Well first let me just say my nails were way over due for some TLC and they look FANTASTIC!

Also slowly but surely my scale is moving down! I started at 306, today I was 294! This is

weight I’ve been fighting since I quit smoking. I have about 13 pounds more to go to get

back to where I was when I was smoking, that is my first goal! I am almost half way to it

which makes me feel so awesome. Now back to my story…

The following days and weeks after the guns had been reported missing and I got my requests

for a stay away through family court I began the paperwork needed to go in and change up our

custody agreement. Steve had been given a deal; if he helped the police bring down one of

his dealers (which I guess was a big time situation) they were going to give him a great

deal on the gun charges. So he was busy at work with the police, it would make me so mad

when he would call to talk to me about it. He would say things like “the police said if I do

really well at this they will put me to work for future busts” and “I won’t do any jail time

for any of this, not as long as I help the cops out”. These things made me so angry because

#1 he was right, #2 what did that teach our kids? They hear daddy stole a bunch of money,

guns have come up missing, drugs are being bought, sold, traded… and he is being granted a

job with the police? With the good guys?! It just made no sense! Besides all of that I guess

a valid #3 was that he really deserved to suffer for his wrong doings.

For around 2 weeks he went on these adventures with the cops, and then I got a call from his

mom. She said that Steve went to do a buy, the police picked up the guy this time they then

searched his house for the guns. They asked Steve to come to the station and they reported

to him they did find one of the guns that were traded but the second gun was still missing.

Because of this they had to charge him and send him to county jail until he can stand before

a judge!

Don and I were almost ready to buy some party supplies! How amazing, he was eating his words

now! Seriously, being an adult… this was good, not only did he get what he deserved but my

kids were seeing if you do something wrong you HAVE to pay for it, he was eating his words

as all of this was happening. My biggest disappointment at that point was that I didn’t get

to see him in handcuffs!

He went before the first judge who charged him with grand larceny for stealing an estimated

amount of $3500.00 from his mom and step father. Shortly after he went before the second

judge who charged him with stealing the guns (I cannot recall the exact charge) and because

this was a more serious offense he was sent to the county court for sentencing. It took

around 4 months for him to be seen by the county court. That judge sentenced him with a 5 – 6

split. This is 6 months jail time and 5 years’ probation. He had 2 years to pay off his

restitution. He got time served but was required to go into a rehab program for 28 days. And

last but not the least, if he screwed up his probation in those 5 years, he would be going

to prison, state penn. Not a county jail, for 1 to 4 years.

So he was out of jail and moved into the rehab. Before I go too much further let me explain

that while he was in jail he would write the kids letters. Well, no. He would write my

oldest child, Trevor letters. These letters I would get open and read through them. Then I

would read the parts that were appropriate to Trevor. These letters would often include

information about men who were pedophiles, inmates getting into fights, drug abuse and just

things that my 8-9 year old son didn’t need to be that informed of just yet! When he went

into the rehab he was able to make a phone call every day. This was both good and bad. My

oldest son was IN LOVE with his father, he could do no wrong! So he looked forward to his

calls, but he was more often than not, under the influence of some kind of prescription

drugs which made him act weird. These phone conversations consisted of things like how the

men and women weren’t to interact with each other but he did it anyway and has met a woman

who was “hot as hell” she has had her problems but that didn’t matter. He would also tell my

son about fights that broke out etc.

While Steve was in jail I did move to a new house to protect all of us when he returned.

During the conversations from the rehab my son started getting more cautious of his father,

becoming almost afraid of him. I wasn’t sure why, nothing in the conversations indicated a

good reason to be afraid of him. So I finally had time with just Trevor and he and I went

over why he was so afraid. He said that he had nightmares of his dad coming to our house and

busting through the door and when I tried to stop him, he shot me and I died! This was a

dream he had over and over again apparently ever since his father mentioned him getting out

of the rehab center.

After Trevor started telling me this, I got him all set up with a counselor. We went to 3

visits and they said he was fine and didn’t need to come anymore! Steve was released to a

halfway house sometime in October I believe it was. I had made some changes to the custody

order, he has to have supervised visitation, and none of the children could spend the night

with him. He was to come on Sat at 10AM and have the kids until 6PM, he could return the

next day and do it again, every other weekend. I didn’t have to let the children go with him

if he was more than a half hour late.

