travelled to South Carolina to see his father get married. While I was happy that Scott was part of their celebration, I was feeling a little bit ignored and getting more anxious about finalizing all of the details of our own wedding.

Three days before our wedding, it all fell apart. I got upset when I found out that a secret bachelor party was scheduled. Scott had some heavy drinking buddies in town from England, and I was worried that they would be drinking too much, drive or bike while under the influence, and that there would be an accident. I have to admit, I did tend to get a little paranoid when I was pregnant and I’m sure what I expressed to Scott about this was emotion-filled. Scott and I had a tense conversation over the phone about his safety that night. I mentioned that if he was feeling so cavalier about getting drunk and being on the road, that maybe we shouldn’t get married.

Scott asked me to repeat this to his friend Harvey. I had to get him to repeat his demand because I couldn’t understand what he wanted. Why was he focused on this one detail? “Just tell Harvey that the wedding is off,” Scott barked at me.

“The wedding is off,” I told Harvey after his hello. “Now please put Scott back on the phone.” I expected Scott and I would continue our conversation and work things out. Instead, Scott shocked me by saying, “Since you told Harvey the wedding is off, then the wedding is off.”

True to his word, the wedding was immediately and definitely cancelled. My world was turned inside out as I called wedding guests and told them there would be no wedding. I cried for five days straight and lost the ten pounds I had gained from the pregnancy. I wish I could have disappeared into a hole. I had nine-year old Lauren to nurture and a 17-week baby in my body to take care of, and so somehow, I woke up every day and got out of bed. I didn’t carry on with dignity or grace – not at all. I avoided people and cried all day. I cried myself to sleep. I called Scott a couple of times and asked for another go at our relationship but that door was always shut. It was a difficult time. It was an especially sad time. The months of the pregnancy, and the waiting for this new chapter in my life, dragged on.

Truth be told, Scott and I had a pretty tumultuous relationship. Both Americans, we met in Quito, Ecuador four years back. It was a Saturday night in January, summer in Ecuador, the trip I took to celebrate my 30th birthday. I was traveling with a tour group. The final five days of our trip was a cruise on a catamaran in the Galapagos Islands. Scott was 35 and had quit his job as a software engineer to travel for eight months with a few buddies all through South America, backpacking and river rafting and adventuring. Although we hit it off the first night we met, drinking mixed drinks at an American bar and dancing until two in the morning, Scott was always plagued by fears that I wasn’t interested in him. He saw himself as an adrenalin junkie and a bachelor. He had broken up with every woman he had ever dated. And I had broken up with every man I had dated. We were evenly matched there, but he ultimately had the final say in our relationship.

After hiking and mountain biking for two-weeks around Ecuador, my tour group and I spent a night in Quito before taking an early flight to the Galapagos Islands the next morning. Our Quito layover happened to be on a Saturday night. “Who’s coming out with me tonight?” I asked the group over lunch. There were no takers in the group of 20. Most tried to discourage me. “We’ve got an early flight tomorrow morning,” they said. “Quito is a dangerous city,” they cautioned. I was not deterred.

Scott and his two friends came into the bar where I was sitting alone that evening, sipping a beer. They sat at a table next to mine and within a few minutes, asked me to join them. They were a disheveled bunch who hadn’t had a haircut in months, and the clothes they were wearing were worn through in places and were wrinkled and dirty. They told me their exciting tales of backpacking trip after backpacking trip through South America. They’d been traveling together for five months, and they had three more months to go, all having quit their jobs to take time to explore as much of South America as they could. I was awestruck at their adventures and their stories, and of Scott specifically. He had curly brown hair that was down to his shoulders, bright blue eyes, and a square jaw. He was only 5’8” which was lucky for me as I was the only woman I knew to prefer men on the shorter side. And he had something about him that defied explanation, his charming way with everyone. It was magic. I watched him figuratively open doors for himself and disarm each and every person he encountered with his warm and engaging personality. He travelled the world with this easy grace of connecting fully and authentically with everyone he met. I was completely head over heels crazy about him by the end of the evening.

It took a couple years for Scott and me to reconnect in the United States, and once we did it was the most fun and active romantic relationship I ever had. We flew to Mismaloya Beach in Mexico where we ran for an hour in a tropical rainstorm and swam for miles in the open ocean. He introduced me to rock climbing on the ocean cliffs in Land’s End, England. We backpacked on the John Muir trail in Yosemite. Near his house in Fairfax in near Marin County’s Mt. Tamalpais, he took to the nearby trails on his mountain bike. While he biked, I ran on those same trails. It was thrilling and exciting to be in a relationship with Scott. The only problem that kept arising was that Scott couldn’t seem to accept that I wanted to be with him. Every little argument would go back to the same place – that first night in Quito, Ecuador, where he would always insist that I was more interested in one of his buddies than I was in him. It just wasn’t true, and I could barely remember the friends he was with, but Scott’s insecurity around that night and whether or not I really loved him never went away, no matter how hard and how many times I tried desperately to reassure him.

Scott turned out to be surprisingly enthusiastic at supporting me during the short labor. He had recently, during my eighth month of pregnancy, expressed his desire to be in the delivery room when our baby was born. I agreed to have him there, secretly hoping he would change his mind during the momentous event of our baby’s birth, and we would get back together. He was at my side throughout labor, encouraging me and asking excited questions to the doctors and nurses about the progress of the labor. After just two hours at the hospital, our baby was born. When Scott hollered, “It’s a girl!” I could hardly believe it. Although I didn’t find out the baby’s sex, I felt it would be a boy that would leave me too quickly to spend more time with his adventurous dad.

I was so convinced the baby would be a boy, I didn’t even have a girls’ name picked out. I’d thrown out all of Lauren’s barbie dolls, knowing that we wouldn’t need them anymore. I’d have to start from scratch on finding a name for this baby girl. She would take my last name, that was one surefire decision I had made in the midst of this chaotic pregnancy. She wasn’t going to have Scott’s last name. He hadn’t been around at all during my pregnancy after the wedding was cancelled. He said he didn’t want to be with me or have anything to do with the baby early on. I didn’t know what the future would bring, but I knew there was a good possibility he wouldn’t be around, and I didn’t need to be dragging his last name around with us if he was halfway around the world.

She was a perfectly beautiful baby. Dark hair, slate blue eyes that would change to brown, and a  round baby face. She looked a lot like Scott and a lot like my older sister. Still, Scott demanded a paternity test. This paradox didn’t make sense to me. He wanted to be at the hospital for the birth of “his” baby and at the same time told me he wasn’t sure the baby was his. So tell me where and when you think this baby was conceived, I challenged him. He knew in his heart she was his child. We were together every day and planning our wedding and future together without pause. But he was going to try to hurt me by challenging that, and he did. He signed the birth certificate after we picked out a name for her. Looking back I was being accommodating to the point of being desperate to get back together with him. We picked Ashley. The most beautiful name for this gorgeous baby I got to take home. Now I was starting to get excited. A newborn baby, to me, was just about the best thing in the world. I fell in love with Ashley, hard, and promised myself I would do everything I could to make sure she felt special and knew that she was loved.

I took her home from the hospital on a Thursday morning, October 24, 2007, during the first gentle and cleansing rainstorm of the season. I really wanted our home to be a house, but I couldn’t afford it. We lived in a small two-bedroom apartment on the wrong side of town. Our apartment was in a complex of 600 units, built in the 1950s. Referred to as “the apartments” in a derogatory tone by those living in the suburban houses around it, we were at the bottom of the social standing in the area. Even Scott had called our apartment “seedy,” maybe because it was a multi-unit building with a carport instead of a garage, or perhaps it was the metal cabinets or the cheap carpeting inside. It wasn’t run down or dangerous, but it wasn’t a house and that made it less desirable than owning even the smallest cinderbox dump nearby.

Late in my pregnancy, I moved myself to the smaller bedroom and moved Lauren to the master bedroom. I cried myself to sleep after the bedroom move. Lauren got a cool bunk bed that she could eventually share with her little brother or sister. I moved my queen size bed into the smaller bedroom when I had expected, wanted even, to be living with Scott in a real house. I got downgraded. Alone and pregnant, another reminder that I was not where I wanted to be.

The day after we came home from the hospital was Friday. Despite being three days postpartum, I found an hour to file a motion for child support at the Redwood City courthouse. By filing I mean I took the papers that I had filled out by hand, drove them to the courthouse, waited in line at the Family Law counter. I handed a clerk the paperwork and a check when it was my turn, and was given a court date and a stamped copy as a receipt. I would have liked to have an attorney represent me, and hand it over to someone else, but I didn’t have enough money for an attorney. I’d have to do it myself. Simple as that. It was a lot of reading. Reading each line of each form and reading the instructions for the forms, which was tedious, but not really difficult. Most of the content of each form didn’t even apply to me (and probably didn’t apply to very many people). Figuring out which sections I did need to fill out was the toughest part, and even that was confusing but not impossible. I was motivated to go line by line, wading through these forms. I had another child to take care of emotionally as well as financially, and I wasn’t going to let our family down. I was very anxious about spending too much money, worried that I wouldn’t have enough money to cover all of our growing expenses, so I filed for child support as soon as I could.

At the end of my pregnancy, I had asked Scott to pay child support.  He agreed in principle to paying child support, he wasn’t willing to decide on a number with me. He wanted to leave it up to the judge to decide. That decision of Scott’s marked the beginning of our thirteen-year relationship with the court system. I even tried to file the paperwork ahead of time, before the baby was born, but the court wouldn’t consider it. An unborn baby is not yet a real live person according to the family law judge I talked to, and until it is, the judge won’t write any orders. Wait until the baby is born and then come back, they said. So there I was.

