My husband told me, «Your pregnancy disgusts me. Stop talking about it.» His reaction when I took his words literally was priceless. We’d been trying for a baby for years. So when I was finally pregnant, I thought Tom would be as excited as I was. But he never seemed interested in baby names or nursery plans.
And when the morning sickness hit hard and I mentioned feeling nauseated at breakfast, he slammed his coffee mug down. «Stop talking about gross things while I’m eating,» he yelled. «I’m so sick of hearing about your stupid pregnancy symptoms.»
«You’ve become boring and disgusting, and all you talk about is how you’re pregnant. Just stop talking about it completely.» I stared at him in shock.
Eight years of marriage and three years of fertility treatments. And this was his response to the baby we’d supposedly wanted together. I put down my crackers and said, «Okay, I won’t mention the pregnancy again.»
Tom looked relieved and went back to his phone. When I started staying at my parents’ house most nights because of smell aversions, Tom initially enjoyed the peace. But after a week, he started texting, «When are you coming home?» When I just said, «Soon,» his text became frantic.
«Is something wrong? Talk to me.» But I didn’t. He specifically asked me not to.
The neighbors noticed and started asking Tom if we were separated. He had to keep explaining I was just visiting family. But nobody believed him.
And soon everyone on our street was whispering about Tom driving away his pregnant wife. By week three, Tom was showing up at my parents’ door. «Just tell me what’s happening,» he’d plead through the door. «I need to know.» My dad would tell him I was resting and couldn’t talk about it.
My sister threw me a baby shower at the country club during Tom’s company golf tournament. His boss’s wife was at the shower and asked where Tom was. And when my sister explained he’d told me to stop talking about the pregnancy, she immediately told her husband.
Tom’s boss confronted him on the ninth hole about what kind of man tells his pregnant wife she’s disgusting. Tom had to finish 18 holes while everyone stared with contempt. The shower gifts included a stroller from Tom’s own mother, who’d found out about the party from my mom instead of her son.
Tom had been calling me daily by then, leaving voicemails. «Please just give me updates. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean it like that.»
«Tell me about the appointments, the baby, anything.» His mom confronted Tom at Sunday dinner, crying about how she’d failed as a mother. His aunts and uncles told him how disappointed they were, and his grandmother actually wrote him out of her will that day.
When I went into preterm labor at 34 weeks, I spent three days in the hospital on bed rest. My dad called Tom’s office to let them know, and Tom’s secretary was horrified he hadn’t mentioned it himself. Tom burst into my hospital room, shaking.
«Why didn’t you call me? This is serious.» I simply looked at him and said nothing about the pregnancy. He grabbed my hand, tears in his eyes.
«Please, I’m begging you. Talk to me about our baby.» I turned away.
HR called him in to ask if he needed time off for his wife’s medical emergency that everyone except him seemed to know about. The preterm labor scare meant strict bed rest, which Tom discovered only when he came home to find a hospital bed in our living room. He stood frozen in the doorway.
«What is this? What’s happening? Is the baby okay?» When I just nodded without explaining, he punched the wall. «Tell me about the pregnancy! I take it back, okay?»
The delivery guys had told all our neighbors about the poor pregnant woman whose husband was never home, and people started leaving nasty notes on his car.
My mom posted updates on Facebook that went viral in our community because she wrote about being the only support system for my daughter since her husband finds pregnancy disgusting. Tom created multiple fake accounts trying to comment, «That’s not the whole story. She won’t talk to me. I apologized.»
His best man from our wedding publicly wrote that he regretted standing up for such trash. His brother became the godfather and attended all appointments with me.
Tom followed us to one appointment, standing in the parking lot with flowers. But I walked past him in silence. When my water broke at 2 a.m. at 37 weeks, I quietly left with my mom.
Tom woke up at his normal time, went to work, and spent the day in meetings. He only found out I’d given birth when our doorbell camera sent him a notification of my sister arriving with balloons that said, «It’s a girl.» He called me frantically, and I answered on speaker while surrounded by nurses.
«Why didn’t you tell me you were in labor?» he screamed. And I calmly replied, «You said stop talking about the pregnancy. So I did.»