Most of the time they would get here around 11 – noon and get the kids, they would always

return by 3:30PM. Because of what he had done to his mom, all of his family had cut ties

with him with the exception of one sister and his mother. So whenever he got the kids he had

to take them places like the park, McDonald’s etc. So he never kept them for the whole time.

He was very good about coming to get them and they were all always excited to see him. He

would call them almost every night, he and I had even gotten to talking a bit at this point

too.

Don and I were about to have the baby, very exciting! It got slightly difficult when I found

out NY state law says if you are married and you are pregnant, no matter whom you know the

father is, your husband is always considered the father until proven to a court! So I was

unable to list Don as the baby’s father without permission from the courts! What a pain in

the butt! I hadn’t taken care of my divorce just yet because I was so wrapped up with the

pregnancy and work I had no time. My baby was due Nov 23rd, I was to go in for a C-section

on Nov 16th.

On Nov 11th (my 30th birthday) I started having the worst backache, began to feel

contractions. My first child was induced and once I started it was back labor. My twins were

a planned C-section! I have NEVER gone into labor so although this was my 4th child and 6th

pregnancy – I had NO idea what to expect if/when I went into labor! I also didn’t want to

alarm Don. I did have some rough times during this pregnancy; I had what they called

a “bleeder” which was a pocket of blood in the uterus, the larger these are the more risk

they become. Mine was almost twice the size of the baby at 20 weeks. I went in for a sono so

that we could measure it every other week, sometime around week 28 it was just gone! I

experienced some spotting around my 3rd month (12-14 weeks) this was very scary for me and

for Don because we knew that there was such a great chance that this pregnancy would be

terminated. But bigger things were in store for us! That baby held on for all his might! We

waited until after 25 weeks before we bought anything for this baby, just to be safe.

So as this back pain was getting worse and it seemed like the contractions I was feeling

were more intense and they seemed to be hitting me every 2 or 3 minutes I figured now was

the time to sneak the phone into the bathroom and secretly call my doctor and see what I

should do. I went into the bathroom and called the doctor, she said “sounds to me like that

baby is knocking! Come on out we need to get you on fluids and monitor him” so I walk out of

the bathroom, CRYING! I laugh now because it was so silly really, I didn’t want to be cut

open on my birthday… I am bawling and I tell Don he needs to drive me to the hospital, I

won’t be having any birthday brownies. I tried so hard not to, but I cried all the way to

the hospital. Lol

Once we got there (around 11AM) they hooked me up to some monitors and an IV. I was in fact

in labor; the contractions were really hard, coming very fast and very regular. The OR was

held up so we had to wait. Then the baby rolled and he pinched his cord which dropped his

heartbeat. This activity filled my room with 5 or 6 doctors, so many nurses I couldn’t

count. Someone gave Don a set of scrubs and told him to change quickly. They said to

me “don’t worry, I’m sure everything is fine, but we want to keep it that way. We need to

get that baby out” Off I went to the OR. Getting the spinal took forever, literally they

were threatening to have to put me to sleep, which made me cry I wanted to be awake and able

to welcome our little man into this world. Finally a 3rd doctor tried for the spinal and he

got it! It was almost 45 minutes before they had it in. I was laid out on the table and my

doctor entered. Don entered, game was about to start. My doctor was the best at helping us

relax, she allowed don to take photos of the baby being born (the last doctor only allowed

pictures on the other side of the curtain) so we have photos of the doctor reaching in and

pulling him out of my belly! They are amazing photos.

He was born finally at 8:02PM, he was 8 pounds 4 ounces and perfect in EVERY way! We named

him Owen Timothy! During my stay in the hospital Steve was supposed to pick up the kids,

Trevor actually told Steve he didn’t want to go with him he wanted to come out to the

hospital to see me and the new baby. I remember this very well because it was the first time

in his life he ever picked me over Steve! As happy as I was about this, it also worried me.

Made me think there was something going on there.

Steve had been pretty decent most of the time after the baby was born, he had been

respectful towards me and towards Don. Things were settling to be somewhat normal. In Jan

Steve called me to tell me that he was at DSS (department of social services) getting help

getting set up with a place to live, he had been kicked out of the halfway house! When I

asked why he said “I want to go to a different rehab group and they do not support my

decision” I was confused so I asked the first thing that came to mind. “That’s worth losing

your only home over?!” He said then that he had tested positive for meth but it was because

of his ADHD medication, a medication he had been on for months now. I was confused about it

all but one thing I was sure of, he was lying to me!

