And so it begins...

Today we were contacted by FoTB's attorney. Or rather.... my attorney was contacted by FoTB's attorney. So far, he has passed three drug test... if he passes a fourth this week he wants to start visits with Zack again.

I'm not ok with that. Not in any way shape or form. His attorney has threatened that if I don't send Zack they will file a contempt of court motion against me and I could be held in contempt and fined or possibly given jail time. I am actually more ok with that option.....

Over the last 30 days I have often wondered if this was worth the fight. If maybe we should just go back to the visitation schedule we already fought so hard for two years ago....

And then today, I got these pictures, the first of my wedding pictures... a sort of sneak peak...

And as I scroll through these pictures...

I know without a doubt that this is 100% worth it...

Possible fines and jail time and all....

I know I've said it before but I will say it again, in Iowa, the family court system which is designed to help the children is failing the children. The very individuals it is set up to keep safe are continually falling through the cracks.

I refuse to let Zack be one of those children. If the court systems won't keep him safe, I will.

Update

Well, for any of you still out there reading I thought I should pop in and provide you with an update on the goings on around here. It has now been 27 days that we have been dealing with this fiasco and it feels very much like we are still at the starting line.

So here is what I know, right now our goal is still termination. FoTB has passed three drug tests, one on the 9th, one on the 16th and one on the 24th. However, we have STRONG suspicions that he is fixing the tests. (Certain hard core drugs can essentially be peed out of your system in 2 - 3 days and since right now he is responsible for when he takes the test he can also make sure he only uses at certain times)

On the 9th after he passed he called me to ask to talk to Zack, I told him only after the counselor approved it. He FREAKED out on us on the phone. Telling Jim that he "didn't know who he was messing with" and asking him if he wanted to "come over and talk about it in person."

On Friday after passing his latest test at 1:00 in the afternoon we saw him on the "bad side" of town at 6:00 with a suspicious looking person in his car. (We were cutting down a side street on our way to a concert with Zack.) As soon as we passed his car he immediately called me and asked what I was doing over there and where I was going. Then he gave me some excuse about picking up someone for a meeting.

His girlfriend/ex-girlfriend (not sure what state that relationship is in) told me that he told her he was taking someone to the Whitehouse. (A recovery house in Des Moines) HOWEVER... we saw him at 6:00 and the meeting there does not start until 8:00. No one goes 90 minutes early to a meeting. Plus, he was going the opposite direction of the meeting.

SOO... like I told her, it just seems all to reminiscent of 2 1/2 years ago....

Zack meets with his counselor again tomorrow and FoTB is supposed to meet with him next Wednesday. After that meeting on the 6th is probably when we will know more. We need the counselor to recommend termination for us to have a good chance at it. Our lawyer thinks without that, the courts may not agree to it.

Seriously? A man can put his son in danger time and time again and they just keep handing him back to him?

DHS can't do anything. It was just pot after all. The court will argue, how high was he? The courts will argue that maybe Zack just heard the story, didn't really see it. He's four, he can't remember something I told him five minutes ago... really?

That is the part of the system that angers me...

According to our lawyer if we put safeguards in place like the drug tests and the supervision then the courts think that is what is supposed to keep Zack safe. Quite frankly, after dealing with this for 27 days....

I fully understand why people pack up with their kids and run away to keep them safe. Because the system that is set up to protect kids... it fails... miserably....

I do....

Somewhere in all the craziness of dealing with DHS & Lawyers & FoTB I went and got married.

The day was warm and sunny and absolutely perfect in every way....

And now, I get to spend the rest of my life with this man....

And I couldn't be happier about it....

The Good and the Bad...

In about 12 days it will be my six year anniversary in the blogging world. I started my original blog on 06/13/05. And since that very first post, I have used this space as a place to relate to people, to tell my story and to come to when I am at my very best and also at my very worst.

In two days and 18 hours I am getting married. One of the happiest days of my life.

Yet right now, I am here for one of the hardest. Good and bad all mixed together in a hodge podge of emotions and thoughts that I need to get out of my brain and on to paper so perhaps I can sleep. After all, I have 100 chairs to move tomorrow... I need my beauty rest.

So how do I say this to all of you? Bluntly seems to be the only way to start out the story....

Yesterday, at a counseling appointment, Zack told his counselor about the homemade "cigarettes" he watched his dad (FoTB) make. The counselor called me into the room and Zack retold the story about the paper that dad rips off and the stuff from the little bag that he puts on it and then he rolls it up and lights it on fire.

Today, FoTB tested dirty for marijuana.

I am sick to my stomach. I have been since yesterday. Several people in my life have said that this is a good thing, this means that we may finally get him out of Zack's life. Yet, I can't help but think, how in the world can the fact that my son watched his biological father roll and then smoke a joint EVER be a good thing.

