A dear friend of mine sent me this e-mail this evening and I was hoping that you wonderful, knowledgeable people here could lend some insight and advice. I want so badly to help her. "L" is her daughter (14 mos old) and "D" is her daughter's bio dad whom she is no longer involved with. She has never asked D for any kind of support for L. As far as I know, D has never even bought so much as a pack of diapers. Here is her e-mail:
" I know you were super supportive of me and breastfeeding and now it turns out I might need some advocates for legality. Any references you have, like people or clubs or anything. I still flip through that book you gave me, there's always something new to find out at each new stage.
L is still primarily breast feeding, snacking on some solid foods, but since she has NO TEETH still, I figure I can help her out. Plus I'm enjoying being able to eat a plate of pasta.
Last weekend was kind of difficult. D called (after 8 months of silence) on Friday night to say he had a court order to see L and when I told him my attorney said that we'd have to talk about it next week, since neither of US had seen it, he called the police and came pounding on our door the next morning. Very, tragically humiliating.
Since then my attorney has assured me that he thinks we can go to hearing instead of just submitting paperwork, and I have asked that a separate child advocate be assigned to L to re-evaluate (since the court order has her with him every other weekend Friday - Sunday and she's not even sleeping through the night when I breastfeed her...).
Anyway, I think you are someone who knows about me (as I know about you) how important being a mom is, and I guess I am just tired of D holding my mothering practices up as "things I do to manipulate him and make L inaccessible" but the fact is I care about HER, and I am kind of afraid he is going to go after me for breastfeeding (like he did when she was 4 months old) and I'm wondering if you have any advice!!!"
L has never spent any time alone with D and I think her suddenly being wrenched from her mom and sent to D's house would be beyond traumatic. My friend tried many times to have D meet her and L at public places for time to spend together. She also made mediation and counciling appointments for her and D to try to work things out so at least they could come to a place where they could co-parent L. D never came to a single appointment. He would always just cancel the day before or just not show up. If it helps my friend and I both live in Central Ohio. I am going to tell her to contact LLL, but I don't know what else to tell her.
If anyone has any advice at all, I would appreciate it so much. My friend is a fantastic mom and is working to get her Master and working a part time job where she can take L with her. They are rarely apart.
Thank you all so much.
" I know you were super supportive of me and breastfeeding and now it turns out I might need some advocates for legality. Any references you have, like people or clubs or anything. I still flip through that book you gave me, there's always something new to find out at each new stage.
L is still primarily breast feeding, snacking on some solid foods, but since she has NO TEETH still, I figure I can help her out. Plus I'm enjoying being able to eat a plate of pasta.
Last weekend was kind of difficult. D called (after 8 months of silence) on Friday night to say he had a court order to see L and when I told him my attorney said that we'd have to talk about it next week, since neither of US had seen it, he called the police and came pounding on our door the next morning. Very, tragically humiliating.
Since then my attorney has assured me that he thinks we can go to hearing instead of just submitting paperwork, and I have asked that a separate child advocate be assigned to L to re-evaluate (since the court order has her with him every other weekend Friday - Sunday and she's not even sleeping through the night when I breastfeed her...).
Anyway, I think you are someone who knows about me (as I know about you) how important being a mom is, and I guess I am just tired of D holding my mothering practices up as "things I do to manipulate him and make L inaccessible" but the fact is I care about HER, and I am kind of afraid he is going to go after me for breastfeeding (like he did when she was 4 months old) and I'm wondering if you have any advice!!!"
L has never spent any time alone with D and I think her suddenly being wrenched from her mom and sent to D's house would be beyond traumatic. My friend tried many times to have D meet her and L at public places for time to spend together. She also made mediation and counciling appointments for her and D to try to work things out so at least they could come to a place where they could co-parent L. D never came to a single appointment. He would always just cancel the day before or just not show up. If it helps my friend and I both live in Central Ohio. I am going to tell her to contact LLL, but I don't know what else to tell her.
If anyone has any advice at all, I would appreciate it so much. My friend is a fantastic mom and is working to get her Master and working a part time job where she can take L with her. They are rarely apart.
Thank you all so much.
