After 13 years, I had my first Thanksgiving with my daughter after winning joint custody.

I am hopeful that this finds its way to a parent who is afraid of stepping in to the courtroom to fight for their parenting time with their child. If you aren't in that situation, it might be confusing why one would be afraid, but there are a myriad of reasons why some are. I was one. Terrified. When you have very little, and know that if you challenge the other and lose, you may never see them again - it's a down-to-the-bone-level fear that took me a long time to overcome.​It was a landslide victory. She had a lawyer, I represented myself. The only motion I had filed was for 3 weeks of the year. She lives far away, and I didn't want to disrupt her life with school, friends, etc. My baby has to be in the car for 12 hours to come see me, so I didn't want to over do it.The mother counter-motioned with 1. dismissing my request, 2. raising child support (haven't missed a payment in 11 years since it began), and 3. make me pay for her lawyer.​The judge denied 2 of her motions and gave me everything that I asked for. She did say that child support should be reevaluated because it had been so long. It ended up going down in the end, because while I do make more money now than I did then, so does she. I went in there in my suit, a carefully prepared file, some research done on previous cases and any precedent that would help me, and a glowing love for my daughter that the judge could see. She gave me close to two months, broken up across the dates our daughter ASKED for with her Dad. I went from saying goodbye to her, over and over again, never knowing when I'd see her again, to now knowing we'll be together again every couple of months essentially. We've gone over a year before without seeing one another, and even then, it was 1 week. Those days are over.​I wanted to share this with any Moms OR Dads out there who are afraid of fighting for their child. I was too. Fucking terrified. I want you to know that the fear wasn't warranted. A family court judge, at least, the one I encountered, was a woman of logic, fairness, and absolutely *only* cared about one thing: Our daughter.​Happy Thanksgiving, parents.​https://ift.tt/2BsCFkH via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2PNyIQ9