Court

Yesterday we had court, and the very brief summary is that nothing has changed.

The longer version goes like this: Last time we had court they set yesterday as the date for two custody hearings, one for our girl and one for her four-year-old brother. There was some back-and-forth with the brother's case, and since the parties can't all agree on what the outcome should be, the judge set a custody trial for the brother for early September. Then we turned to our baby's case: same outcome - the parties don't agree, so we go to custody trial in early September.

The grandma has filed for custody. The mom supports placement of the baby with the grandma. The dad supports temporary placement of the baby with the grandma, so, in his lawyer's words, she's with family instead of with strangers (i.e., us, the people who have raised her), and eventually the dad plans to get custody himself, even though he hasn't filed for custody in the last six months and he's not even a respondent on the case. The county doesn't support the baby going to the grandma, and even if the dad's home is ready for a baby (as his lawyer asserts) the county still has some other stuff they want him to do. Since there's no agreement, we go to trial, where the judge will hear all the parties' sides regarding our baby.

I spoke with the county attorney after the hearing and she said that as far as the county's concerned the baby will be with us for a while yet. They'll still give everyone every opportunity to do what they need to do to get this baby back, but even if the dad does every single thing he can in the next month, they won't just hand the baby over at the next court date. Speaking of which: he could have had visits both yesterday and today, but didn't call to confirm. So that's fun.

The most interesting moment came after the hearing. I have a terrible cold, and I had to blow my nose a few times during the hearing because the cold medicine I can take didn't do shit. As we were all getting up to leave, the baby's dad came over to see if I was okay, because he thought I was crying. Now, I know this dude to be a manipulative guy. I know that he is a charmer to get people to trust him. I just can't figure out what he was trying to gain there. I was so taken aback that I actually laughed out loud - and then I remembered that I want to be involved in this baby's life even if she ends up with him, so it's in my best interest to have him think I like and trust him, so I said, very politely, that no, I had a cold, but that it was very sweet of him to ask.

So we get at least another month with this awesome baby, and have just as much of a guess as to where she'll end up as we did the day she arrived.