The nurses all gasped, and one actually said, «Oh my god, what a monster.» Tom rushed to the hospital but had to walk past medical staff who’d heard what he’d said, all glaring with disgust. When he burst into my room, he was calculating, not angry.
He pulled out his phone and showed me a recording. «Good thing I have you on tape saying you’d deliberately keep me from my child’s birth,» he said. «My lawyer says that’s parental alienation.»
I stared at him in horror as he smiled for the first time in months. «Now,» he said, «let’s discuss custody.» I looked down at Luna, the baby I’d prayed for and suffered three years to have, and realized I might lose her to the man who couldn’t even stand to hear she existed.
My whole body went cold staring at his smiling face while my mom grabbed Luna from my arms and backed away toward the corner of the room. The nurses who’d been checking my vitals froze, and one of them reached for the call button while another stepped between Tom and the bed. Tom’s lawyer walked in behind him carrying a leather briefcase and pulled out a thick stack of papers that he placed on my bedside table.
He told me these were emergency custody papers and that I had seven days to respond before the hearing where they’d prove I deliberately kept Tom from his parental rights. My hands shook as I looked at the papers claiming I’d endangered Luna by not telling her father about the birth. Tom stood there recording everything on his phone while his lawyer explained how my admission proved parental alienation and that no judge would let me keep primary custody after what I’d done.
My sister grabbed her phone and started scrolling through her contacts while talking fast to someone about needing an emergency family lawyer right away. My mom still held Luna tight and refused to move when Tom stepped toward them, saying he wanted to hold his daughter. The nurse who’d hit the call button told Tom he needed to leave because visiting hours were over and I was still recovering from delivery.
Tom’s lawyer said they had every right to be there, but two security guards showed up and told them both to leave immediately or they’d call the police. Tom pointed at me and said this wasn’t over and that he’d see me in court before walking out with his lawyer following behind. My sister hung up her phone and said her friend from college knew an amazing family lawyer named Lauren McKnight who could meet us tomorrow at my parents’ house.
That evening after the hospital discharged me, I sat in my parents’ living room holding Luna while Lauren spread Tom’s recording and the custody papers across the coffee table. She listened to the recording three times and then looked up at me with a small smile, saying, «Context was everything in family court.» She explained that one recorded statement wouldn’t override months of documented behavior showing why I stayed silent about the pregnancy.
Lauren pulled out a yellow legal pad and started writing down everything we’d need for our defense, starting with every single text Tom sent me during the pregnancy. She wanted copies of his voicemails begging me to talk about the baby after telling me to stop, screenshots of my mom’s Facebook posts about being my only support, and statements from everyone who witnessed Tom’s original comments. My sister had already started a folder on her laptop with screenshots of Tom’s fake accounts commenting on social media posts and his frantic messages asking when I was coming home.
Lauren spent three hours documenting every detail from the past few months, including the country club shower Tom missed and his mother giving me the stroller. She made notes about Tom’s boss confronting him at golf and his grandmother writing him out of her will after that Sunday dinner. Two days later, Lauren called to warn me that Tom had filed a motion claiming I had postpartum depression and wasn’t mentally fit to care for Luna.
She said he was going to play dirty and we needed to be ready for anything, including false accusations and twisted facts. My dad came home from work that week furious because he’d run into Tom’s co-worker at the hardware store who asked if it was true that I’d kidnapped the baby. Tom had been telling everyone at his office that I wouldn’t let him see his daughter and that I’d stolen her from the hospital without telling him.
The lies were spreading through his whole company, and people who didn’t know the real story were starting to feel sorry for him. Lauren filed our response with the court the next Monday, including sworn statements from three nurses who witnessed Tom’s behavior in the hospital room. She also subpoenaed the doorbell camera footage from our house showing Tom rarely came home during my entire pregnancy except to grab clothes or food.
The footage showed him leaving early every morning and coming back after midnight most nights while I was on strict bed rest alone. We included the delivery company’s invoice showing they’d installed the hospital bed while Tom was at work and hadn’t even known about it. That Thursday, my phone rang and Tom’s mother was crying, so hard I could barely understand her at first.
