Ava Deserves Her Dad

To secure a lawyer for a custody hearing November 1, 2021, we are asking for help from our friends, family, father’s rights advocates, and childhood mental health advocates alike. My brother is fighting for the right to be in his daughter Ava’s life and for her to have a thriving relationship with both sides of her family. Ava’s mother has been doing everything in her power to limit those relationships.

About Ava

 

Ava is a bright 5 year old girl full of joy and excitement. She's very playful, creative, and so loving. She's always expressing love for her family with hugs, kisses, and kind words. She loves to hang out with her dad. She could be helping him work on his cars, putting a bike together, battling on PlayStation, or just enjoying each other's silly, contagious energy.


The Situation

 

Over the years it's become harder to spend any quality time with Ava because her mom is so confrontational. She has no problem ceasing all communication with us and denying us visitation with Ava for months at a time. She's violated every guideline in place since visitation was established in 2018. She has joint custody with Ava's dad. The visitation agreement is the father gets 30 consecutive days per year visitation with Ava, 48hrs each month with adequate notice beforehand, and rotating holidays.

 

When Ava was a toddler, me and my mom (her grandma) would pick her up virtually every weekend. She had her own room full of toys and clothes at my mom’s house. We brought her to visit our family members in MD, took her to her first family reunion, her first visit to Disney world, and made sure she had video calls with her dad and other distant family. Ava has so much close family and she enjoyed her time with all of us. Ava's dad joined the Air Force to better support his then-wife and daughter. He’s now been in the Air Force excelling for 4 years and is stationed 1,600 miles away from his family and daughter. His service requires frequent deployments overseas to countries that can be dangerous and unpredictable. Due to the mother’s unwillingness to compromise and his deployment schedule and duty station, my brother has spent less than a year of time with her. He only got to be present for Ava’s 1st birthday. He’s never had her for Father’s Day and the mother refused to let him speak to her this past Father’s Day. The first and only Christmas he spent with Ava, her mother picked her up for 6 hours before bringing her back later in the evening. .

 

In 2020, my brother spent a total of 8 days with Ava. He gave the mother adequate notice to get his 30 day visitation before his deployment. She made all sorts of unreasonable demands before she agreed to the dates, just to deny him later. On one occasion he traveled 1,600 miles for his court ordered 48 hours of visitation with Ava after providing adequate notice, only to be completely ignored when he arrived. At the time he hadn’t seen Ava in at least 3 months.

Thanksgiving of 2020 was my brother's scheduled year to have Ava. Her mother showed up unannounced during dinner time with the local Sheriff demanding Ava be returned to her because the father was violating the custody agreement. Earlier that day she demanded my brother drive Ava back to her family’s home an hour away by 5pm. My brother explained to the Sheriff that he was on deployment last year for Thanksgiving and the order did not specify any drop off/pick up times, so he could not be violating the custody order. The Sheriff agreed and escorted the mother off the property. After she left, she went to another county and filed a fictitious restraining order stating my brother “threatened to kill”  her and Ava. A complete lie. She and her boyfriend showed up early the next morning with the Sheriff, restraining order in hand. I ended up driving Ava to the end of our street to meet her mom so that she wouldn't have to ride in the back of a police car. Ava was heartbroken. We were just coming off one of the longer periods of no contact with her. After that situation happened she didn't let us see or speak to Ava for10 months. We missed her 4th birthday and Christmas.

 

There’s so much more examples of this behavior that we can't disclose since this is still an open case. Some even more disheartening. We’ve done nothing to warrant this. My brother supports her financially without a child support order in place, as well as ship other items she asks for. My brother is a genuinely good man. He wasn't unfaithful, never put his hands on her or emotionally or verbally abused her. He’s a great father and Ava absolutely loves spending time with him. We simply cannot understand why she does not want us to be an active part of Ava's life.

 

Why We Need Your Help...

Can you imagine how confusing and hurtful it is as a young child to not understand why you can’t see your dad as much? Why there are these seemingly endless periods of no contact with the family you used to see often? Or feel like you can't say too much to your dad about your home life because you’ll get in trouble? Ava is growing up with these questions and feelings. And it’s due in large part to the hostile environment her mother has created for everyone. She doesn’t want to get along; she doesn’t want to compromise. Our family has always been willing to make amends even though all we've done is try to be there. Whenever she’s had the opportunity to move forward it was short lived, and some other minor misunderstanding is blown up into a family shattering debacle.

Our story may remind you of someone in your life going through something similar. All too often, the children in these situations never get a resolution. They're kept away from the other parent because of their parents' own personal disputes, and left to carry the emotional wounds. My brother would not do that to Ava. He'd want her mom to be just as active in her life and would make sure that was possible.

We're asking that anyone who has it on their heart to do so contribute to help us pay half of our lawyer's retainer fee of $7,500. You could also help us tremendously just by sharing this post. Ava deserves the loving support and guidance of both sides of her family. We feel strongly about our chance to achieve that with this lawyer who's very experienced in father's rights. These are the delicate years in a child's life that shape their mindset and perspective. We want Ava to grow up feeling secure and have all the resources at her disposal to give her the best chance at life. Ava loves being with her family. Whenever we've seen her after long periods she would make sure we knew how much she missed us.

It's so important that regardless of the ruling, Ava's mother is not allowed to continue abusing the court system to get her way and isolate Ava from her family. More than anything, Ava's dad wants to be a part of her life and be a good parent. We're humbly asking for your help to give Ava the best chance at having a relationship with her dad and our family.

 

Sincerely, thank you for reading.

 

Ava's Titi