Hi... My name is Daniele. My Husband, Tucker, has a beautiful daughter from a previous relationship that he has been battling custody of for basically her entire life. Her name is Lilith. She is the sweetest, most caring, social little girl you will ever meet. She was born in 2014, and for the first 4 years of her life, her mother made it incredibly difficult for Tucker to co-parent with her. He tried and tried to come to any compromise that he could muster with her, but she would always come up with excuses as to why he could not see her. It was a constant battle between Tucker and mom, but we were constantly trying to make the co-parenting work, without having to get the courts involved. Four years go by and Tucker hadn't physically seen her since she was 10 months old. We got a call from CYFD saying there is an investigation against mom. We talked with all of the investigator and sheriff marshals that were doing the investigation, they thought it would be more fit for her to be placed in our home, and they advised us that in Lilith's best interest, we should cut communication with mom until the investigation was finalized. That year we had already made plans to move to Colorado to better our family's lives, before we even received Lilith back into our lives, so naturally she would come with us when we moved the following year in 2019. We tried to stay in communication with the investigators as much as possible, but eventually not much was said after a while, but we still continued to cut communication with mom for the safety of Lilith. Eventually when we ended up moving to Colorado after not hearing from investigators for a certain period of time we thought it would be best to try and communicate with mom again, but no luck, she did not answer any texts and had us blocked on social media. With that said, we went ahead and moved on with our lives to try and make a better life for Lilith and our other two children. The past 5 years we have lived in Colorado they have done excellent in school, have made tons of friends, have had many experiences that have brought them much joy and happiness that we didn't receive while living in Albuquerque. 5 years go by and mom shows up at our doorstep randomly on a weekend day and we have no idea how she even acquired our address, considering we have had no communication from her in 5 years. We saw this as the universe giving all of us an opportunity to reunite Lilith with her other family so instead of seeing this as an intimidation tactic we saw this as an opportunity to put the past behind us and hopefully move forward in a positive light. Mom was very receptive to our conversations together, was very positive and understanding and thankful for us taking care of Lilith this entire time. We eventually got Lilith a cell phone, so that she can communicate with her mom on a daily so they can get to know each other and we even eventually, after a few months, let her start having a small amount of visitation time. We haven't had any issues as far as any concerns for Lilith's wellbeing while she is with her mom but after June 2nd when we allowed her to stay with her mom for a full week, mom started to come up with every excuse from having car issues to having family issues to not being able to bring her back home until June 13th when mom decided to do the unthinkable and refused to let Lilith come back home. We have tried to have conversations with Lilith personally to ask her what has been going on but no much is said by Lilith, which means either someone is keeping her from saying anything or she is too scared to say anything. Since we don't have anything court ordered as far as custody goes, she can legally hold her in her care despite the fact that we have had her in our care, and she has established residency in Colorado for the past 5 years. When trying to talk to mom about her reasoning as to why she can't come home she started to make accusations about how we have raised her in these past 5 years, something as simple as a two-piece swim suit that Lilith wears when she goes swimming bothers her and nothing more serious. If anyone knows our family, we would never put any of our children in harms way, they are happy kids who are constantly on the go and have made the greatest memories from living here in Colorado. If we ever had any concerns about behavioral issues or any of the kids feelings of neglect we would know about it, and we would have definitely done something about it. We had every intention of reuniting Lilith with her mom in a slow steady and healthy way and we thought mom was on the same page, but apparently the past has not been forgotten by her and she has resorted to going back to the old unhealthy co-parenting ways that have not worked in the past. So now we have no choice but to get the courts involved, which means we have to hire a lawyer. We had planned to buy a home this year, but with these recent circumstances we have had to use what little savings we have for a retainer for the lawyer so that we can work on getting Lilith back into our home legally, but the court costs and other lawyer costs are where we will be struggling financially. We are willing to put us buying a home on hold, if that means having our entire family together again, but we need just a little bit of help from anyone who is willing to. Any little bit helps us on our journey to bring home Lilith. Please keep in mind we are not setting out to completely separate Lilith from her mom, we are only trying to get a legal court ordered parental plan so that mom can't try to abuse the system anymore, it isn't in the best interest of Lilith and we want what is best for her. We appreciate everyone who is willing to donate.