Scott and I did agree, during that one conversation late in my pregnancy, that he would visit Ashley twice a week, on Monday and Thursday evenings for two hours in my apartment. I didn’t think it would last very long. Scott was a wanderer by nature. He had lived in England, France, UAE, and South Africa during his adult life. He had travelled to more than forty countries. He wasn’t likely to stay close by. This agreement, when Scott would visit Ashley each week, was the only agreement we ever had on Scott’s visitation.

That Scott and I only had one agreement between us was in stark contrast to my current coparenting arrangement with Lauren’s father, Fred.

I was a very young 22-year old when I married Fred. Fred was 45. We separated after being married for four years, when Lauren was still a baby. Fred and I had a very agreeable separation and an uncontested divorce. We had an arrangement that worked out for both of us. I let him keep all of the financial assets from our marriage and he let me raise Lauren without any interference. Fred would take Lauren any weekend I asked him and he would see her once during the week for dinner. He would help me if I needed help fixing my car or something around the apartment. We supported each other after our separation and were always friendly. Our relationship worked for us. After we separated I longed to be in a family with a husband and more children and once I met Scott, I thought he was the one. But instead, here I was, a single mom of two, with a potentially contentious co-parenting partner. It hadn’t at all worked out the way I wanted it to.

The courthouse in Redwood City is not exactly a beautiful building. Rectangular, a tired and dull beige color, dotted with too-small windows, and eight stories high, it is the tallest building around. It looks like an oversized office building in the middle of a suburb, not a stately brick and column courthouse you might see in other American small towns. Nearby is the Traffic Court building, a few mid-story parking garages, and some well-marked Jurors Parking Lots. The main building I went to housed Superior Court, including the Family Division and the Criminal Division. A whole bunch of places you hope never to see.

Walking into the public entrance, I encountered a scenario much like that in an airport security line, only on a smaller scale. “Take your belts off and any metal on your body. Any loose change? Place it in the bins.” I placed my purse and paperwork in a bin. Belts, loose change, and big jewelry were not something I had in abundance. I waited for the security person to wave me through the metal detector, and then I collected my belongings on the other end.

On the first floor of the Redwood City courthouse, there was a large office area with various clerks sitting in desks behind many counters, similar to the DMV. You waited in line to file your papers, which simply meant to hand them to the clerk and have them entered into the court’s computer system. Probate, family law, small claims court, etc.- it was all the same. Sometimes you might wait in line for ten minutes, sometimes over an hour. The paperwork needed to be in order – filled out correctly, signed and dated, with the proper number of copies made, two-hole punched at the top, but not stapled, and a filing fee needed to be paid as well. There were always the same conversations taking place in the family law area in the long line that usually marked this area of the massive room we were in. People waiting to file their forms complained about their soon to be ex, explaining to the next person in line how horrible they were, how they had put the children in danger, about how deeply and thoroughly they had been wronged. I understood why they did this. No one wanted to be divorcing, no one wanted to be in a custody battle, no one wanted to end up here. I didn’t want to be here either, the only difference I had with most of these people is that I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. I kept my head down and waited for my turn with the clerk.

As an ‘in pro per’ I had one additional step to take before I could file my paperwork. ‘In pro per’ is a Latin term that means “for oneself” or “on one’s own behalf.” It’s a fancy way of saying you don’t have an attorney and are representing yourself. I needed to see the Family Law Facilitator to have my forms checked before they could be submitted, which is a requirement for anyone in pro per. There was an office downstairs in the basement of the court building. The Family Law Facilitator was there, and his initials needed to be on my forms before the clerk would would accept them on behalf of the court.

The Family Law Facilitator’s office was extremely busy. They posted a sign-up sheet outside their closed door at 7:00am sharp, and it was filled up within ten minutes of being posted. There were eight spots on the list. After that no more people were guaranteed a spot, but you could wait to see if you could get in at the end, time permitting. The Family Law Facilitator started taking the names on the list at 9:00am sharp, and domestic violence cases had the first priority.

                Charles Fox, attorney-at-law, was the Family Law Facilitator. He was paid one of the smallest salaries of any lawyer working in the courthouse, but he had passed the bar exam just like all the private attorneys and judges in court. His job was to help people identify the forms they needed, and to make sure they were filled out correctly. He was there to support the judicial process by helping those of us who couldn’t afford an attorney. It was noble work but also extremely routine. I thought he must have bored out of his mind most days. He was always pleasant and helpful and greeted everyone with a genuinely warm and friendly dimpled smile. My forms were always in good shape so it was a quick sign off for me. I felt a little sorry for this guy, a smart and cheerful young man who went to law school and passed the bar, and instead of seeing his own clients he was a resource for all of these people who had no one else to help them. This population of people without help included me.

In the paperwork I filed, I asked for sole physical and legal custody of Ashley, because she lived with me all the time and because I wanted to be able to make the decisions about her life. Even though Scott and I had already agreed to his visitation informally, I asked the court to make it official by asking for reasonable visitation for Scott, 2 two-hour evening visits per week in my apartment. I also asked for “guideline” child support which is the amount of child support that is set by a program in California called the Dissomaster. The Dissomaster calculates child support based on about twenty numbers. The most heavily weighted numbers are the amount of income each parent earns and the percentage of time the child spends with each parent.

After filing for child support, I received two copies of the paperwork stamped with the official court stamp, our case number F052501, and the clerk’s signature. Because I filed the initial paperwork, or motion, I became the Petitioner and Scott by default became the Respondent in what was now referred to as our “case.” The Petitioner and Respondent labels would remain with us throughout the entire case, no matter who filed what in the future. Because Scott and I weren’t married, our case was not classified as a typical child support or child custody case in only one way. It was classified as a paternity case, and paternity cases were considered confidential cases. Confidential cases were not accessible on line, which wasn’t a big issue but did mean that to view any of the motions or judgements in our case, we needed to go in to the courthouse, in person, and read the physical file.

The court kept one copy of my paperwork which went into our case folder, and that folder would go up to the judge or the commissioner the week before our hearing. (A judge is elected, and a commissioner is appointed, yet they have the same powers inside the courtroom.) The rest of the time the paperwork was stored in the basement of the court building. This first hearing was set for December 6, 2007, just over six weeks away. In the meantime, I needed to have Scott served with the papers. And I needed to prepare. Or just stress out.

Scott received my filing. I had a process server send them to him in the mail.  A few days before the hearing he formally responded with his own set of “responsive” forms by filing them with the court and he had a friend of his formally serve me by sending them to me in the mail. He asked for joint custody and a vague “reasonable visitation.” He asked for a blood test to determine paternity. He also stated his desire to “substantially contribute to the health, education, and welfare of this child.” And finally, Scott expressed his desire to spend more time with Ashley, which he called his “expansion of visits.” This would have surprised me a few months ago, but Scott had been coming to visit Ashley regularly, the two evenings a week that we agreed on, at my apartment. He seemed a little hesitant at holding a baby in the beginning, yet he kept trying and seemed to be enjoying spending time with little Ashley, especially when she fell asleep, lying safe and satisfied, on his chest.

-1-

December 6, 2007 was the date of the first 20-minute short cause court hearing in the Family Law department of San Mateo Superior Court.

Commissioner Nancy Greens heard the case.

Scott and I appeared in pro per, acting as our own attorneys.

We arrived in court a few minutes before the official start time of 9:00am.

Taped to the door of the courtroom was a list of everyone who had a hearing scheduled at this time, with this commissioner, and the names of their lawyers if they had them. Each case got a number for the day. Ours was number 9 out of 20.

We each went to the bailiff to check in, separately. It’s the bailiff’s job, before each hearing, to account for everyone who is on the list.

And then, a few minutes after 9:00, the hearing started. All of the parties were in the courtroom including their attorneys if they had them, plus the court secretary, the bailiff, and the court reporter. It’s actually a public hearing so anyone over 18 years old can attend. The secretary had everyone stand and swore everyone in. And then as everyone continued to stand, the judge walked in from a door behind the big raised desk, sat down, and motioned for everyone else to sit down, too.

There was a routine to the start of each session. The judge asked if any case requested a continuance. Typically a couple of cases did, and a new court date was set by the judge by conferring with the parties in front of the entire room. That was the end of any more activity for those cases that day. Next, the judge asked if anyone needed a same day mediation appointment. It didn’t happen every day, but it happened about half of the time, and the judge sent those parties straight to the mediator’s office on another floor. And then, the judge started calling each case on the list in some semblance of order, except that the cases with attorneys were called first and cases without attorneys were called last. Attorneys at that time made $300-400 per hour and judges did their best to make sure that the attorneys were not charging their clients wait time.

Finally I heard “Line Nine, McDonald versus Hoffman” and our case was being called by the Commissioner. During the hour wait, I had gotten incredibly anxious. The blood drained from my face as I stood up. Scott and I walked up to the separate tables for Petitioner and Respondent, and I felt more stiff and wooden with each step. We were each asked to state our full names into the microphone for the court reporter. I could barely speak loud enough, and I had to repeat my name a second time. Scott’s voice came through – loud, strong and confident. Then we sat down at long rectangular tables that faced the Commissioner and our hearing began. The Commissioner began talking to us and asked us each separate questions. It was clear that she had already read the motion I submitted and Scott’s response to it. Each of us was allowed to talk to the judge, but we were not allowed to speak to each other during the hearing.

Scott started out right away by saying that he wanted a paternity test. Commissioner Greens paused, looked straight at each of us and asked Scott, “Did you sign the birth certificate in the hospital when Ashley was born?”

“Yes, I signed it,” Scott replied.

“If you are contesting paternity, you have just sixty days from the birth of the child to remove yourself from the birth certificate voluntarily. So if you believe that you are not the father of this child, you have just sixty, well, actually it’s December 6th and she was born on October 22, so you have about fourteen days to remove yourself. If you do, there will be the original birth certificate issued, and then a second one issued without your name. If the paternity test comes back with you as the father, you can request a third birth certificate which will include your name again,” Commissioner Greens told Scott.

