New Topic, Take one...Testing one, two, three.
Let's see if it works...lol

Well, now that I know I can generate a topic let's get to it.
When I met Stacy's mother I was living in Vegas, I moved to CA when she got pregnant ( Oh my God, an unplanned baby) and tried to start a family, after the accident I stayed there for almost a year until going back to Vegas, I used to go back to Cali every other week or sometimes more, and there were a few times I went a whole month without going, I used to wait until I had one of my two trucks in town and on my drivers day off I would take a trip so I could make some money and go visit, or I drove my pick up truck too. " the family" as I call them always put all the responsibility on me, the said you took her our of here, its your job to bring her, I always offered a room and a meal so they come visit her but they never did, so when I started shopping for houses I decided that if they were never going to come see their granddaughter, niece, etc. I wouldn't care, if it was only up to me, then I live wherever I want to, since I quit driving trucks I was, I mean I still am running scare, afraid that I'm not going to make it, so I wanted to play it safe, low mortgage, nice house, etc. I wanted my daughter to grow up in the same house, to have memories of the house where she went to school, have her first everything, not going from place to place and not identifying her self anywhere. My first obligation is to my daughter, here she is going to have the stability she deserves. Last month when we went to court her lawyer pressed for visitation which at this point I wasn't wheeling to grant, mostly, because I don't want the family to get used to the idea that they can have every wish granted by going to court, that's why I agree for them to come pick her up, and because I knew they were bluffing, I called it and I won. I know the only reason why they kept pressuring with this issue in front of the judges was because they knew I was never going to go along and force me to take her instead. So when the time came they don't have or are not willing to pay for 3 round tickets to come pick her up take her to cali and bring her back in 3 days. I really want my daughter to have more family, I tried but its very difficult with this people and I just can't let then have my daughter on their terms, the grandmother thinks she owns her, she told me many times that she's got the same rights as her mother, thinking like that is never going to take us anywhere.
Right now we are waiting on a social study to be conduct it at my house, and apparently, once thats done they are going to be out of excuses to fight for custody.
I'm sorry to make it this long but you asked...lol

Not sure just how incapacitated your ex is, but it's more than just grandparent rights you're talking about. You certainly shouldn't have to provide the transportation for grandparent visits, but for parental visitation it's not uncommon for the parent that is moving away to also be responsible for travel expenses for visitation.It sounds like your ex may be pretty bad off though and that all of this is actually just grandparents trying to get their way. Is your ex capable of acknowledging her daughter when she's there? Or is it just strictly her grandparents during visits?

If I remember correctly, you mentioned elsewhere a judge ordering you to allow visitation twice before the end of the year?? Not sure if I remembered that right....and if I did I wonder how much of that is based on so that your daughter will see her mom.


About the custody orders, I would be sure to get at least some temporary orders in place. It could save you a lot of grief if they decided to keep her during a visit. In the other thread you mentioned the lawyer told you that she's your daughter so you don't have to do anything, well she's also your ex's daughter and without some sort of custody papers if something came up, a police officer won't have a judge's signed order to follow when making a snap decision if needed. Again, not sure of your ex's capacity, but if two separated parents are both disputing custody a police officer may very well leave the child with the parent that the child happens to be with until the case can go back in front of a judge. If it's the grandparents vs a parent then you should have the upperhand in that situation, but nothing could keep it simpler than having a court order to pull out of your pocket if need be.

I guess to better understand the situation, and if you didn't mind, maybe a little more info about your ex's sitatuation/condition. Just not sure how much of the decisions so far have been based on "grandparents rights" or because your ex is with those her parents.

It's a little hard to asses the condition of my ex, to me she is like a 10 yr old, she knows who her daughter is but everything she tells you she's been couched at it, she doesn't have reasoning power, the court is inclined to believe that the mother has visitation rights and during her own time she has the right to decide who is with her during visitation. this, of course, makes sense, my contention is that she is not mentally capable of doing that, for example, her mother will be the one deciding what to feed Stacy, bath her,take her wherever, my ex has no saying in all that, this is the bad part, besides they have a cousin living there who's under medication ( I think is schizophrenia) and really worries me who sleeps where, Stacy is getting older and this are things that we need to pay attention to, when I told the grandparents about him they dismissed me completely instead of acknowledging my concerns, the judges brilliant idea was to add to the visitation orders a clause preventing the guy from been in the house, but I called the sheriff department of where they live and they told me they would go check it out but they would not go inside the house, making the order worthless to me.
They were supposed to get two visits till the end of the year, but, the thing is, the volunteered to pay for the tickets to come and get her and take her back to California because they knew that I was never going to agree to that, so I called their bluff, told the judge I didn't have any money so we agreed on they paying for both trips, as I hoped the can't afford it so nothing is going to happen, I know they'll try to get her for the holidays but I'm going to have to plan something so they don't do that.Let me finish by telling you that I had offered the judge to fly my ex over and pay for a nurse to take care of her while visiting at my house so we can all be together, but they decline the offer because the family could not see Stacy under that arrangement.
I guess this is more than enough for now