She kept saying she had no idea what Tom had really said to me about the pregnancy being disgusting and boring. She’d believed him when he said I was being hormonal and dramatic, but now she knew the truth after talking to my mom. She offered to testify on my behalf about Tom’s behavior and said she’d already written a statement about the baby shower and how Tom never told her about it.
Lauren was shocked when I told her because having Tom’s own mother on our side would be huge for the custody case. Two weeks after Luna was born, we went for her checkup, and the pediatrician noticed how tired and stressed I looked. She asked what was going on, and I explained about the custody battle and Tom’s threats to take Luna away.
The doctor examined Luna thoroughly and then sat at her computer typing for 10 minutes straight. She printed out a detailed letter stating that Luna was thriving under my care, gaining weight perfectly, and showing zero signs of neglect or harm. She handed me copies for my lawyer and said she’d testify if needed about Luna’s perfect health under my care.
That night I was nursing Luna when my phone started buzzing with notifications from Facebook. Tom had posted in three different father’s rights groups about how his ex was keeping his newborn daughter from him. He wrote that he’d missed her first weeks because I refused to let him visit, and that the family court system was broken.
Within an hour, I had dozens of angry messages from strangers calling me every name you can imagine. Men I’d never met were sending threats about what happens to women who steal kids from their fathers. My sister took screenshots of everything while I blocked account after account, but they kept coming.
Tom’s post had been shared over 200 times by morning, and the messages got worse. Someone found my LinkedIn and posted my work information in the comments. Another person posted photos of my parents’ house from Google Street View, saying this was where I was hiding the baby.
Lauren filed for an emergency restraining order that same day, attaching all the screenshots and messages. The judge read through just the first few pages before looking up with disgust on her face. She granted the temporary order immediately and said Tom had to stay 500 feet away until our custody hearing.
She also ordered him to remove all social media posts about me or Luna within 24 hours. My sister spent the whole next week creating the most detailed timeline I’d ever seen. She’d gone back through Tom’s Facebook to when we first announced the pregnancy three years into trying.
His early posts were all about being a future dad and how excited he was. Then she showed month by month how his posts changed. By my second trimester, he never mentioned the pregnancy at all.
During my third trimester, when I was huge and uncomfortable, he was posting photos from bars and golf courses. She found posts where friends asked about the baby and he either ignored them or gave vague responses. The contrast was shocking when laid out chronologically.
She printed everything in color and organized it in a binder with tabs for each month. Lauren said it was the best evidence she’d seen showing Tom’s complete disconnection from the pregnancy. Tom’s lawyer filed a motion the following week demanding all my medical records.
He claimed they needed to verify my mental state and whether I was fit to care for Luna. The motion said I might have postpartum psychosis and be a danger to the baby. Lauren fought it hard, saying it was a fishing expedition and harassment.
The judge scheduled a hearing just on this issue. At the hearing, Tom’s lawyer argued they had a right to know if I was mentally stable. Lauren countered that I’d already provided the pediatrician’s letter showing Luna was thriving.
The judge split the difference and said they could only access my postpartum records from after Luna’s birth. Nothing from during the pregnancy or before. Lauren immediately scheduled me with a therapist that week to get ahead of whatever Tom was planning.
The therapist was recommended by Lauren as someone who’d testified in custody cases before. I spent three sessions telling her everything, from the fertility treatments through Tom’s behavior to the current situation. She took detailed notes and ran some standard evaluations.
Her report stated clearly that I was dealing with situational stress from the custody battle but showed no signs of depression or other mental health issues. She wrote that my reactions were completely normal for someone facing legal threats and harassment. She documented that I was bonding well with Luna and meeting all her needs.
Two days later, my phone rang from a number I didn’t recognize. Tom’s brother was on the other end sounding upset. He said Tom had called him the night before asking him to sign a statement.
Tom wanted him to say he’d witnessed me refusing to let Tom see Luna at the hospital. His brother said Tom offered to pay him $5,000 to lie. He refused and told Tom he was disgusting for even asking.