Scott indicated that he understood. I was angry imagining Ashley with three birth certificates because Scott couldn’t make up his mind. Or was just playing a game. This was my child’s life, not a circus act.

The judge ordered a continuance, because Scott contested the essence of the motion. The rest of the outstanding items would be continued to the next court date. In the meantime, a paternity test needed to take place. Commissioner Greens asked me if she needed to order the paternity test, which she had the authority to do. “No,” I responded because I was not going to get in the way of the paternity test.

The hearing was continued until Jan 22, 2008, when the results of the paternity test would be available. We were also referred to mediation, which was scheduled for Jan 3, 2008.

And then we were free to walk out of the courtroom. I walked out as quickly as I could, feeling tremendous relief that it was over, and ready to put this behind me and get back to my kids.

I’ve never been good at thinking on my feet. When I get anxious, I can’t find my words and I get really quiet. Neither of these qualities is good for representing yourself in court. I thought of all the right things to say later, as I replayed the court session over and over in my mind. I became even more anxious and upset thinking about what I should have said. Scott was a natural in court. He excelled at expository speaking. He had no qualms about asking for what he wanted and making it sound like it was perfectly reasonable, even when his request was utterly and maddening off the rails. In contrast to his confidence, I was afraid to speak up, to advocate for myself. When I did speak up, it went all wrong. I was a wimp, a mouse. I wanted to be fair. I had to get better at this. I vowed to do better in court next time. I would think of all the right things to say, I would say them, and I would come off confident and self-assured.

I felt humiliated that Scott wanted a paternity test. I never gave him any reason to doubt that the baby was his. The unstated accusation that I wasn’t faithful was piercing and painful. Our relationship had problems that I contributed to but fidelity wasn’t one of them. I felt that Scott was ridiculing me, and in public, to make it even worse, by asking for proof that Ashley was his child. I had always been sensitive, and I would cringe even if someone thought I was doing the wrong thing. I was embarrassed in court thinking that everyone in the courtroom viewed me as unfaithful and judged me harshly.

And I was angry that Scott was using Ashley’s birth certificate as a pawn. He was ok with Ashley having three birth certificates? How was I supposed to explain that to her when she got older? All because he said that he wanted a paternity test and contested paternity? What happened to the part about Scott wanting to be at the birth because it was his baby? He didn’t mention that in court. And although I should have, because it would have helped my case, I didn’t either.

Online I researched paternity tests, which were fairly new at the time. I found out that I didn’t need to go. Only the child and the “possible” father needed to go to the testing lab, get a cheek swab, and then wait for the results. The mother’s participation was optional. My participation in this fiasco was an easy decision. I didn’t want any part of it. A few days later, I insisted that Scott pick up Ashley from San Mateo to take her to the testing site in San Francisco and bring her back to San Mateo again. He was mad that I wouldn’t drive her to San Francisco. I was mad that he was involving an innocent baby in this craziness, so we were even.

Scott emailed the results of the test a week later. Yes, Ashley was his biological child. Of course she was. What a crummy thing for him to do – to publicly accuse me of infidelity, to even consider issuing Ashley three birth certificates, to make us go back to court for another session. And the cost of the paternity test was money down the drain when it could have gone into Ashley’s college fund. Why couldn’t Scott just look at Ashley and be honest with himself? She looked exactly like him.

New Year’s Eve came right up and I was going into 2008 as a single mom with two children. Still on maternity leave, I knew that going back to work was imminent. I was solely responsible for these two children, and I felt it. I felt the pressure. I felt daily that I failed them. That our small apartment wasn’t what I wanted for my children. That we were poor and I was a single mom. And I was lonely. Lonely for someone to love me. I missed Scott. I still dreamt of the family I thought I would have with him. I was happy that I had another beautiful daughter to love, but I still mourned the life I had hoped for with Scott.

The night of New Year’s Eve, my ex-husband Fred was over at our apartment to celebrate. We had always stayed friendly, and he visited us a few times a year which was usually fun for everyone. However this year I wasn’t finding any comfort in his visit, and I started unraveling. Within minutes I planned an escape. I left the apartment with Ashley, strapped her in the carseat, and drove to Scott’s. I called Scott to let him know that I was desperate, despondent, couldn’t stop crying, and I was literally driving over to his house in Fairfax to visit him. Scott wasn’t at home but he was nearby, enjoying a neighborhood New Year’s Party. I was a wreck. Scott came home from the party he was at to deal with me. I decided to be completely honest and tell Scott how much I wanted to be with him. He listened to me, in between sobs, but told me that he didn’t want to be with me. At all. It was very final on his part. I cried when I wasn’t sleeping, woke up in the morning at his house still crying, and finally, not getting him to budge one bit, I drove home sobbing with Ashley the morning of New Year’s Day, feeling completely exposed and broken.

2008

-2

January 3, 2008 was the date of our first court-ordered mediation session.

Ben Avital, LCSW was our mediator.

Scott and I went to the same Redwood City Superior Court building, and took the elevator to a different floor. We entered a lobby, much like a therapist’s office, inside the Family Court Services division which housed the family mediation center. We sat down and waited for the mediator to call us in.

A few minutes later Mr. Avital ushered us in to his small office with its plain, government issued furniture. Ben Avital, a licensed clinical social worker, or LCSW, was our mediator. Ben was in his late thirties, tall and slim, with short black hair peppered with silver. He constantly exhibited patience and respect, and calmed the small room with his gentle and thoughtful ways. All good qualities for a tense family meeting with two parties who didn’t want to be there and who didn’t want to hear the other side. Mr. Avital, with an abundance of grace and polished manners, tried to get us to meet on the middle of each issue presented. We talked about all of the issues that I’d written about in my motion and that Scott had written in his response (except child support, because mediation doesn’t cover child support). The conversation was emotionally charged but Mr. Avital was a good listener and worked tirelessly during the ninety minutes we were together to suggest agreements and compromises on each and every issue.

The goal of mediation is to come up with agreements between the two parties. We didn’t come up with many agreements. I was still hurting from Scott breaking up with me and I wasn’t receptive to what he wanted. Plus I was anxious about him taking Ashley away from me, or taking her for overnights. She was only two months old. So there was not much agreed to by the two of us, which meant that Mr. Avital would need to make recommendations to the court about almost every issue that we’d brought to him, except for going to co-parent counseling together which was the one small issue where we had alignment.

We each received Mr. Avital’s report in the mail about ten days later. In all capital letters at the top of the report, it read “It will not be in the best interest of children to show or read this to them.” No problem, Ashley was still an infant. Mr. Avital recommended that I have physical custody of Ashley and that we share legal custody of Ashley. Sharing legal custody meant that we’d share in making decisions about the health, education, and welfare of Ashley and that we’d each have access to her medical and school records. He also recommended that “neither parent shall move with the minor out of the nine surrounding Bay Area Counties without the written permission of the other parent or further orders of the Court.”

Mr. Avital recommended that we enroll in co-parent counseling which was ok with both of us. And he recommended that Scott have his first “expansion of time” with Ashley, meaning that in addition to visiting her on Monday from 6-8pm and Thursday evenings from 4-6pm as we had already been doing since she was born, Scott would also visit with Ashley on alternating Sundays from 8-10am.

                Although we had already agreed to the Monday and Thursday evening visitation, making it into a court order would be the next step. I was fine with that, and Scott seemed to want a court order around the visitation times. The alternating Sundays would be made into a court order, too.

                Since the Thursday visitation was at an earlier time, and day care would be open when I went back to work, we talked about Scott picking her up from day care on Thursdays once I went back to work instead of my apartment. Since we didn’t know when I was going back to work and the pick-up location would change, this detail wasn’t included in Mr. Avital’s report or list of recommendations.

There were a few “standard” statements in Mr. Avital’s report as well, which read:

1.       All additional visitation shall be mutually arranged in advance between the parents.

2.       Changes to the parenting plan shall be mutually agreed upon in advance in writing between the parents.

3.       Holidays shall be shared and mutually arranged between the parents.

4.       Each parent shall have reasonable phone access to the minor when she is in the other parent’s care,

5.       Both parents shall speak only positively to and about the other parent and shall encourage third parties to do the same in order to encourage positive feelings in the minor for the other parent.

6.       Both parents shall encourage the minor to spend time with the other parent.

7.       Neither parent shall discuss the legal proceedings with the other parent.

8.       Each parent shall communicate directly with the other parent only as necessary regarding the welfare and visitation of the minor, not involving third parties, or relay messages through the minor.

9.       Each parent shall keep the other informed of his or her current address and phone number to be used only regarding the welfare and visitation of the minor.

10.   Neither parent shall permit the minor to be exposed to any expression of extreme conflict or domestic violence.

11.   Neither parent shall permit the minor to be in the care of presence of, or transported by, any person who is possessing, using or under the influence of alcohol or any illicit drug.

12.   Neither parent shall permit the minor to be cared for anyone who uses physical punishment on the minor.

13.   If either parent plans to take the minor out of the state but not out of the country for a trip during his/her time with the minor, the traveling parent shall notify the other parent at least 14 days in advance with the location they are visiting and an emergency phone contact number.

14.   If either parent plans to take the minor out of the country for a trip during his/her time with the minor, the traveling parent shall notify the other parent at least 30 days in advance with the location they are visiting and an emergency phone contact number and obtain the other parent’s written permission.

It wouldn’t be right to say I felt good about all of the mediator’s recommendations, but I didn’t feel so bad, either. It allowed for Scott to pick up Ashley at day care on Thursdays when she started day care and drop her off at my house after his Thursday visits, and that meant one less pick up at day care for me. I wasn’t too excited about having Ashley ready for Scott every other Sunday at the early hour of 8:00am. Didn’t these mediators know how much new parents value sleep?  And finally, I wanted to work with a co parent counselor to solve these issues that kept arising between Scott and me, so that was potentially a good thing.

