Court is Monday. I'm freaking out. Mostly because this will have been the 7th attempt to go in front of a judge for this custody business. 6 freaking continuances. SIX!! But, as things stand at this moment we ARE in fact having the case heard Monday. They met for mediation in January of...2011!! The first court date was set for Feb something after that. Papers were filed in October of 2010!!! This is how long this has been going on, and making me sick. We meet with his lawyer tomorrow afternoon, although even like his lawyer said "I'm not really sure what else there is to talk about, we've had the prep done for months."...Anyway.

After reading some of the horror stories on here of cases that SHOULD have won and then didn't for no other reason than the judge was being a complete idiot, I'm nervous. Our lawyer is in agreement with us that BM's plan of "attack" if you will, is to come after me and my character since she has NO evidence of why the children shouldn't live with my husband. So, her MO is to make the judge think that I'M terrible, and since (obviously) DH lives with me, then the children shouldn't. Ugh. I love having my character attacked. It should be wonderful. Our lawyers only advice to me is to absolutely keep my cool on the stand. No matter what.

BM has a history of making an ass out of herself in court. She can't help it. Luckily our lawyer has been with us since day 1, and has walked us through the divorce, a domestic that she lied about, a violation of COR that she lied about, and he knows how to push her buttons and make her flip. The only thing that puts my mind slightly at ease is that the judge we're going in front of is the same judge that while he was sentencing her for filing a false report (yet another "win for us"), right after he dismissed my DH's domestic assault charges (that she lied about, funny their hearings were on the same day haha) he told BM that she needed to grow up and get over being bitter, or she will never prevail in life. It. Was. Priceless.

So, because like I said she has a "history" if you will with this judge, and she can't help but always have an attitude in court, I'm hoping. We also have the GAL on "our" side. This, while I'm happy about it, I feel like we got gipped because it was kind of by default. BM decided to never return the GAL's phone calls. GAL even called BM's parents and left messages for her there and she decided to never call her. Until the day before court (one of the times) because she was asking for a continuance because she got a new lawyer, and I'm assuming the new lawyer told her she better get her ass in gear and at least call the damn GAL. GAL told us that she had no interest in speaking with her at that point, and that after seeing our home, and speaking to the teachers and daycare she had already finalized her opinion and that would be that. She said she could tell BM was trying to cover her very broken tracks at that point and she had no use for her. Ha.

Also, after mediation (Jan 2011, remember?) that's when the GAL was appointed, and agreed upon and the order was signed by the (same) Judge, also in that Order it was stated that each party must pay half of any and all fees accrued by the GAL. Well, it got continued once because the GAL had only received half payment (betcha can't guess which party's bank account that 50% came out of??. After the one continuance because of that the GAL also said that she wasn't going to continue anymore on those grounds but that she would get her money when we went in front of the Judge. Ha.

DH's lawyer is now also going to ask for our court costs and lawyers fees to be reimbursed to us by BM. She started this custody thing. She drug it out. She continued and continued and continued it. We got our bill of everything we paid for this case last week. Bitch can pay it, and like his lawyer said, he will of course be able to feel the judge out but if he thinks she's acting like she always does and the judge is getting annoyed, hell yes he will ask for that to be in the order too. Heck, can't get it if you don't ask for it, right?

I spent all day yesterday taking over 300 pictures of text messages from DH's phone from the last 3 years. This is freaking crazy. We had to download a transcribing program and download all the text messages to text format and send them to his lawyer, we also have to bring the phone AND have the physical pictures in court on Monday just in case. What a pain in the ass.

I know she's going to lie when we get there. I know she is. It's what she does. She's going to lie, and I'm going to have to sit there, and grit my teeth and smile. Knowing that we have done nothing harmful to the kids through this process, and that we have fought the "good" fight. Hopefully we will prevail.

I was looking through old FaceBook albums yesterday. Of when I first started spending a lot of time with the kids, and it really did break my heart a little. Our relationship has changed so much and my feelings towards them have changed so much because I've let all of this crap get to me. It isn't their fault, really. Yes, they're responsible for their own actions but I FEEL differently toward them now. Like, I was looking through these pictures and we're at the park, or even just messing around at the house and we all look just so...Happy. Genuinely, happy. The girl used to be attached to my hip whenever she was with us. I was always thrilled for them to be coming. Now, it's like a dread it. DH and I only argue when they're here, or about things relating to BM or them. Not that our marriage is perfect because it is FAR from that but it just puts a certain stress over the entire day. I feel put out by having to go get them in the afternoons instead of just having time to myself, or time to sleep because of work, or not getting sleep because I have to make sure everything for them is done so that I can go to work. I know I shouldn't resent THEM. I know I shouldn't let it get to me. But it does.