Tom’s brother said he’d testify for me instead about how Tom really acted during the pregnancy. He said Tom had complained constantly about how gross pregnancy was and how I’d gotten fat and boring. Lauren added him to our witness list immediately.
That weekend, Lauren called with news from the private investigator she’d hired. Tom had been living with a woman from his office since the day Luna was born. The investigator had photos of Tom carrying boxes into her apartment and his car in her driveway every night.
They’d been seen at restaurants together, and she’d been wearing a necklace Tom bought her with our credit card. The investigator kept digging and found something worse. He discovered Tom had been telling this woman for months that he was planning to divorce me.
The investigator found their text messages through a mutual friend who was disgusted by Tom’s behavior. The messages dated back to when I was on bed rest. Tom was complaining about being stuck with a pregnant wife and how he couldn’t wait to be free.
There were photos of them at a steakhouse the night I was in the hospital with preterm labor. Another photo showed them kissing in his car while I was home on strict bed rest. The woman had posted on Instagram about her new man, with photos of Tom while I was 8 months pregnant.
Lauren said this evidence would destroy any claim Tom had to being a devoted father. The next morning, Tom’s grandmother called Lauren’s office directly. She’d gotten the number from my mom and wanted to help.
She offered to write a sworn statement about the family dinner where she wrote Tom out of her will. She described how Tom had shown no remorse when confronted by the family. She said he’d actually blamed me for making him look bad by not talking about the pregnancy.
She wrote that Tom said I was being dramatic and vindictive. His grandmother included details about how Tom had laughed when his aunt suggested he apologize. She said she’d never been more disappointed in her grandson.
Three weeks before our custody hearing, there was a pre-trial conference with both lawyers and the judge. Tom’s lawyer tried to negotiate for immediate unsupervised visitation, saying Tom deserved to bond with his daughter. Lauren shut it down fast, presenting evidence of the restraining order violation when Tom hadn’t removed all the social media posts.
She showed the judge photos of Tom with his girlfriend and argued he was a flight risk. She said he’d already shown he’d lie and manipulate to get what he wanted. The judge agreed to keep supervised visitation only until the full hearing.
Two days later, Tom’s boss’s wife called Lauren with more information. She’d written down everything from the baby shower, including how Tom’s own mother had no idea about it. She said Tom’s mother cried when she found out because Tom never told her about the shower.
The statement showed Tom completely disconnected from the pregnancy, and his own family didn’t even know basic things. Lauren added it to our growing pile of evidence. That same afternoon, my bank called about unusual activity on our joint account.
I logged in and saw Tom had emptied everything the day after Luna was born. $23,000 gone while I was still in the hospital recovering. The bank showed me the withdrawal slip with Tom’s signature, and the teller remembered him saying he needed it for a family emergency.
Lauren filed financial abuse charges immediately and got a freeze on Tom’s personal accounts. She said this showed his real priorities, and the judge would see through any devoted father act. The next morning started with pounding on my parents’ front door.
A woman I’d never seen before was screaming that I was keeping Tom from his baby. My dad looked through the peephole and told her to leave, but she kept yelling about father’s rights and how I was a terrible mother. She said Tom loved his daughter and I was being vindictive.
My dad called 911 while my mom took Luna upstairs. The police arrived fast, and the woman tried to explain she was just concerned about Tom. The officers asked for her name and ran it through their system.
Turns out she already had a restraining order from the custody case that said she couldn’t come near me or my family. They arrested her right there on the porch while neighbors watched from their windows. She kept screaming Tom’s name as they put her in the patrol car.
Later we found out this was the woman Tom had been living with since Luna was born. The arrest made the 6 o’clock news that night. The reporter stood outside my parents’ house talking about a custody dispute that led to an arrest.
They didn’t use names, but everyone in town knew it was about Tom. His co-workers saw it and started putting pieces together about all his lies. The next day, his workplace called him in and put him on leave while they investigated.
Tom’s lawyer showed up at the courthouse trying to withdraw from the case. He told the judge he couldn’t represent someone who kept lying to him. The judge looked at the calendar and said they were too close to trial for a lawyer change.
