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Our Daughter Was Wrongly Taken From Us

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We need money for a lawyer but if we cant get that, we still need money to help pay the bills. I need help getting my children back. My youngest child was wrongly taken from me in September. Almost 2 years ago I had my 1st daughter Vanessa. Me and TJ have worked so hard to get our lives together since then. I really need help getting a paying for a lawyer. If you cant help with money please just help by sharing this. This story I'm about to tell needs to be shared. The letter in that picture shows that we are not guilty. I am a recovering drug addict. I ended up making a huge mistake  almost 2 years ago a little bit after Vanessa was born and relapsed on ativan. Vanessa was still in the hospital at the time. CPS was called and they took her away from me and placed her with my mom. My fiance tj, who is also the father of my kids, was in jail at the time because he was still dealing with consequences of the past. So I felt like I had no one. My mom was supposed to take care of her until I got my shit together. Me and my mother have never had a good relationship. She has been Very emotionally abusive towards me. She will use my kids as a way to hurt me. Well she ended up petitioning for custody of Vanessa and won because we couldn't fight it at the time because we didn't have a stable place for her to live. We have bad credit so it's hard to find somewhere to live. This summer we ended up finding a house to rent. I got pregnant again in November of last year (yes I know it wasn't a smart decision). I had her in August. Her name is Victoria. Me and my mother were getting along at the time and she decided that she wanted me and tj to stay at her house after I had the baby for a couple weeks. She said she wanted to "help" me learn how to take care of the baby. Well almost a month goes by and We decide to go home. It wasn't really working out staying there because my mom was too much to deal with. She told me that she wanted to call CPS because Victoria had a diaper rash. My mother told me that she wants to adopt vanessa. She has told me she will do whatever it takes to make sure I dont get her back. I do you wanna mention that my mom isn't my biological mother. She adopted me when I was 4. She Has done Foster care for a long time period so she knows the system very well. She also knows that she cannot adopt Vanessa if we are doing so well. With us progressing it hurts her chances of adopting Vanessa. We have been told that as long as we do good we will get our kids back. On September 12th, TJs mother took me and Victoria to the doctor's office for a check up. It had only been a couple days after I went back home. I'm checking out and I see my mother standing out in the parking lot with some lady. I don't out there and the lady ends up being with CPS and she tells me that she has to take my child. She said that somebody called and made a report. I knew immediately that it was my mother that called. She called in made a bunch of false accusations. This lady tells me that she has to take my child because I had a CPS case in the past. I ran inside to tell TJs mom what was happening. I completely lose it and start crying. I broke down inside of the doctor's office in front of everybody. Me and tj were doing such a good job taking care of Victoria. How could this happen. Apparently CPS had called my mom because they saw that she was the caretaker of Vanessa. So she said that she asked my mom to meet her at the doctor's office. They gave me The Choice of either putting Victoria in Foster care or with my mother. I couldn't bear the throught of Victoria going with my mom But I also wasn't going to put her in Foster care. I had no Choice but to place her with my mom. Cps said I could have my child back once they found out the allegations were false. My mom went and filed for custody of victoria couple days later. She was able to get an emergency hearing somehow. The hearing was for October 1st. Im thinking I'll be fine. The case should he closed by then. Well this cps lady comes up with some bogus reason that I couldn't get my kids back right away. She said that my psychiatrist told her that he doesn't think I have the "capacity to parent." But when I asked him why he said that he told me he didnt say that. He said that he only sees my for 20 minutes once every other month and he could not make that sort of assumption. Plus this psychiatrist I was seeing was a joke because he forgot what medication he has prescribed me and always had to look at my chart because he never remembered anything about me. I ended up getting a compliance letter from my site I Tris office. But that wasn't good enough for CPS. Sir we go to court on October 1st and There was somebody from CPS there. She says that they are still investigating and that the recommendation was for her to stay with my mom. So my mom gets awarded temporary custody. The judge did not care about what we had to say. He gave us 2 visits a month with my children. They were to be supervised by T j's mother. The judge set a trial date for February. We had filed for custody in visitation back in September. Then a couple days after court Cps unfounded me and tj, which means they did NOT find me or tj guilty of the allegations that were reported to them. They said they ran out of time to find something that we were doing wrong. I believe they waited until they had no more time Because my mom told them that she was trying to adopt Vanessa and If we show the courts that we can take care of Victoria then they will give us Vanessa. So I believe they waited until the last minute to close the case so they could give my mom time to get an emergency custody hearing. I know my mom made CPS think that we were horrible parents and told them a whole bunch of lies. My mom told me that cps told her to go get custody. So I found out that my mom was looking for people to adopt Victoria. My mom was trying to get Victoria out of the picture. My mom used my child for her own personal gain. She has used my children as pawns. My children are used as a way to hurt me. Me and tj have nice three bedroom house. We have a room set up for the kids. The court appointed a gardian ad litem. Which is basically a lawyer that represents the children. She was supposed to come do a home study at the beginning of December but she never came. She is very hard to get ahold of. The one time we did speak to her she told us that she thought we were doing good and That it will be very clear to everyone when it's time for the kids to come home to us. She told us that she knows my mom is a toxic person. My mom has acted like a Jack a**. She has sent a lot of Nasty text messages and has harassed us. She has Screamed and cursed in front of the kids. She has told me that she will Speak badly about me to my kids. Tj's mom was part of our support system and was doing supervised visits for us up until the other day. She is bipolar and flipped out and put her hands on me in front of the kids. She was is mad at me for not wanting to do something her way. Now I don't know when I'll get to see my kids again. Her and my mom like to go on power trips. When they get mad at us about something they will use the kids as a way to punish me. They will tell me I cant see the kids or they will take them home. I am so tired of this. We are supposed to be a family. As far as I'm concerned I dont have family except for tj and my kids. The only way the courts will actually listen to us is through a lawyer. Unfortunately you have to pay for justice in the world. We do not have the money to pay for a lawyer. We have so many bills right now. We really need help. If you cant help please just share this story. I'm sure there are gonna be many people that read this and be judgemental and not care because I used to use drugs. I just want my kids back. I miss them so much. We have worked so hard to get them back. The system is failing us. We really need our voice to be heard.

Organizer

Melissa Forbes
Organizer
Newport News, VA

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