Lots has happened since my first blog.

Since the last blog my partner and I been to Parental guidance to make us better parents for SD - and have since graduated, finishing with finesse' and fantastic endnote feedback We have undertaken long conversations, with lots of one-on-one time, with each other to sort through our individual thoughts and have further started our future planning in-depth. Lots of progress between my partner and myself, and lots of things which we've been able to work through together! Positive progress at last!!

The latest up-date to our saga is that of the Court Order and the rights we do/don't have between us and BM.

Having settled everything to do with the former matrimonial property, their divorce, and the child matters via the Courts, it has now come about that BM's chosen to begin withholding conversations between us and SD. It's one thing that BM refuses to allow me to pick up SD when it's our turn to spend time with SD, but a phone call?

It is cited in the order that conversations are to be undertaken between 19:00-19:30pm on a daily basis - as my partner and I are extremely busy, we don't get the opportunity to call SD each and every night we don't have her, and we try to ensure we're both present when we speak with SD.
Our current example came about last night: we had the opportunity to speak with her together, and called her at 19:01pm to no avail. As BM has no mobile messagebank, we couldn't leave a message. 20:00pm came and went so my partner SMS'd BM advising that we'd called (BM has previously advised she never missed our call) and for SD to call us back. At 20:11pm BM called and said that SD wasn't going to speak to us because she didn't want to. My partner said for BM to put SD on the phone so that we could talk to her. BM refused and said she wasn't going to make SD speak to us. We asked what she was doing, to which BM responded that SD was going to have a bath. It was agreed that SD would have a bath then BM would have SD call back.

Later on we SMS'd her and quoted a line cited directly within the Court Order to which she responded near 22:00pm with a page-long email citing why she didn't force SD to speak with us, and that my partner should 'just enjoy being (SD's) father and have respect for each other as her parents'. At the end of the night, it was proven that BM was definitely not going to call us back and let us speak to SD as agreed in the last phone conversation.

I don't understand how this can happen. With a court order in place how is it that BM is still able to make excuses and withhold SD from even speaking to us?

BM states that SD is '4 years old, she has a mind of her own' in her email... yet in the time we have SD, SD has no problems in listening to our direction and we go out of our way to ensure that SD speaks with BM even when SD asks why BM is calling and why SD has to speak with BM. My partner's even called BM over four times one night (after a bout of phone tiggy in dinner time) so that SD could speak with her when it was apparent that BM had no battery life in her phone until nearly 21:00pm that night.
We go out of our way to ensure that we adhere to the Court Order and facilitate phone calls, yet BM seems to try hard to do the exact opposite.

It has happened again tonight and we're both wondering whether we must go through the Court process again in order for BM to just do what the Court Order cites and let us speak with SD.
I admit that BM has an arguably valid excuse - I say it's an excuse as my partner and I still manage to successfully talk SD to speak with BM when SD doesn't want to. Is it a power struggle on BM's behalf that SD fails to listen to her? Or is there something more to the story?

At the end of the day, where are our rights as parents? Even with a Court Order can BM say whatever she wants and get away with withholding SD from us continuously?