She told him he was stuck and had to see it through. Tom’s lawyer looked sick as he sat back down. Lauren loved this because it meant Tom’s own lawyer didn’t believe him anymore.
We scheduled depositions for the next week, and Lauren started with Tom’s secretary. She came in looking nervous but answered everything honestly. She said Tom never mentioned the pregnancy at work.
And when she told him I was in labor, he looked confused. She thought we’d been separated for months because Tom never talked about a baby coming. She remembered him leaving work early sometimes, but it was always for golf, never doctor appointments.
Lauren got her to sign a sworn statement about everything. The country club sent over their records without us even asking for a subpoena. They showed Tom at every single golf game during my entire pregnancy.
Not one absence for any prenatal appointment. The records had his signature on scorecards and bar tabs for nine months straight. Lauren compared it to my medical records showing 32 appointments Tom never attended.
The pattern was clear, and the judge would see it. My mom came to court for a pretrial hearing about evidence. She testified about our three years trying to have a baby and how happy Tom seemed at first.
She described how he changed completely once I started showing. She said he went from excited to disgusted almost overnight. The judge took notes while my mom talked about Tom avoiding me and refusing to touch my belly.
She mentioned how he wouldn’t even look at ultrasound pictures. Tom sat there shaking his head, but the judge saw everything. Tom tried his big move at the next hearing by bringing up the recording from the hospital.
His lawyer played the part where I said I kept him from the birth on purpose. Tom looked smug until Lauren stood up with her laptop. She played the full recording, including Tom threatening me and talking about custody before even asking about Luna.
The judge’s face got harder with each word. She heard his calculated tone and how he cared more about legal advantage than his newborn daughter. When it finished, she looked at Tom with obvious disgust.
Lauren presented our final evidence package showing Tom never bought anything for the baby. No crib, no clothes, no diapers, nothing. His credit card statements showed restaurants and golf but not one baby store.
We had receipts for everything I bought alone while Tom spent money on his girlfriend. The investigator found he’d bought her jewelry the week I went into preterm labor. He’d taken her to expensive dinners while I was on bed rest.
Every purchase showed his priorities, and none of them involved preparing for Luna. Tom’s mother took the stand two weeks later, and I watched her hands shake as she held the bible. She told the judge that Tom called me hormonal and dramatic when she asked about the pregnancy after that Sunday dinner.
She said he convinced her I was overreacting, and she believed him until she found out about the baby shower from my mom instead of her own son. She broke down crying when she described how he never once mentioned buying anything for the baby or preparing a nursery. The judge took notes while Tom sat there turning red and his lawyer kept trying to object.
But there was nothing to object to since she was just telling the truth about what happened. After her testimony, Tom wouldn’t even look at his mother, and she left the courtroom sobbing while his lawyer requested a recess. The guardian ad litem spent three days observing me with Luna at my parents’ house and interviewed everyone from my neighbors to the pediatrician.
She watched me change diapers and feed Luna and rock her when she cried at two in the morning. She talked to my parents about how they’d been supporting me, and she reviewed all the receipts showing I’d bought everything for the baby myself. Her report came back saying I should keep primary custody, and it specifically mentioned Tom’s concerning detachment from the entire prenatal period.
She wrote that Luna was thriving in my care and that I’d created a stable environment despite the stress of the situation. Tom’s girlfriend apparently didn’t like being charged with violating the restraining order because she started calling witnesses on our list, trying to convince them not to testify. She left voicemails for three different nurses from the hospital and contacted my sister on social media with threats about what would happen if she showed up in court.
The prosecutor added witness intimidation charges, and she got arrested at her job, which made the local news. Tom had to watch his girlfriend get walked out of her office building in handcuffs while news cameras filmed everything. During Tom’s deposition, he sat there sweating while Lauren asked him question after question about the pregnancy.
He admitted he found pregnancy gross but kept saying we were taking it out of context and he didn’t mean it like that. Lauren pulled out every single piece of evidence showing him avoiding me for nine months and asked him to explain each one. He couldn’t explain why he never went to a single appointment or why he was at the golf course instead.