Most of the fourteen standard recommendations didn’t affect us directly yet, because Ashley was still a baby. Speaking positively about the other parent and keeping the other parent informed of address and phone number were orders that stayed with us throughout our entire case. Some of the other orders were superseded within the year, and others were superseded after a longer time.

During her first winter, Ashley and I went to our neighborhood urgent care clinic – a lot. She would have a cold, and then a fever, and it would be hard for her to breathe. She sounded like a hoarse frog, with her inhalation noticeably labored, and as my maternal instinct kicked in, I’d quickly become alarmed. I would end up bundling her up, strapping her in the carseat, and driving her to urgent care. The nurse would check her oxygen level, and since it would be down a few points, they would give her a nebulizer treatment right on the spot to open her bronchial passages and allow her to breathe without constriction. As the constriction loosened, her breathing become quieter and less labored.

An hour later, when her oxygen saturation numbers were higher, I would get to take her home. She was always close to having an oxygen saturation level low enough to be hospitalized, but it was never low enough for that to actually happen. Those times were rough on me as I worried so much about her, and being in urgent care was not very much fun. I would postpone Scott’s visit until she was well again. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping her home with me, where I was extremely focused on her breathing and getting her well again. Scott was always angry that I “cancelled his visit” and he didn’t seem believe that she was really sick. So that brought added tension to the already stressful situation.

Since Scott’s visits were only two hours long and he lived an hour’s drive away, he and Ashley would spend some of their time visiting outside.

There were a couple of times that first winter when Scott brought her back to me and she was running a fever. I was very upset that he didn’t notice it. I emailed him right away after receiving her back with a fever, letting him know that she was sick. He was never happy to receive these emails and replied back that she didn’t have a fever and that he hadn’t missed anything. Accusing him of this made an already strained relationship worse and it added to my anxiety about him caring for her.

In between the stressful times of urgent care visits and going to court, I was loving this baby. Her smile lit up the room. She was smart, taking in the world and boldly making eye contact with everyone she met. Once she would lock eyes with a stranger, she broke into a huge grin and won them over in a second. Her personality wasn’t anything like mine or Lauren’s. She had bravado, personality in abundance, and the world was her oyster. She constantly reminded me of all my favorite parts of Scott.

Scott and I met with a co parent counselor, Patricia Keene, six times that winter. Dr. Keene had a beautiful office in downtown Burlingame where I was a bit anxious to sit down on the expensive ivory sofas. On the round coffee table in the middle of the room, there was always a bouquet of professionally arranged flowers. Dr. Keene’s outfits and hair coloring were also luxurious. Scott and I walked into this space with his old jeans and t-shirts, and the best clothes I could afford, which were on the sale rack from few years back, mismatched and slightly rumpled. I hardly belonged in such a beautiful space.

Dr. Keene’s professional manner was just as lovely as her surroundings. She listened intently to both of us, and remained calm and supportive when the discussions became hostile. I continued to panic when Scott brought up how much he believed he was “an equal parent” and that Ashley should be with him half of the time. I brought my hurt and sadness because our relationship had ended and dug my heels in at Ashley going overnight with Scott. I was already so exhausted from the daily schedule of raising two children on my own and working full time. How could I add in extra driving to Scott’s house or a cranky baby due to a change in her schedule? I was already at my breaking point.

I refused to compromise on breastfeeding Ashley, which would have helped me if I did. I knew that if I stopped breastfeeding, I would have more energy and wouldn’t have to pump during the days. I couldn’t make the switch to formula, because I believed that breast milk was best for her, especially with her allergies. And I loved the bonding and extra closeness that came from nursing her.

Our six sessions with Dr. Keene came to an end within a couple of months and I was disappointed that I didn’t feel there had been any progress made. It seemed to me that Scott dominated the counseling sessions and always wanted to talk forcefully over me. Dr. Keene had a different take on the sessions. She believed that neither Scott nor I listened to each other, and that we were both hurt by our past relationship. She went on to say that we both hadn’t worked through the issues in our former relationship, and continued to play out those dynamics in the present. I wish I had listened more to Dr. Keene’s analysis of the situation. I felt differently. I felt that Scott caused all of the problems. If I had it to do over again, I would have actively listened to Scott in the sessions. I would have mirrored what he said. I would have been less reactive. Unfortunately, those were lessons I learned much later on.

Finally, the court hearing and designation of child support I’d been waiting for since Ashley’s birth in October was just a few days away. I was never difficult or belligerent and extremely well-behaved in public, so really how badly could it go? The commissioner who was scheduled to preside over our hearing was Christine Viera. I did my research and she was a single mom as well, with two daughters, and she lived in San Mateo on the border of Hillsborough. She was eight years older than me, and she was a practicing family law attorney before she was appointed as a Family Law Commissioner. I thought that we would have a lot in common and this would be a piece of cake.

-3-

January 22, 2007 was the date of our first real Family Law court hearing, where actual orders were made. It was another short cause hearing.

Commissioner Christine Viera heard the case.

Scott and I appeared in pro per.

Most of the orders the Commissioner made were expected: joint legal custody to both parents and sole physical custody to mother. All of Mr. Avital’s recommendations were made into orders. Commissioner Viera wrote in one sentence in her own neat handwriting that surprised and haunted me: It is the goal of the court to have visitation between Ashley & Mr. Hoffman increase over time that is appropriate for a child of Ashley’s age.

Commissioner Viera was frankly adorable, standing about 5’2”, with a dark brown pageboy haircut framing her petite, small-featured face. She was dressed in the judges’ robes with a white lace collar around her neck, reminiscent of Judge Judy but much cuter. She was respectful of the pomp and circumstance of the courtroom while at the same time she acted as if she was slightly bored at the proceedings. Her voice was low, at just above a whisper, so you needed to lean forward and really pay attention to hear every word she spoke.

There was something else that was unmistakable about Commissioner Viera. She quite obviously disliked me. I didn’t feel respected or heard each time I got up the courage to speak, and sometimes Commissioner Viera downright interrupted me when was right in the middle of a sentence. She let Scott speak more than I did and when he talked, she listened to him carefully, nodding respectfully and making eye contact with him. I had to admit, I wasn’t a powerful force as a public speaker. I was not good at communicating verbally in front of an audience, especially when it had to do with defending or advocating for myself. In court Scott stood proudly, chest forward. He was confident, self-assured, likeable, and all-around much, much better at navigating a courtroom.

I had asked to be granted sole legal custody, which would mean that I would have the authority to make decisions about Ashley’s health and education on my own, without Scott’s input. But instead the court granted joint legal custody, which meant that Scott and I would both have the authority and right to make decisions, jointly, in Ashley’s care. It worried me. I needed day care to go to work and to make money to support my kids and yet with joint custody, Scott had equal say in whether or not a day care center would be appropriate and acceptable. I visited four day care centers close to my apartment over the seemingly endless hot summer during my pregnancy and I really liked two of them. I was on the waiting list for all of them. My hope was that one of the two I liked would come through and that Scott wouldn’t fight me on placing Ashley in any of them.

I did receive sole physical custody, because Ashley lived with me fulltime, and didn’t ever go to Scott’s house. Commissioner Viera believed that this living situation should change over time, with more and more of Ashley’s time to be spent with Scott. This was terrifying to me because Scott and I lived so far apart. If I was ordered to drive Ashley back and forth to Scott’s, I didn’t know how I would physically be able to handle that, with my job and with my responsibilities of taking care of Lauren, too. I was already at my breaking point as a single mother of two more days than I would like to admit, how much more could I take?

The part of the judgment that surprised me most was the child support calculation. I filed for child support when Ashley was only three days old because I thought that child support was retroactive to the date of filing. The numbers that Commissioner Viera put in to the Dissomaster were 5% physical custody for Scott and 95% physical custody for me. At the time, Scott had visitation of Ashley on Monday and Thursday evenings for two hours each. That wasn’t 5%, it was actually closer to 2%, but the Dissomaster program the California courts used only calculated the timeshare in increments of 5%. There was no 2%.

The Dissomaster program is used to calculate child support in California. The program is controversial with many believing it isn’t at all fair. Some even believed that the calculation was intended to silently add in spousal support, because most divorcing spouses weren’t awarded spousal support. Fair or not, it was going to be used in our case, so I researched it extensively.

The amount of custody a parent had was one of the major determinations in the Dissomaster calculation. The other one was income. With Scott’s higher income of $150K and 5% custody, and my income of $70K and 95% custody, I was awarded $1224 child support each month. Scott was also ordered to pay half of day care ($1100 a month, eventually) and half of Ashley’s health care expenses, including the monthly premiums.

Child support wasn’t exactly optional for me. If I could have avoided it, it would have been one less issue for Scott and me to argue about. I spent a lonely and very pregnant summer looking at day care centers for the baby. (I also ate a lot of watermelon.) Some centers were more expensive than others but all were shockingly pricey. I loved this baby and I desperately wanted my baby to be in a good place when I was at work. A large day care center where there would be plenty of opportunity for social interaction and plenty of support for the caregivers fit the bill. To pay for day care, I needed child support.

I had tried to negotiate with Scott around the amount of child support late in my pregnancy when we started communicating, although briefly, after many months of having no contact. I offered him $1250 per month, with child care and health care included. Scott quickly rejected my offer.

I expected that Commissioner Viera would make the child support retroactive to Ashley’s birth of October 22 or the filing date of October 25. That’s why I filed so quickly, because people told me that child support would start on the day that I filed. Instead her ruling was that child support would be retroactive back to November 1st. It wasn’t a big difference, only a few days, and not much money, but I felt like I had done something wrong, that I was being punished by this detail of the ruling. At just a couple of months postpartum and still breastfeeding, I was still emotional and very sensitive. I felt incredibly slighted and disliked by Commissioner Viera on a personal level. Even more than that, I felt that I had let my children down by this ruling, that the money I expected was owed to them somehow and it was my fault that I had let it slip through my fingers.