I look at them sometimes and I feel like my life would be perfect without them. Not even just without BM. I wish she would fall into a black hole, safely and painlessly of course :), every single day. But without them too. Without this constant reminder of my husband's life before me. I know that's selfish, childish, and immature of me. But I'm sorry, and sometimes I just let the lid off the pot and I boil over and I feel that way.

I sometimes feel like I "settled". I always joke that I always said I wanted to have children, but that maybe I should've been more specific because well, I got children. Haha. But I'm NOT a mommy. Don't get me wrong, I am by no means trying to replace BM. The skids know who their mom is, they have never called me anything but my name, and that's how it will always be. But, I want to be a mommy. My DH is not stopping me, he too wants to have a child with me. I'm stopping myself. I can't help but feel like this hell that I put myself through because of BM and the stress that she causes, and the PAS that has and is being done to my skids, that it isn't fair for my to bring a child in to that. I also know that I will love my child, maybe not more (okay, burn me at the stake, probably more) but certainly in a way that I just can't love my skids because well, MY child and I will have shared a body for 9 months, will share blood. It will be mine. There's a love that you just can't duplicate between a mother and child and I'm just worried that the skids will think they come second after that. I don't want, as much as they stress me out, and give me a headache sometimes, they are still very much a part of my life and always will be and I don't want them to ever feel "second best".

The boy, he's great. He wants me to have baby. I once asked him why and he said because SD6 was "boring" and he wanted someone else to play with. I explained to him that they don't just come out ready to play football. He replied with "that's okay. I'm patient." Sometimes he warms my heart. The girl on the other hand, well, I'm worried that she's going to be one of those that I'll never be able to leave my baby alone with because well, I'm afraid she'd hurt it. She is an attention whore (yep, burn me at the stake for that one too...) if I've ever seen one and I'm already worried that she will hurt the baby if she fears its cutting in to her daddy attention time. She's even started this new thing that I actually gagged after walking away from yesterday. She stops, right in front of my DH and stretches. Like...provocatively. If a 6 year old can even be provocative, she nailed it right on the head. I just got this funny look on my face, told her to come on, and went into the bedroom rolled my eyes and gagged. It was ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm sorry this is so long, and that I've been not around for a while. The new position (as of yesterday at work is going wonderfully. I'm really excited to if nothing else see what happens with that this next year. I will try to post with updates from the lawyer tomorrow after we meet with him. Although I'm not really sure what else he could tell us that we don't already know. Except maybe the reason they're asking for a continuance this time around. I never get excited anymore. Once, we got a call the MORNING of court (we were scheduled the see the Judge at 10AM) we got a call at 730 from DHs lawyer letting us know her lawyer had filed a motion for continuance. I never will be able to breathe until I'm finally up on the stand testifying. Then I will believe it's happening. And hey, like I told DH, at least if it does happen this time, we don't have to worry about her bugging us at least until next tax season when she can afford to pay another lawyer to file again. That was when DH called his lawyer, and his lawyer amended our proposed plan to also include that DH get to claim both children on his taxes every year. His lawyer seems to think we will get it, especially when he brings up that she's been defrauding the state for 3 years by not providing them with the parenting plan that states that she doesn't have the children but every other weekend and Monday nights. I'm pretty sure you don't get almost 1000$/month in food stamps, free daycare, and free medical, dental, and vision insurance for your children when you only see them 6 full days and nights a month. The ONLY reason that I haven't reported her for fraud myself is because in our state you can't do it anonymously and well, our lawyer advised me to wait until court was over just because we didn't want to put any more dark clouds over her head and cause her to maybe really go crazy. But he is definitely going to bring it up, and said that I can report it Monday afternoon if I wish. It says on our paper "said hearing is expected to last no longer than 2 hours"...everyone please pray if you pray, meditate if that's what you do, send good joo joo if that's your thing, hell dance around naked in the woods for me if that's what you believe will send the good energy to us. We (mostly I) really need it. My stomach is in knots.