He kept contradicting himself, saying first that I never told him about appointments, then admitting I did invite him. But he thought golf was more important for networking. Lauren’s assistant found something incredible when going through the evidence Tom’s lawyer had to provide.
Tom’s browser history showed he’d been searching for custody lawyers and reading about parental alienation tactics three weeks before I even went into labor. He’d bookmarked articles about how to get full custody and downloaded forms for emergency custody orders while I was still pregnant. He’d been planning to take Luna from me before she was even born, and the timestamps proved it all happened right after he told me to stop talking about the pregnancy.
The judge ordered psychological evaluations for both of us, which meant spending four hours with a court-appointed psychologist answering questions and taking tests. Mine came back completely normal, with the doctor noting I was dealing with appropriate stress given the situation but showing no signs of mental illness or instability. Tom’s evaluation was different because it showed narcissistic tendencies and an inability to accept responsibility for his actions.
The psychologist wrote that Tom consistently blamed others for the consequences of his own behavior and showed no genuine remorse. The report said Tom viewed the custody battle as a competition to win rather than focusing on what was best for Luna. Tom’s workplace finished their investigation after interviewing everyone who worked with him and reviewing the security footage of his girlfriend getting arrested in their parking lot.
They fired him for creating a hostile work environment and lying about his family situation to gain sympathy from co-workers. He’d been telling people I was keeping him from his daughter when, really, he’d been the one who abandoned us during the pregnancy. The termination letter mentioned damage to the company’s reputation and his lack of judgment.
Without a job, Tom couldn’t pay his lawyer the next installment of fees, and the lawyer filed a motion to withdraw from the case. The judge wouldn’t let him quit this close to the final hearing but said Tom had to pay up front for the lawyer to continue. Tom spent two weeks trying to get loans and asking family members for money, but everyone knew why he needed it and nobody would help him.
His own brother told him he deserved what was happening after how he treated me. Tom’s grandmother called Lauren’s office and said she wanted to pay my legal fees because she’d been horrified by Tom’s behavior. She came to the office with a cashier’s check for the full amount and told me she wanted to make sure Luna was protected from Tom’s selfishness.
She said she’d already written Tom out of her will and wanted to leave everything to Luna instead but wanted to make sure Tom couldn’t get his hands on it. Tom found out when his grandmother told him at Sunday dinner that she was paying for my lawyer, and he threw his plate against the wall. The final custody hearing lasted three days, and Tom took the stand on the second day, trying to paint himself as a victim of a vindictive wife.
He said I’d deliberately kept him from bonding with his daughter and that I’d turned everyone against him, including his own family. Lauren started her cross-examination by asking him to explain why he called pregnancy disgusting, and Tom lost his temper within five minutes. He started yelling that everyone was twisting his words, and the judge had to warn him twice about his behavior.
Lauren calmly presented each piece of evidence and asked Tom to explain it, but he just kept getting angrier and contradicting things he’d said earlier in his testimony. Lauren kept pushing him with questions about why he never bought baby items or went to any appointments, and Tom’s face turned red as he gripped the witness stand. The judge had to bang her gavel when Tom started shouting that I was twisting everything to make him look bad.
Lauren stayed calm and pulled out more evidence, including texts where Tom told his friends he was glad I was staying at my parents’ house because he could game all night. When it was finally my turn to testify, I walked to the witness stand holding Luna, who was sleeping in my arms. I told the court about the morning Tom called my pregnancy disgusting and how those words felt like a knife in my chest after three years of trying for this baby.
The whole courtroom went quiet as I described staying at my parents’ house and following his exact instructions to never mention the pregnancy. I explained how scared I was when he showed up with that recording and how calculating his smile looked when he threatened to take Luna. Several people in the gallery gasped when I described him punching the wall and demanding I tell him about the pregnancy after specifically ordering me not to.
Lauren asked me to describe how I felt during those months, and I said I felt completely alone and terrified that the man I married had turned into someone I didn’t recognize. The judge took notes the entire time, and her face grew harder with each detail I shared. Tom’s lawyer tried to make me look vindictive during cross-examination, but I just calmly repeated the facts and pointed to all the witnesses who saw everything happen.