That was my first lesson in what it was like to be in court, having a stranger decide important parts of my life that I had previously decided or negotiated on my own. I had lost the ability to make my own decisions and my life started to feel like it wasn’t my own. I started to do things not because I believe them to be right, but because I had to. This was my first descent into not owning my own life. I enjoyed being independent, being in control of my future. I didn’t like it at all when a stranger took some of the control away from me. Scott knew that. He smelled blood, learned one of my soft spots, and started to apply pressure.

As I left the courtroom, I was afraid of what was in front of me. Would I eventually lose custody of Ashley? Would I ever be forced to share custody, on a fifty-fifty percentage basis, with Scott? It was one of the worst scenarios I could imagine. Lauren, Ashley, and I were a family. And despite it taking every waking hour of mine to take care of them, I loved them so much. I loved being a mother. I loved being their mother. I never wanted to lose either of them or have either one far away from me.

In late January, my ex-husband, Fred, invited Lauren, Ashley, and me to a Saturday night dinner to celebrate my birthday in downtown Oakland. We ate at a small Korean restaurant and I got to talk with another adult during dinner, a rare treat. Plus it got me out of my routine of staying in San Mateo taking care of the kids, making dinner at home. I needed that. Towards the end of dinner a man approached us who was sitting at the next table and let us know that he was a photographer. He had a photo shoot with Leapfrog Toys on Monday and the modeling agencies were short on babies. Ashley was the right age, cute and happy, would we possibly be interested in having her model? He gave me his business card and invited us to the shoot.

We went to his studio on Monday and Ashley was the perfect baby model. She smiled on cue, she wasn’t fussy, she even took a nap when they needed shots of a sleeping baby. She appeared on the cover of a toy box for a Leapfrog toy that we bought at Target as soon as it was available. Her photo was also made into a poster that went in a showroom in New York City. The photographer recommended that we sign Ashley up with a child modeling agency in Menlo Park. I took the check for $200 and called the agency.

A few days later, we went to the agency and Ashley was immediately “signed” with them. She had the same magic that Scott had. She made eye contact and smiled at everyone she saw, and her vibrant personality came through in photos, too.

In early February 2008 I received a call from my second choice day care center. They had a spot for Ashley. I accepted the spot, negotiated Ashley’s start date to the day after President’s Day, cried a little, and began to get myself mentally and physically ready to go back to work. It was going to be ok, I told myself. I can do this, I know I can. But seriously, it seemed incredibly daunting.

Being a single mother of two was a lesson in how much strength I had, more strength than I could ever have realized. When I went back to work when Lauren was a baby, I sobbed every day for weeks, in the mornings and in the evenings. I didn’t have that luxury now. I had to be strong for my children, and I was as stoic as I could be.

Once I went back to work, it was actually ok to be there, and ok to be away from Ashley during the day, but I have never been so tired in my life. I had to get three of us ready in the morning, including making breakfast, drop off Lauren at the elementary school where she was in 4th grade, drive to the day care center to drop off Ashley, and then drive to work. Because I had to park at each place, get of the car and sign the kids in to where they were each day, it took me an hour from when I left the house to when I arrived at work, which was less than ten miles round trip. While I was at work I needed to work, plus I needed to pump breast milk a couple of times a day, and then leave at 4:00 to pick everyone up again, which took another hour. Right after dinner I would go to bed with the kids, barely physically able to stay awake. Sometimes everyone slept through the night but more often than not, Ashley didn’t. And when she didn’t, I had to take care of whatever feeding and diaper changes she needed, losing sleep and getting even more tired. I would wake up exhausted the next day and do it all over again. I dreamt of sleeping in and I dreamt of not being tired. And although more sleep never happened, that was literally all I could hope for during that time.

Despite the never-ending work and fatigue of being the parent of a young baby, I was very happy having two children. The arrival of my firstborn, Lauren, made me a mother, and having a second daughter was icing on the cake - it brought me unbelievable joy. Lauren was so much like me that it had always been easy to parent her. I knew her thoughts and needs, even when she didn’t verbalize them, because they were so similar to my own. We were both quiet, liked to know what the rules were, and followed the rules. Ashley, however, was a completely different character. Ashley was a ton of fun, a party embodied in a young baby. She was constantly smiling and laughing, always wanted attention, and flirted with everyone. Like Scott, life was Ashley’s playground. She was an energetic baby and always up for something new. I set up routines for her but she constantly bucked the structure and just wanted to play. She made me laugh out loud every single day.

And then, just when I was beginning to get comfortable with my new role as single working mother of two, Scott filed his first motion on March 3. He was asking for overnight visits to start immediately, every other weekend, and an increase from 2 to 3 hours for his two-weekday visits. He wrote that the two of them were getting along well, Ashley was taking to the bottle admirably, and it would be less traumatic for Ashley to start overnight visits right then, he wrote, rather than waiting until she was older. His motion came as a surprise to me, both in terms of the request and of course in the timing, which was just weeks after our last court date. I was puzzled that he was willing to drive all the distance between us for an overnight visit. It seemed unlike the Scott I knew who couldn’t wait to stop driving back and forth to my apartment. A few months ago, he didn’t want to have anything to do with San Mateo, couldn’t wait to leave the peninsula forever. But now things had changed, and he was fine with driving here two or three times a week. The hearing for this motion was set for April 1 in Commissioner Christine Viera’s courtroom.

In Family Law, you’re supposed to bring up your issue with the other party and attempt to work it out amongst yourselves, first, before filing a motion. Or engage your lawyers if you have an attorney in place. Scott just went down to the courthouse and filed a motion for more time with Ashley. I didn’t know to call him on it, I didn’t have enough knowledge of the rules of court to do that - yet. Because his motion came so quickly after our last hearing and because Ashley was so young, I didn’t think the court would take his request seriously.

I thought the request for overnight visits was absurd. I was still working on getting baby Ashley in a routine. At not even six months old, she slept through the night about half the time, but the other half of the time she needed breastfeeding and a diaper change and needed to be put back to sleep. I was extremely consistent at night to try to train her to sleep through the nights. I couldn’t imagine how disoriented she would be spending a night a week at Scott’s house at this age. Getting used to another caregiver, a new house with new sounds and smells, a new crib, a house with a different temperature – that all sounded like pulling her away from stability and into chaos. Chaos that I imagined would lead me to less sleep and more stress. I hoped that no one in the court system would take Scott’s request seriously.

As blown away I was about his motion and terrified about his request for overnight visits when Ashley was just five months old, there was one thing on my side. Scott was asking for a change in the time that Ashley would spent with each parent, which was technically a change in custodial time. On the motion that Scott filed, it was stamped with “Call Family Court Services immediately to schedule a mediation appointment.” That is a request that, at that time, required mediation in the family law system. So one of us needed to make another appointment with Ben Avital, the mediator that we saw in January. We both knew the drill - Mr. Avital would try to get us to meet on the middle of each issue presented. Since Scott had filed the motion, I expected that he would call to make this appointment. I didn’t want to have anything to do with his motion and I wasn’t going to help him with it. I believed that time was on my side. If the motion was postponed because we needed to have a mediation appointment first, that was in my favor.

Scott was a self-proclaimed adrenalin junkie. I rock climbed with him many times, but a few times I ended up scared and crying. In the Pinnacles National Park, his belaying mistakes ended him in the hospital with his head split open and a concussion after he took a 30 foot fall and slammed on to a ledge halfway down the climb. He’d had stitches twice during our brief courtship. Another time, I’d flipped a mountain bike he’d lent me, which was much too big for me, landing hard on my shoulder and hip. I was literally four feet of bruises afterward, and limped around for two weeks while the bruises healed. It was fun to be with Scott, but safety was never his priority.

By contrast I believed that I was a careful person, and that I was a safe parent. This belief of mine was not beneficial to our situation, placing me on the opposite side from Scott. My mentality that I was right and he was wrong would add fuel to this already out of control fire.

I knew I needed to support Scott as a father, but it wasn’t easy. How could Scott care for a small baby when he could barely care for himself? What if he left her alone? Or smothered her accidentally? Would he change her diaper often enough? Would he hold her close if she cried? He didn’t have a history of stability or caretaking and these questions consumed me.

There were a few signs early on, but by this time Scott was extremely difficult to deal with. I asked for him to pick up Ashley at daycare on the evenings he visited her, which was on his way to my apartment. Scott wouldn’t agree to make that change. He said that no, that he’d pick her up at my apartment at the time his visitation started, 4:00 on Thursday evenings and 5:00 on Monday evenings. Even though we talked about Scott picking Ashley up from daycare during mediation, we only had a verbal agreement on that, which I quickly learned did not count. It was not written in the orders, because when the recommendations were written Ashley wasn’t in daycare yet.

It started to be more tense and more stressful to come in contact with Scott, which is why I wanted him to pick her up from daycare. He was stone faced and slightly angry when he came to pick her up. She sensed his mood and she would start crying. I got tense, too. I tried to settle her down by jostling her in my arms, wanting her to go with her dad peacefully. But Scott would have none of that. He snatched her from my arms most visits, saying only “It’s time.” She continued crying and off they went. It was not a great start to the evening for me, either, not knowing if she settled down or not. The last glimpse I had of Ashley leaving me was of her crying. It was emotionally wrenching. If he would just pick her up at day care I could avoid this. I doubted that he would pull this behavior at day care. But for now, I was stuck with these negative exchanges.