My baby. My four year old son who has already in his lifetime been taken to a drug house at nine weeks, been away from his father for 7 months, been in the middle of a domestic altercation in which he watched his father verbally abuse and then throw things at his mother at 2 years old and now watched his father roll a joint at four years old. My son who is now on his second counselor in two years. An idea that to most people, including the insurance company lady I had to talk to to get pre-approval, seems so sad and so unheard of.

I am not mourning the loss of his biological father. When we told him he would not be able to see him or talk to him for awhile his reaction was to say yay, I don't want to go there anymore. I am instead mourning the loss of my child's innocence. Stolen way to soon by a man with no concept of what damage he has already done.

A man who still denies any wrong doing. (Apparently they are teaching joint rolling 101 on Sesame Street now...) A man who called me today to try to talk me out of turning him in. Who promised once again to get his life in order, that this was just a one time incident, that it was just a couple hits, that he had never bought anything, etc., etc., etc.

Even in the face of absolute truths, he can not admit to them....

Right now, I am sitting here, typing this with my angel in the next room and my heart hurts and soars for him all at once. He has lost his innocence. He has lost the ability to ever trust what that man has to bring to his life but in 2 days he will be gaining so much more. In two days we will all be a family and Jim will be the dad he needs. The man to teach him what trust and love and truth are. The man who will show him how a dad is supposed to treat his mom and him.

I know that this too shall pass. It always does. Every storm eventually ends and people begin to pick up the pieces. For right now, we have a minimum of one month to plan our clean up strategy. To get our heavy equipment into place and make sure that the next time we build a wall to keep the hurricane out, we build it even taller and stronger. For now that is all we can do. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other............

Unfinished Business

Things are still pretty much up in the air with everything right now.

Zack has to go to FoTB's house this weekend and quite frankly it makes me want to throw up. BUT... lacking any new evidence and the fact that the police did not see grounds to file any charges we are sort of stuck in limbo.

He and his girlfriend called us on Friday night, we talked for about an hour. 15 minutes of it with her because he stormed out of the house to throw a fit and take off on a motorcycle ride. Her I can deal with... him... not so much. At one point he told us that he had to have his mom come over when we did pickup before because he was so angry that we had talked to the police and DHS and he couldn't control nor be responsible for what he did when he was angry.

Why yes, yes this is the sort of person I want around my child.... (please read the sarcasm in that statement)

As for Zack, he started meeting with a counselor last Wednesday. He comes highly recommended and if he finds that Zack is continuing to have anxiety regarding visits and that he thinks they should be shortened or lessened then we will try to get that done. At a bare minimum we would at least like to make them easier for Zack and from what we've been told this is the place to start.

Unfortunately, when you start any journey it just takes time. We only meet with him once a week and it could take him several weeks before he starts to get anything useful out of the sessions. So for now... we wait....

On another front, we got the entire wedding ceremony written out yesterday (Probably 10 - 15 minutes) and in about an hour we will be going to get our marriage license so things are definitely moving forward on that front. Only 16 more days....

Feeling Defeated

Once again I have done everything that I know of to keep my son safe and once again he has fallen through the cracks.

FoTB lied to the police, I'm assuming he lied to DHS as well. The word from the police is that he stayed out there until the boys went to sleep (he did not, Zack said they were alone in the tent and it was dark and scary) and then he got up twice to check on them in the night. I'm SURE he did not... I would bet large sums of money on it in fact....

BUT... because it now becomes his word against ours, there is nothing they can do. I'm assuming that the findings by DHS will be much of the same and we are back to square one. Nothing was fixed and now things are worse between me and FoTB than they were before. Last night he made his mom come with him to pick up Zack at 5:00 and when we got there to pick up Zack at 7:00 he opened the door, shoved him out and closed it. How in the world are we supposed to discuss ANYTHING that may come up regarding Zack when he acts like a little kid?

So right now I just feel defeated.... again....

We have hired a counselor for Zack. Someone to try to make this all easier for him because no one will listen to us. No one will listen to the fact that Zack still hates going there, still cries when he has to talk to FoTB on the phone still doesn't want to be over there for more than a couple of hours. I just hope maybe someone will listen to this guy....

I'm considering a gallon of ice cream and a LONG nap... think it will help??

Red Tape

On Saturday FoTB left Zack and an 8 year old boy in a tent in their back yard alone, all night, unsupervised.

I don't even know where else to go with that. Into what would have happened if he would have left the tent and walked into one of the three really major roads all within 2 - 10 blocks of him? Or fallen into the pond 10 blocks away? Or fallen into a neighbors pool? Or been taken by someone? Or any other number of things that could have happened to my four year old overnight with no adult supervision.....

I am sick to my stomach. I have been sick to my stomach for two days. I am pulling out every stop I know. DHS, Police Department, Lawyer, Counselor, I keep running into red tape at every turn. What he did was bad, very, very bad parenting in fact but is it illegal... well... we are not sure. It may not be bad enough...

I do not want to wait for what he does with my son to be bad enough.... I do not want my son to have to be the example... the one that got really hurt before they would do anything.