After three days of testimony, the judge said she needed time to review everything and would deliver her verdict the next morning. That night I couldn’t sleep and just held Luna close while my parents assured me everything would be okay. The next morning, the courtroom was packed, and Tom sat there looking confident, like he thought he’d won.
The judge started by saying she’d reviewed all the evidence and testimony carefully. She said Tom’s behavior during the pregnancy showed a pattern of emotional abuse and neglect that deeply concerned her. She granted me full legal and physical custody, with Tom only getting supervised visitation after he completed parenting classes and anger management therapy.
Tom jumped up and started screaming that I’d ruined his life and stolen his daughter from him. The judge banged her gavel and warned him to sit down, but he kept yelling that this was all a conspiracy against him. Two bailiffs grabbed Tom’s arms as the judge held him in contempt and ordered him removed from the courtroom.
Luna stayed peaceful in my arms the whole time, like she knew she was safe with me. Tom was still screaming about how unfair everything was as they dragged him out in handcuffs. Two weeks passed, and Lauren called to tell me Tom still hadn’t signed up for any of the required classes or therapy sessions.
She documented everything and filed it with the court in case Tom tried to change the custody arrangement later. His girlfriend showed up at my parents’ house with a letter, saying she was sorry for everything and had no idea what really happened. She said Tom told her I was crazy and keeping him from his baby, but after the trial, she realized he’d been lying the whole time.
She looked genuinely upset and said she felt terrible for believing him and for showing up at the house that day. I told her it wasn’t her fault since Tom was good at manipulating people, and she left looking relieved that I didn’t hate her. Tom’s mother called that week, saying he’d moved back in with them because he couldn’t afford his apartment anymore without a job.
She was furious with him and said she couldn’t believe she’d raised someone who would treat his pregnant wife that way. She asked if she could still see Luna, and I said of course because none of this was her fault. She started visiting every week and always brought little gifts for Luna while never once trying to defend Tom’s behavior.
Three months went by before Tom finally enrolled in the court-ordered therapy and parenting classes. His therapist contacted mine to discuss how to handle future visits and make sure Luna’s safety came first. They scheduled the first supervised visit at a family center where trained social workers would watch everything.
Tom showed up 20 minutes late and spent most of the hour complaining about how unfair the supervision was instead of playing with Luna. The social worker wrote in her report that Tom seemed more interested in his grievances than bonding with his daughter. Luna cried most of the visit and reached for me whenever Tom tried to hold her.
The next few visits went the same way, with Tom arguing about the rules and barely interacting with Luna. After the fourth failed visit, the supervisor recommended extending the supervision period indefinitely. She wrote that Tom showed no progress in focusing on Luna’s needs over his own anger about the situation.
The court agreed, and Tom’s lawyer told him he needed to actually try during visits if he ever wanted unsupervised time. Tom just stormed out of the courthouse, and I heard later he’d punched his car window in the parking lot. Around this time, I started going to a single parent support group at the community center.
That’s where I met Travis Bullock, who was raising his son alone after his wife passed away from cancer. Travis was patient and kind and never pushed for more than friendship at first. Luna loved him immediately and would giggle whenever he made silly faces at her during the meetings.
We started getting coffee after the group sessions, and he listened without judgment as I told him everything about Tom and the custody battle. He said he understood how hard it was to protect your child while dealing with a difficult situation. After a few months, we started officially dating, and Travis was amazing about taking things slow and respecting my boundaries.
He never complained when I had to cancel plans because of Luna or when Tom’s drama interfered with our time together. Tom found out about Travis when he saw us at the grocery store together with Luna in the shopping cart. He took photos of Travis helping me load groceries while Luna giggled at him and filed an emergency motion the next day, claiming I was exposing Luna to dangerous strangers.
Lauren called me laughing because Tom’s lawyer had actually tried to stop him from filing it, but Tom insisted. At the hearing two weeks later, the judge looked at Tom’s evidence, which was literally just photos of us grocery shopping, and asked if he was serious. Tom started ranting about how I was replacing him as Luna’s father, and the judge cut him off to remind him that supervised visits existed because of his own behavior.