It turned out that Ashley was not the healthiest of babies, which was new territory for me. She was gaining weight and was very cheerful but she got colds a lot. She was barely well for an entire week her first winter. Ashley had trouble breathing when she had a cold. I took her in to see her pediatrician regularly. One day I was at a family work event holding Ashley and a pediatric pulmonologist was there too. He walked up to me and said, “You know your baby has asthma, right? I spotted it the second I saw her from across the room.”

That’s what it was. Ashley had asthma. Her pediatrician verified the diagnosis. When Ashley had a cold and had trouble breathing, I told Scott that we should reschedule his visit. It was winter and she was outside a lot with him in the evening, when it was cold and dark. I didn’t think being outside in the cold was good for her. Scott never responded well to the rescheduling of his visits. 

In fact, on March 18, Scott filed for contempt of court, stating that I cancelled two visits without any reason. Shit. I received a copy of his filing for contempt of court on March 20, just a few weeks after returning to work. The court date for this hearing was set for May 13, in Commissioner Moreau’s courtroom. I was completely exhausted with work and taking care of the children, and now I needed to deal with this, too. I didn’t know too much about contempt of court, but I knew that if the judge, or commissioner, made an order and you didn’t follow it, you could get into formal trouble, also known as contempt of court. The formal term was ‘sanctioned by the court’. That meant they could fine you or place you in jail. If it continued or if deemed to be egregious, you could even lose custody of your child.

On March 25, I filed a response to the motion Scott had filed, the one where he asked for more time and overnights with Ashley. I hadn’t even figured out what to do about the contempt of court motion yet, but the court date for the first motion Scott filed was coming up fast, it was next week, and I needed to take care of that one first. I stated that I believe that 5 hours of visitation per week was about right for a baby that was only five months old and exclusively breastfed.  I also asked to take Ashley on a camping and biking trip to Canada for a few days over the summer. I’d already mentioned it to Scott, and no surprise, he thought it was a terrible idea.

-4-

April 1, 2008 was the date of a court hearing for a motion Scott filed on March 3 asking for a modification of visitation, to expand his time with Ashley.

Commissioner Christine Viera heard the case. Scott and I appeared in pro per.

Scott’s visits were expanded to twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, for 3 hours instead of 2 hours, Monday from 6-9pm and Thursday from 4-7pm. Additionally, his time with Ashley every other Sunday was expanded from 8-10 to 8-12noon.

She also wrote: Parties are referred to Family Court Services in mid-May to attempt to work out a long term visitation/holiday schedule. This matter is continued to June for a 1-hour hearing on the contempt issue and the custody visitation issue.

Wait a minute. I thought that a judge or commissioner could not change child visitation without mediation. But it just happened. This intensified my perception that Commissioner Viera was not on my side. I was disappointed. All Scott needed to do was to file a motion and get his time with Ashley increased? I thought for sure that having an infant younger than 6 months out until 9:00pm would not even be considered reasonable. I called my mom and my ex-husband, crying and whining about this injustice. There was nothing either one could do. And nothing I could do, either.

I couldn’t get over the fact that a Commissioner had ordered that a baby, less than six months old, could stay out on a weekday until 9pm. I didn’t have a lot of experience with visitation schedules, but I had never heard of anything like this. The routine of my family was known to the court, I had a job that started at 8am, and I had two children to drop off each morning. Lauren’s school started at 8:20. All three of us were usually in bed by 8:30pm. Now I had to wait until 9:00 for Scott to drop her off on Monday’s at 9:00pm, which meant staying up past my bedtime to receive her. But that wasn’t the end of it. She wasn’t brought back asleep. She was wide awake and she wanted to reconnect with me, nurse, get changed for bed, and that took at least 30-45 minutes. This schedule made me lose another hour or two of sleep each week, and sleep was one of my most precious resources. I was incredibly disappointed by this ruling.

The only good news to come from this hearing was that the contempt hearing was rescheduled from May 13 to sometime in June. As far as I was concerned, the contempt charge couldn’t get far enough away from me.

I hired a lawyer to help me with the contempt charge. I couldn’t really afford to have a lawyer represent me but contempt charges are serious. General contempt of court charges, for not following court orders, can mean a fine or even jail time. I quickly learned that two behaviors in Family Court could get you to lose custody of your child. The first was any kind of abuse or neglect. And the second was keeping your child away from the other parent. Getting in the way of the other parent’s custodial time was met with serious consequences. You’d end up without your child.

I found an attorney in San Mateo named Joe Benning, who agreed to represent me. He was in his late 50s with coiffed white hair. He wore an old-school crisp white shirt and a nicely fitted tie under his old-school suit. He was an experienced lawyer and good with people. I liked him right away. Joe also promised to help me fight the contempt charge, and he would write a response to Scott’s motion for contempt of court.

Joe wrote a response to Scott’s contempt charge and filed it on June 3, 2008. I wished I had enough money for a lawyer all of the time. First of all, Joe knew what to write in his response. Second, he wrote it. And third, he filed it for me so I didn’t even have to take an hour off of work and spend it driving to the courthouse and filing a motion. Having this kind of help with the heavy burden I was shouldering felt like a twenty-pound weight was taken off my back. I could breathe again.

Joe’s response to Scott’s contempt filing was called a Demurrer. I’d never heard of that word before, and it meant that he argued that Scott’s motion was legally insufficient. Joe wrote that Scott’s complaint didn’t constitute a public offense and was too vague to be considered by the court. I’m glad Joe came up with that because I never could have.

Since I was back to work, my mother started coming once a week to help with the kids. I worried that Ashley wouldn’t be accepted by my conservative family since she was born out of wedlock. I felt very protective over little Ashley. My mother was extremely traditional and I was concerned that my mom might not feel as close to Ashley as she was to Lauren. I couldn’t have been more wrong. By the time Ashley was just a few months old, she and my mom were inseparable. My mom doted on Ashley, and loved her big smile and her outward joyfulness. We were all in love with Ashley. She was a ray of sunshine that we didn’t know we needed, but now we couldn’t live without. She changed our lives. My heart had doubled in size since Ashley was born.

-5-

June 10, 2008 was the date of a court hearing on contempt charges.

Commissioner Richard Moreau, was the Commissioner who was assigned to hear this case.

Scott was in pro per and I was in the courtroom with my lawyer, Joe Benning.

Commissioner Moreau and I had known each other outside of this courtroom, by the strangest of coincidences. Before he was appointed as a Family Law Commissioner, he was a lawyer and he represented both me and my ex-husband a couple of years back. Fred and I had worked together to change our custody arrangement for Lauren from sole to joint custody, to protect my eldest daughter in the event of my death. Commissioner Moreau could not ethically hear my case with Scott, due to our previous relationship as attorney and client. He stated this on the bench and formally recused himself from this and all further matters on this case. The contempt matter was referred back to the Clerk’s office to reset the matter. Since Joe Benning was my attorney, it was his job to file the paperwork to continue the matter and ensure that it didn’t get assigned to Richard Moreau’s courtroom again.

The matter was rescheduled for August 19, to be heard in Meg Freedman’s courtroom.

Scott’s visits were sometimes at the same time as Ashley’s naps. Ashley was still just a baby, and sometimes right after I picked her up from day care she fell asleep on the way home and would sleep for a couple of hours. Scott and I agreed over email that if Ashley was asleep when he had a visit in the evening, he would go upstairs to her bedroom and sit by her crib instead of waking her up. That agreement worked a couple of times, but then on July 7 he knocked on our front door for his visit with Ashley and I let him know that she was asleep. He pushed me aside, ran upstairs, and grabbed Ashley from her crib. She started to wail as he rushed her downstairs and out the front door again, which had remained open. I called the police and told them that my baby has been taken by her father. The police, to their credit, arrived in less than three minutes, and after talking to me very briefly, they went out to talk to Scott. He was still securing Ashley in the carseat of his SUV which was parked across the street. There was nothing the police could do because a custody order hadn’t been violated. It was Scott’s visitation time and even though we agreed over email that he wouldn’t take Ashley from her crib while she was sleeping, we didn’t have a court order stating that. The police explained that to me and then left without writing a police report.

I was disappointed in how Scott reacted to Ashley’s nap and I filed for a restraining order against Scott on July 10th. Scott was served the restraining order by the police and he was ordered to stay 100 yards away from me, my daughter Lauren, and our daughter Ashley. The date for the hearing was shortened, and was scheduled to be heard on July 23.

Scott hired San Mateo attorney John Downing just after I filed the motion for the restraining order. Mr. Downing wrote an excellent response to my motion for a restraining order and it was filed on July 18. In his response, Mr. Downing wrote of the impending contempt charge and how that was the reason, he believed, for my filing the request for the restraining order. He had a good point there. The stress level on my side was through the roof. The financial impact of having hired a lawyer scared me too. I was not at my best.

-6-

July 23, 2008 was the date of a court hearing for a motion I filed on July 10 for a  restraining order against Scott.

Commissioner Christine Viera heard the case.

I was in pro per and Scott was present with his attorney, John Downing.

That I filed for a restraining order against Scott did not please Commissioner Viera. She seemed to dislike me even more strongly, if that was even possible. My petition for a longer term restraining order against Scott was swiftly denied. Recognizing the conflict between us, Commissioner Viera wrote, “The parties shall have no contact except to exchange the minor child. Such exchanges shall occur curbside. Current visitation is to be remain as court-ordered pending hearing on August 19, 2008.“

At least we had almost a month of relative calm before the hearing in August. Curbside pickups were better for me than having Scott come to our front door, but Scott grumbled at me each time I had to meet him there at the curb. I knew he was trying to make the exchanges as unpleasant as possible for me, and he was doing a great job, as I dreaded each one. I also knew that he felt punished by the order. Scott was proud and liked to make his own decisions. He didn’t like being told he couldn’t do something. He didn’t like being ordered not to come to my front door.

Joe Benning, who knew that I thought Commissioner Viera didn’t like me, scheduled the August 19 hearing with Judge Meg Freedman, who had been on the bench for several decades.

