As many of you know I left my extremely toxic and physically abusive relationship on Oct 19, 2020. There are many reasons and tons of incidents that led up to me finally getting the courage to take Saylor and Riot and remove them & myself from a place where I was getting abused both physically and mentally in front of my children. Without going into too much detail it should be known some of the things I have endured. In 2016, I was dragged by my hair down the hall of a hotel room my father was so graciously paying for, 2017 while pregnant with Saylor I was punched in the head, 2018 I was holding Saylor while two hands were placed around my neck, 2019 there were so many cases where I was headbutted while first pregnant with Riot, I was thrown to the gravel outside of our house where my knees were so bruised and my legs so swollen the pictures are horrifying all so that the evidence I was trying to gather of the "fits of rage" could be extracted from my phone by the defendant  The worst case was Feb 12, 2020, pregnant with Riot, I accidentally woke up the defendant by puking in the bathroom (a normal occurence for a pregnant women) our whole master bedroom was destroyed, a container of clorox wipes was thrown directly at my face, it hit my eye and forehead causing swelling, a jewelry box was thrown at my head that luckily missed and hit the bedroom wall leaving a HUGE hole in the wall, I was slapped, punched repeatedly in the back of the head, neck and shoulders all while cowering in the fetal position on top of many other things that morning. The incident that made me leave was Oct 18th after the defendant had slept til 1 pm his coffee that I so nicely got for him was cold, that set him off and in front of my daughter he took two hands to my chest as hard as he could and shoved onto the kitchen floor, Saylor cried out "daddy don't do that to my mommy" all while items all over the kitchen were being thrown around her toys were being thrown and kicked and another hole was put into the kitchen wall. In that moment, a switch flipped in this mama bear and I knew I would; at the first sign of safety (i.e defendant going to work) I would quickly pack as much as I can and drive 3 hours away with my babies to live safely with my parents.   Now I am in a heated custody battle because instead of trying to come to an agreement that makes sense for a 3 month old and a 3 year old, full physical custody was filed behind my back, a summons requesting that, I, only be allowed visitation rights of my children.  I am making this GoFundMe in hopes of getting help with a legal aid retainer. I have found an amazing lawyer in Wake County that wants to represent me and we have a good case. His retainer fee is $3,500 and after being my children's main caretaker and basically being a stay at home mom other than part time work at cirque De vol I have no way of paying this retainer. But Saylor and Riot are my whole world and I fear if I don't have representation that things will be much more stressful on me and the lawyer the defendant has hired is aggressive and they will not back down from trying to obtain full custody of the babies that I grew inside my stomach and carried for 9 months, the babies I gave birth to, the babies that have always been under my care considering the defendant likes to sleep til 1 pm and likes to get into fits of rage upon being woken up. I fear that if I do not fight hard enough with legal aid that my children run the risk of further emotional damage or maybe even worse. What if my newborn wakes up the defendant multiple times (which is still happening 2-4 times a night)? I am hoping I can raise any money to go towards the legal retainer so I can hire this amazing child custody lawyer. I am never one to ask for help but Saylor & Riot need their mom and I will never stop fighting for them.