He ended up getting housing through DSS at a motel, they gave him rent money and food money

every month. Little by little his attitude changed, he would go on these rants for no good

reason. Sometimes calling my house at 12 am or later just to rant about how he felt

mistreated by my parents 3 years ago! Sometimes to rant about me leaving him! More and more

often he stopped calling to talk to the kids and began calling to fight with me. There were

many times my son (Trevor) could actually hear him through the phone calling me names,

swearing at me, screaming at me. This had an impact on how Trevor felt about his dad, since

while his dad had been away and done all this “stupid stuff” I was all Trevor had and here

comes dad treating me badly. Years ago Trevor would see this as alright because it was all

he knew. But now that Don was in our life and I had been treated totally different and

respect has been drilled in my kid’s heads. Steve’s behavior towards me was no longer

acceptable for Trevor. Trevor quickly grew apart from his father.

I still had to get the divorce so I began that in Aug of 2011, the first requirements were

to name Don as the father of Owen, to have a custody agreement, and to have a support

agreement. Well we had a support agreement, he didn’t pay anything and I never bothered to

fight with him over it. Unfortunately that was not what the court had in mind. So I filed

paperwork for the paternity issue and for child support. First we went in for paternity, the

judge asked me when I stopped sleeping with Steve, when I started sleeping with Don, asked

Don and Steve if they both agreed, we all said yes and he granted us the ability to put

Don’s name on Owen’s birth certificate!

The next issue on the list was child support. We went before the same judge as we did for

paternity. The judge asked if we had anything set in place so far. Steve explained to the

judge that he had just gotten out of jail, had been living in a halfway house for so long,

just gotten to where he can get and hold a job. The judge told him he was not impressed with

his story, that these were his children and he had better rise to the occasion. We were to

return in 6 weeks at which point Steve was to have a job, if he did not have a job the court

would order temp support anyway.

Six weeks later we go back to court, Steve has no job. The court offered a temp order of

$20.00 a week! We had to come back in 4 weeks for a final order. When we returned 4 weeks

later Steve still didn’t have a job. The court gave us a support order of $20.00 a week for

all 3 kids due each Friday. That gave me exactly what I needed to finish up with the divorce

paperwork. I went to my lawyer’s office and filed paperwork for the divorce.

Steve paid his $20 each week for about 3 weeks then nothing for the longest time. I called

up my divorce lawyer and she told me that I couldn’t violate him on that while filing the

divorce, so I had to make up my mind which one was more important at that time. The divorce

was obviously much higher on the list than the support! Now this began to bother me a great

deal, the state MADE me go after him for a support order, they forced me to agree that it

was the right of my children to have him pay support! Then when he didn’t pay it, I was to

ignore the whole thing until further notice. So I sat and waited for the judge to approve my

divorce. It wasn’t long before I got my paperwork in the mail. I think it was March 12th

that I was celebrating my official divorce! Magically on March 6th Steve paid his child

support up to date! So I was unable to violate him on that situation.

It wasn’t long before we were able to violate him however! In May 2012 I filed the paperwork

needed to violate him as he had not paid any support since March 6th2012. We went before the

judge, Steve said he was working on getting a job, the judge told him to get that job and he

had better have it before we came back in July or else he should “bring his toothbrush

because he was going to be going away”!

After this court date I would get a lot of drunken calls, Steve yelling at me about what a

horrible person I am. He would blame me for him being jobless, for his drug problem, for his

drinking problem basically whatever he could think up. He has a new girlfriend, who seemed

to be an alright woman, she was in his late 50’s which was slightly odd, but to each their

own!

I was busy making plans for my backyard wedding! Don and I were to be married on June 9th

2012! I had sworn I would never get married again but let me tell ya, for those people who

don’t believe in marriage or whatever, the tax benefits are worth the ceremony! So Don and I

got married, Steve was acting like a dink around our wedding date, but I didn’t let that

hinder me at all! We got married, very simple outside bbq. In July I returned to court, I

was there but Steve was not. He had called the court and said that his ride had fallen

through and he was unable to make it. The judge said that they would set the date again, he

was unable to put a warrant out for him this time, but there will be nothing holding him

from doing it the second time he misses court. He assured me if it were up to him, Steve

would be sitting in jail for at LEAST 6 months!

More to come...