August 1 was a hot summer day, with temperatures in the low 100s. I had taken the day off from work because Ashley had been hired as a baby model for a Pottery Barn Kids photo shoot. We went to the shoot location, a big warehouse in San Bruno. They opened the plain beige warehouse doors for us when we arrived and I walked in, instantly mesmerized by what I saw inside. We walked into the most magnificent display of Christmas I had ever seen. There were Christmas trees dripping with Christmas lights and ornaments. There were sleighs and stuffed reindeers, poinsettias and red Santa hats in room after room of staged living rooms perfectly set up for Christmas. It was still mid summer yet they were shooting for their upcoming holiday catalog. The stylist dressed Ashley in a little Santa onesie. Ashley smiled and held a present wrapped in red ribbon. There was a hair and make up artist to style Ashley’s hair, along with the wardrobe stylist to ensure that the clothes stayed looking clean and pressed throughout the shoot. It was so much fun interacting with these folks and learning about their jobs. We had a blast.

Our photo shoot fun was all too fleeting. After a few hours, the warehouse, filled with Christmas joy, slammed its door shut behind us. Back to 100 degree heat in August, with another court date on the horizon to work out visitation and a long term holiday schedule. Looming over me worse than the oppressive August heat, the contempt charge hearing was coming up fast.

Two days before the hearing, Ashley was sick again. She got another cold and her asthma was kicking in. I filled the bathroom with steam and pounded on her back to try to open her airways. She was feverish in the evening and throughout the night before the hearing. I didn’t sleep much. I couldn’t drop her off at day care because she was still feverish. I couldn’t cancel on the court hearing, either. I ended up going to court in my jeans and messy hair and meeting Joe Benning in the hallway outside the courtroom holding my sick little Ashley. He was most definitely surprised to see us both. Scott was there, too. Scott was dressed in a nice blue suit and although he saw us, he didn’t acknowledge Ashley or me in any way.

I was taken aback by Scott ignoring Ashley that morning in the courthouse. I was used to Scott ignoring Ashley during transitions. If I had to predict, I would have expected Scott to come over to Ashley as if she were a magnet. He didn’t see her as often as he wanted to, and here we were in the hallway of the courthouse, not having anything to do, specifically, before the hearing. No smiles from Scott, no wave, no “Hello”, no “Why is Ashley here?” or “How is Ashley?” No one else commented on his behavior but I found it cold and unnerving. This baby, who he had been fighting to see more of, was right in front of him, and he acted like she didn’t even exist.

“I’m sorry Joe, I’m sorry,” I was breathing heavily when I caught up to him. “The baby is sick. I didn’t know what to do,” I lamented.

“It’s ok,” Joe calmly reassured me. “I’ll take care of it. Wait here.”

Joe walked into the courtroom on the dot of 9:00am, when the session was scheduled to begin. Scott and his attorney John Downing went in, too. Minors under age 18 were not allowed in the courtroom. I waited, alone in the hallway outside of the courtroom after everyone had filed in, quietly jostling Ashley.

-7-

August 19, 2008 was the date of a court hearing to discuss the contempt charge Scott filed bundled with a long term visitation and holiday schedule for Ashley.

Judge Meg Freedman was scheduled to hear the case.

Scott, Scott’s attorney John Downing, my attorney Joe Benning, were in the courtroom. I was in the courtroom hallway with Ashley.

Joe came out after ten minutes and let me know that they had been granted a continuance and the hearing was continued to August 22. I felt bad for all of the trouble Ashley’s illness had caused. Quite a few people – Scott, John, Joe, and Judge Freedman – had prepared for the hearing this morning and some had travelled to the courthouse from far away. Not meaning to, I had accidently undermined their preparations and prevented the conversation from moving forward.

The only thing I could do was to go home and take good care of Ashley. She had to be better in three days. I had to be back in court, so that it wouldn’t look like I was purposefully holding things up.

-8-

August 22, 2008 was the next rescheduled court date to discuss the contempt charge and a long term visitation and holiday schedule.

The judge hearing the case was Meg Freedman.

Scott and I were present with our attorneys, Joe Benning and John Downing.

This was a very different hearing than we’d experienced before. There wasn’t a sheet of names on the courtroom door. There wasn’t even anyone else there, besides us. We were the only ones present in the big empty courtroom. Judge Freedman walked us back into her chambers, behind the courtroom. The five of us sat at a conference room table and talked through the issues. The discussion was calm and rational.

The main outcome was that at 14 months, Ashley would begin overnight visits with Scott. We would meet at Stonestown Mall in San Francisco for the overnight exchanges. The Mall was approximately halfway between my apartment and his house in Fairfax. We would begin working with a Special Master, which is like having access to a private judge. And the contempt charge was dismissed with prejudice. When something is dismissed with prejudice it means that it is dismissed permanently and cannot be tried again.

I was more than blown away by this calm and respectful experience, after several hostile courtroom experiences. I know it wasn’t typical for a case in family law to receive this level of individual care, and I was very grateful for that. Scott and I had an experienced judge sit with us patiently to mediate the issues and to work them through. We weren’t barked at, we weren’t in a short cause hearing with sixty other people in the courtroom. We didn’t leave with orders that didn’t work. We were listened to and addressed personally. This process worked. I compromised and so did Scott. We understood next steps and had time to prepare for them.

The order that scared me the most was Ashley going overnight with her dad. Fourteen months old was still pretty young. Scott had wanted this since she was born, and I had been fighting it for that entire time. Judge Freedman felt that it was important for Scott to take care of Ashley overnight and have the experience bonding with Ashley, that only putting her to sleep and waking up with her in the morning could provide. I still didn’t agree with it, but with all of the momentum Scott created to have overnights with Ashley, I knew I couldn’t stop it forever. I only hoped that Ashley was a lot bigger and ready for those overnight visits when they started. She seemed impossibly small for an overnight visit right then. She didn’t crawl, she didn’t walk, and she couldn’t speak any words. How could she understand being away from home? How could I possibly prepare her for this? Ashley had outgrown the newborn stage, but she was still a baby who needed constant care, daily routines, and her mom.

We had already been to court several times in less than a year. Joe assured me that a Special Master would be really helpful for our high conflict case. We would have more access to the Special Master, who would act like a private judge. We wouldn’t have to file a motion to engage him, instead we could just email or phone him up. He would write orders just like a “real” judge, orders that would need be followed just like the ones the judges and commissioners had been writing since Ashley was born. It would be a lot like our session with Judge Freedman, he told me. Having a Special Master would be like a personal judge who knew us well and would be able to make specific orders that worked with our specific needs as a family. And no more filing motions and appearing in court. I was ready to sign up.

Just before signing off and wishing me the best of luck, because I wouldn’t need a lawyer anymore, Joe strongly recommended Chip Chester to serve as our Special Master. He was well qualified, this Chip Chester. He had been a lawyer since 1972, almost as long as I was alive, and had been a Special Master in literally hundreds of high-conflict cases like ours. Mr. Chester was an expert in mediation and family law. That all sounded good. The only downside was the price tag, which was a steep $400/hour.

I wasn’t sure I could afford much of Mr. Chester’s hourly rate, but it would be split with Scott. I expected that Scott would calm down once the pomp and circumstance of going to court was behind us. Without an audience to embarrass me in front of, I was sure Scott would get tired of battling me and go back to the mild theatrics of the life he used to have.

Before we could begin working with Mr. Chester, we needed to sign a “Stipulation and Order Appointing Special Master” which formally appointed Mr. Chester as our Special Master. It was an eleven-page document detailing Mr. Chester’s authority, fees and fee structure, our consent for his services, the grievance procedure, data collection, and information on his decisions. It was signed by all three of us, signed by a Family Law judge, and filed at the courthouse on October 14, 2008. Then we could formally start working with him.

We first met Chip Chester at his office in Menlo Park, shortly after we had signed the document appointing him. For all of his degrees, experience, and I’m guessing wealth due to his expensive hourly rate, he looked like a run-of-the mill blue collar white male, in his mid-fifties. His brown hair, slicked back, was just beginning to thin. From his low-key appearance – he wore a bowling shirt on the nicer side - he could easily have been an auto mechanic or a waiter. He had no pretense or attitude. His office was sparsely decorated and the desk was covered with messy paperwork. Mr. Chester was quiet, patient, and a good listener, and even mildly welcoming. We quickly learned not to mistake his admirable soft skills and pleasantries for being noncommittal. When he made a ruling, he had made up his mind with unwavering boldness and there was no changing it.

We had no shortage of work for the decisive Mr. Chester. Right away I wanted Ashley to be returned at 8pm instead of 9pm. There were issues with where Ashley was picked up, Scott didn’t like curbside and I didn’t want to interact with him during transitions at all. Scott wanted me to supply diapers for his visits. I didn’t want the overnight visits to start when she was 14 months old, so I asked for those to be postponed. Scott asked to take Ashley to South Carolina for his father’s birthday when she would be 16 months old, for a week-long trip. Ashley was diagnosed with asthma and missed a few visits with her dad. They needed to be made up and that was another area of disagreement.

I got the feeling that Mr. Chester found many of these small issues slightly amusing. He was a middle-aged man with grown children and some of the topics we brought to him, involving baby Ashley, included diapers and breast milk.

Some of Mr. Chester’s wording struck me as if he was playing with us a bit. His dry sense of humor seeped into the wording of his writing on occasion, such as “It is unclear to me if Scott is requesting that I reconsider my order concerning the Christmas Eve/Day schedule. In any event, I decline to change the order.”

We emailed him multiple times each day, met with him in person twice, and had two follow-up phone conversations, in the span of the first few weeks. He wrote his first set of orders, addressing 10 issues, within this timeframe. They were effective immediately.

-9-

Recommendation and Order of Special Master, filed with the Superior Court of California, San Mateo County, on Nov 6, 2013.

