Help Reunite Our Family & Bring My Son Home

My name is Ciara Hayden, and I never imagined I would find myself writing something like this.

I am a mother. And right now, I am fighting with everything I have just to maintain my relationship with my child.

What started as a temporary visit turned into something I never could have prepared for — a complex, costly, interstate legal battle that has stretched on for months with no end in sight. Every week brings new filings, new expenses, and new heartbreak.

I am also a new mother, having recently given birth. The season that should have been filled with healing, rest, and joy has instead been consumed by court deadlines, attorney calls, and the kind of exhaustion that goes all the way to your bones. I am running on love and very little else.

My fiancé Joshua has been holding our household together while I fight this battle. Together we have done everything right — hired attorneys, followed every legal process, and never stopped trying. But family court is expensive in ways that are hard to describe until you are living it.

We have gone into significant debt just to keep this case moving forward. And we still have so far to go.

If you have ever loved a child, you understand why I cannot stop. Why I will not stop.

Any amount — $5, $10, a share — brings us one step closer to the moment I get to hold my family together again.

Thank you for seeing us.

— Ciara & Joshua