Question asked on May 30, 2020
Q: Sept 2019 my son was taken from me by his father who wasn’t on birth certificate nor had been in the child’s life longer than 9months directly nor did he want to the first 2 years of our sons life. Our son is 3yrs old and turning 4 here soon. With my lack of knowledge and sheer disbelief that this is actually happening and from past threats of this along with my health issues I guess I didn’t see the urgency. In a nut shell supposedly he wouldn’t give me back our son after his visit because he suspected I was moving back to WA. He still hasn’t given our son back but has as of the end of February allowed me to see him at least 3-4 times a week for 2-4 hours depending. I’d like to know how much if a pickle I’m in for not taking immediate action? And legal advice on how to possibly articulate my side with sounding ill-equipped due to the fact that I tend to stray from main topic points and bounces from situation to situation then come back to the beginning in the end. Please help
A: In most matters of child custody, it is a mistake to wait for multiple months (or years) because that begins to look like agreement or acquiescence. But you should get information about how child custody determinations in your kind of circumstances are made, which you can review here and here. Then you should construct a timeline detailing what happened in what order (you can find a guide for doing so here), and then call this office or another Family Law Specialist firm, and schedule a consultation to review all of your facts, circumstances, costs, risks, benefits, and options.