Issue #1: Father requested a make-up from his missed visit, and we agreed on a date and time to make that up.

Issue #2: Mother requested that Father’s Monday visits be eliminated and instead they were ordered to end at 8:00 rather than 9:00.

Issue #3: Mother requested that transitions for the mid-week visits occur at the Family Visitation Center in San Mateo and we were ordered to investigate the hours of the Family Visitation Center and report back.

Issue #4: Father requested that Mother participate further in driving Ashley for his overnight visits. This request was not granted.

Issue #5: Father wanted to take Ashley to South Carolina for five full days to celebrate his father’s 70th birthday in a few months. Father was ordered to report back with exact proposed dates and was counseled that five days may be too long for a child Ashley’s age.

Issue #6: Father asked for information about Ashley’s food and naps from Mother when his visit began.

Issue #7: Father requested clarification on the existing order stating that Mother can postpone visits when Ashley is ill. The existing order stated “If the minor is sick at a time when she is scheduled to spend time with Respondent (i.e., fever greater than 101 or if the mother is called to pick up the minor from daycare due to illness, the visit shall be postponed and rescheduled to take place within no later than 14 days after the minor is well again.” Mr. Chester revised this to “If on Father’s visitation day Ashley has a fever greater than 101 or if the mother is called to pick up the minor from daycare due to illness, the visit shall be postponed at Mother’s request. If Mother believes that Ashley is too ill to visit with Father that day, but neither of the above criteria is applicable, then the visit shall still be postponed at Mother’s request; in such latter event, however, Mother shall, upon Father’s written request, provide Father with a written note from a licensed medical practitioner who saw Ashley within 24 hours of the scheduled visit, stating (i) the nature of the illness, and (ii) the doctor’s opinion that Ashley was too ill to visit with Father. Any postponed visit shall be rescheduled to take place within no later than 14 days after Ashley is well again.”

Issue #8 Mother asked that Father pay for one-half of Ashley’s Wednesday babysitter, which was denied.

Issue #9 Mother requested that Father contact the Special Master before contacting Ashley’s pediatrician or daycare provider. Mother claimed that Father was putting Ashley’s pediatrician and daycare provider in the middle of arguments. This was denied.

Issue #10 Mother asked that Father not interfere with Ashley’s commercial modeling. Father hadn’t heard of this before but it was ordered that he will be notified of any modeling activities but won’t contact any of the persons associated with modeling activities without the written consent or Mother or the Special Master.

While the constant swirl of these negative interactions went on behind the scenes, Ashley, just like any other toddler, was growing up. She started to walk just after she turned 1. We threw a party in the park for her first birthday. And in the next month or two, when she really got moving fast, it seemed like our 2-bedroom apartment had shrunk. With three of us walking around, the apartment was suddenly much too small. The economy was in a downturn, we lived in the middle of the Bay Area dot-com bust, and people were moving out of the area left and right. I started to look around for a new place for us to live. Our apartment complex had plenty of vacancies.

Supervised exchanges were something that I had wanted since the beginning of the year. I heard about them from Mr. Avital, when I complained about how hostile Scott could be during the exchanges. There was one near us, Mr. Avital told us, called the Family Visitation Center, and they offered both supervised visits and exchanges. If you had supervised exchanges, you didn’t even have to see the other party. Scott was too rough with Ashley when I was around, sometimes grabbing her from my arms without even saying hello. Ashley cried when this happened, and I couldn’t comfort her, which was tearing me up.

At other exchanges, Scott was openly angry towards me and complained loudly and in front of Ashley that I was late, that he didn’t want to be paying child support, or that he was doing too much driving and it wasn’t not fair. I never responded to him when he railed at me in front of Ashley, but I didn’t like it, either. His anger scared me. How this affected Ashley was unclear to me, but I knew it wasn’t positive. I wanted the exchanges to be focused on Ashley transitioning as smoothly as possible from one parent to another, and that was not happening.

At the Family Visitation Center, supervised exchanges worked like this: you dropped off your child with a staff person in one room, and then the child was walked by the staff member to an adjoining, but separate waiting room where the other parent was waiting. The receiving parent used a separate entrance and exit, and they staggered the times so that both parents didn’t arrive or leave at exactly the same time. There was no contact between the two parents.  The only problem was that the Center wasn’t open on Mondays, which was one of our visitation days, but it was open on Thursdays. Even having one less contact with Scott per week sounded like progress to me. Of course Scott didn’t like this idea. I didn’t ever find out exactly why, but the Center catered to many families with a history of domestic violence. I had a feeling Scott didn’t like being viewed as if he were violent or abusive. Scott had his pride and his image was very important to him. I knew that the Family Visitation Center wasn’t a great solution for him, but I appreciated it. I worried that the transitions directly from me to Scott were emotionally damaging for Ashley. I knew they were taking an emotional toll on me.

I was worried about the trip Scott wanted to take with Ashley, that I had only heard about from our first meeting with Mr. Chester. Scott’s father was turning 70 in South Carolina, and there was a celebration planned for his late January birthday. Ashley was just 15 months old, had been sick with asthma a lot, was still getting most of her daily calories through breast milk. I thought she was too young for the trip. Scott, and eventually, Mr. Chester, didn’t agree with me. Despite my protests, an order was written stating that Ashley could go, and that was that. She would go.

-10-

Recommendation and Order of Special Master, effective December 31, 2008

Father is allowed to take Ashley to South Carolina from Saturday, Jan 31, 2009 to Monday, February 2, 2009. Mother will have Ashley “ready” which is defined as having a suitcase of clothes for her for the trip and enough “pumped milk” for the duration of the trip.

There was additional wording having to do with what to do if Ashley was ill or had an ear infection on the day of travel.

I was sad to have to give up my baby for three days. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know how I could be away from her for that long. There was a slight bit of relief in reading the order, because the speculation was over – would she be ordered to go, or not. I knew I had to let her go, and I would do it. Somehow.

I often felt that I lost when I read these orders, even though Mr. Chester agreed with me on more than one occasion. When Mr. Chester made the order allowing Ashley to go to South Carolina to visit her grandfather at 16 months, I felt like I lost. Mr. Chester told Scott he could take her for three days. When Scott booked the tickets and they were actually for three and a half days, I felt that I was manipulated again. First by Mr. Chester and then by Scott. I lost Ashley, lost myself, lost this round of the game. This feeling of loss and having my child slowly taken away from me was especially present after new orders, like this one, were issued.

That’s what this had become. A sick game. A game where my baby daughter was a pawn. I hated it. I had to play on some level, which sickened me. I believed it would be over eventually. Scott would get tired of this soon enough. He would get another job in a different country like he had a dozen times before. I just had to wait it out.

Ashley’s overnight visits with her dad in Fairfax were coming up much too fast. In December, every time Scott came to pick her up, she was crying when it was time to leave me. It was a heartwrenching way to begin a few hours without her. I asked Scott if everything was ok and he responded that yes it was. He suggested that I was the problem for not being more encouraging of Ashley to go with him. But I was encouraging! I would never hurt Ashley. I would never surprise her with her dad’s visit. I always got her ready by talking to her about the upcoming visit, usually several times. It was Scott’s abruptness and angry stance that made the exchanges so hard.

In early December Scott told me that he’d like Ashley’s overnight visits to start two-weeks earlier, in late December instead of early January. We had a court order stating that Ashley would start these overnights in January, and that was already too soon for me. I wasn’t at all ok with Ashley starting even earlier than that, and I let Scott know that. I got a nasty email back stating that I was the reason that he won’t have overnights with Ashley in 2008. That wasn’t true exactly, but I got it.

In late December, with the memory of my unraveling the year before, I came to the realization that my mental health, while already fragile, was deteriorating into dangerous ground. I was worried constantly about losing Ashley. I was also under pressure while interacting with Scott over email, and trying to avoid him wherever possible. I was paying too much money in lawyer fees and now special master fees and I was slipping into debt. I wasn’t enjoying life much at all. Good thing I had decent medical insurance. I made an appointment with a psychiatrist who could prescribe antidepressants because I needed some pharmaceutical help. That’s exactly what I told Dr. Christian Vogelsang, MD, when I entered his office. “I need some drugs,” I told him, relieved to say it out loud.

“You’re feeling badly,” he told me. “Let me do a thorough evaluation and then I’ll let you know what I think.” The thorough evaluation he outlined was indeed quite extensive and took three entire sessions to complete. “Count backwards by sevens from one hundred,” he challenged me. Just give me the drugs, I thought. But I did what he said, gave him a detailed family history, along with answering questions about whether I was hearing voices or felt suicidal and seemingly many unrelated questions.

At the beginning of the fourth session Dr. Vogelsang had his answer for me. “You’re feeling depressed,” he told me. Oh yes, he’s hit the nail with the hammer, I thought. Now, for the drugs…. 

“Anyone would feel burdened given your circumstances with Scott. But you don’t need drugs. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you. You’re not clinically depressed, or anxious, and you don’t have any psychiatric illnesses. You just need to talk. So come every week and we’ll talk. It’ll get better from there.”

I was slightly disappointed at this news, as I wanted a quick fix. Dr. Vogelsang was right, just coming in to talk with him and share my burden about Scott was comforting. It definitely helped. Within weeks of having a patient, active-listening, kind man on my side, I was feeling better. Now when I felt anxiety or fear about dealing with Scott or any upcoming court proceedings, I had an outlet where I could express them.

I tried to enjoy the Christmas holidays. No luck. The overnights that Ashley would spend with Scott were looming, becoming less abstract. I spent the days constantly bumping painfully into the thought of her away from me. Away where I didn’t know if she was comforted or crying. She still seemed so little. And not ready for this. I was definitely not ready for this. Just as Scott had asked me to accelerate the overnight visits, I had asked Scott to postpone them, and he said no.