My name is Vanessa Perez. I have been struggling with financial and emotional stress for the past 7 months, fighting for custody of my three beautiful children, ages 12 and 8 years old. My children have been under my care since birth. I have been their sole primary caregiver their entire lives with minimal support.

Due to unfortunate circumstances, their biological father has taken advantage of the situation by fighting to gain full physical and legal custody with false allegations and has tried everything in his power to try and prove me as an unfit mother and my children are unsafe in my care. This crushed my heart and soul and was absolutely shocking to me because I never would have thought that our children and myself would be put into a separating situation like this. This has caused me to fall into a phase of extreme depression and anxiety but worst of all, watching it affect my children, traumatizing them. I had no choice but to hire an attorney. I’m truly thankful God has followed me through this hard path we were put in, the family law courts did not rip apart my beautiful family and not separating us, keeping custody but had set plans to now share 50-50 custody, which I have accepted. I’m relieved the courts were well aware of the lies and false allegations against me and how the biological father was, in fact, misleading the courts. But still, unfortunately, I have used the last bit of my entire savings for this horrible experience I was put through the past seven months going back and forth with hearings.

I have been a proud single mother for years, maintaining the same household for seven years since the age of 25 with my three children and still living in the same home. I have always worked extremely hard to support myself and children in order to afford what I have today. I'm proud to say I’m still maintaining the same job for over five years and still current. Throughout this custody battle this year, I have had no choice but to get a second jobs in order to keep up with rent and bills, barely getting by. Due to this, my attorney fees have not yet been paid, and I am doing my absolute best to raise what I can to not be in debt. I’ve never been in debt, and I’ve never asked for any financial help, so I do feel extremely embarrassed and ashamed for asking. But I am in need of help in life, so anything ( big or small ) is truly appreciated and will help out. I ask for prayers. God bless, and I hope you all understand. Thank you for your time.