She dismissed the motion and told Tom that if he filed another frivolous claim, she would consider sanctions. Tom stormed out, and his lawyer apologized to Lauren in the hallway. Six months after Luna was born, Tom’s grandmother had a massive stroke and passed away within days.
At the funeral, Tom sat in the front row expecting to be mentioned in the will reading afterward, but the lawyer skipped right over him. Everything went into a trust for Luna that I would manage until she turned 25, and the will specifically stated that Tom was excluded due to his treatment of his pregnant wife. Tom stood up and started yelling that I had poisoned his grandmother against him, but his own mother told him to sit down and shut up.
The trust included the grandmother’s house, her investment portfolio worth almost 2 million dollars, and a letter to Luna explaining why her father wasn’t included. Tom spent months trying to contest the will, but every lawyer told him he had no case. It took Tom eight more months to finally complete all his therapy sessions and parenting classes because he kept missing appointments or arguing with the instructors.
When he finally got approved for unsupervised visits every other weekend, I packed Luna’s diaper bag with detailed instructions for everything. The first Saturday, he picked her up at 9 in the morning, and by noon, he was calling me in a panic because Luna had a dirty diaper and he didn’t know how to change it properly. I told him to figure it out and hung up.
20 minutes later, he called again because Luna was crying and wouldn’t take her bottle. Then he called because she needed a nap but wouldn’t sleep. By 4 o’clock, he brought her back early, claiming she must be sick because she was so fussy.
The next visit, he lasted until Sunday morning before bringing her back because he couldn’t handle the night feeding schedule. After a year of dating, Travis proposed to me at the park where we first took Luna and his son to play together. Luna was walking by then, and Travis had taught her to carry the ring box to me.
She toddled over in her little pink dress and handed me the box saying, «Mama Pretty,» which made everyone at the park start clapping. We planned a small ceremony at my parents’ backyard with just family and close friends. Tom wasn’t invited, but his mother asked if she could come and I said yes because she had been nothing but supportive.
She sat in the second row crying happy tears as Luna walked down the aisle, throwing flower petals everywhere except where she was supposed to. Travis’ son walked next to her as the ring bearer, trying to help her stay on track. Tom found out about the wedding from social media and sent nasty messages, but we just forwarded them to Lauren for our records.
About six months after the wedding, Tom met a dental hygienist named Ashley at his new job and started dating her seriously. After three months, he filed a petition for increased custody, claiming he was in a stable relationship and could provide a better environment for Luna. Lauren responded with our boxes of documentation, including all his missed visits, early returns, and panicked phone calls about basic parenting tasks.
The judge denied his request, and Ashley apparently found out the real story during the hearing because she dumped him that same week. By Luna’s second birthday party, Tom had finally stopped fighting everything and accepted his every other weekend schedule. He paid his child support on time through automatic withdrawal and stopped sending angry emails.
At Luna’s party, he dropped off a present and left without making a scene, which was the first time he had acted normal in two years. His mother stayed for the whole party and helped with cake cutting while Tom went home alone. I had started nursing school during the custody battle, taking night classes while my mom watched Luna.
It was hard juggling everything, but I wanted a stable career to support Luna properly. Travis helped me study and took care of both kids when I had exams. After three years, I graduated with honors and got a job at the pediatric ward of our local hospital.
Luna sat in the audience at graduation wearing a tiny cap someone had made for her and cheering, «Mama did it!» which made everyone around us smile. Tom’s mother was there too, taking pictures and telling everyone how proud she was of me. Two months after graduation, Tom called asking to meet about something important, and when we met at a coffee shop with our lawyers, he looked tired and defeated.
He said he wanted to terminate his parental rights if I would waive the back child support he owed from when he missed payments during his unemployment. Travis had already said he wanted to adopt Luna officially, and Tom knew it would happen eventually anyway. We signed the papers that day, and Tom walked away from Luna’s life forever.
Travis’ adoption went through six months later, and Luna started calling him Daddy, which she had been doing unofficially anyway.
