In the summer of 2008 I met and fell in love with a man named Danny. As we got to know each other, I learned he had three children: a 15 year old son named Cody, a 5 year old daughter named India, and a six month old son named Daniel. Danny told me he kept in touch regularly with Cody but hasn't seen him in a few years, since he lives far away in another state. He also told me India lives with her mother, but she visits him every other weekend. The baby, however, was in foster care.

When little Daniel was born, his mother did not list Danny as the father on the birth certificate. When she was in the hospital, drugs were found in her system, and as they did not know who the father was, little Daniel was taken away and Danny was told he had to prove his paternity. Since it took 3-4 months for the paternity tests to get done, little Daniel stayed in foster care with Diane, his foster mother, who was very vocal about her desire to adopt him.

During those months, Danny tried to work things out with little Daniel's mother. In order to get little Daniel back, his mother had to complete a three month program called Stepping Stones. During this time, Danny was told that he had signed his parental rights away. He had never signed anything related to his parental rights and after Danny's lawyer confronted the social worker, Sandy, she seemed to have no knowledge of the alleged document and could not produce a copy of it. Little Daniel's mother did not complete her three month program and Danny broke up with her. He wanted to get custody of little Daniel and knew that he never could as long as he was with little Daniel's mother. Even after the paternity was proven, Danny still had to fight for his son because CPS was concerned about previous accusations India's mother had made. During the custody battle for India, India's mother claimed Danny had abused her, an accusation she later retracted. Until he could claim full custody of little Daniel, Danny was given permission to have three supervised visits a week at the DHS building. When Danny and I got together, little Daniel's mother did not like it and she began telling Diane false accusations of Danny and I doing drugs. She also said that Danny was beating up me and my two daughters. Next thing I knew, CPS was at our door. They spoke to me and Danny separately. They checked me and my girls for bruises and sent Danny and I to get tested for drugs. The drug tests came back negative and my children and I had no bruises, so no case was opened. Even though these allegations were proven to be false, they caused CPS to decide to work with CAPE, a branch of DHS. Both CAPE and CPS would show up randomly at our house to give Danny and I drug tests (CPS would send over a cab.) On one of the many court cases we went to concerning little Daniel's custody, CPS said that one of their drug screenings showed drugs in Danny's system. It just so happened that CAPE tested us on the same day, and they said Danny had nothing in his system that shouldn't be there (he takes some doctor prescribed medications). A week later, we received a letter telling us CAPE could no longer administer drug tests. In November of 2008, when little Daniel was 11 months old, Danny was in court to discuss custody. He was told that if he had clean drug tests for a full 30 days, he would be allowed to have in home visitations with little Daniel. Near the end of that month, CPS said that they found Creatine in Danny's system. I did some research and discovered that Creatine is legal and used for body building. CPS wanted Danny to have his blood drawn for further testing. Danny's lawyer (a court appointed attorney that barely did his job) told him it was unnecessary and that he could refuse, so Danny did. CPS decided his refusal meant that Danny was trying to flush out his system and home visits were denied. This happened right before Christmas, which is a week before little Daniel's birthday. On both of those days, CPS said they did not have enough supervisors for Danny to visit his son. When CPS accused Danny of abusing his doctor appointed medication, he had it switched to a non-narcotic prescription. In April of 2009, Danny and I had a meeting with Sandy. She told us that little Daniel could finally start in home supervised visits. She also said that after a month or so, she would call FAMILIES UNITED to start little Daniel's transition home. Before the month was out, Sandy denied saying she was going to call FAMILIES UNITED, and she said she had no intentions of doing so. Soon after, Danny and I found out we were expecting our first child together. With all the trouble we were having with Daniel's custody battle, we became worried CPS would take this baby from us as well. In June of 2009, Diane went to court and got the rights to intervene in little Daniel's case. It was a slap in Danny's face. After everything he was doing to try to get his parental rights, after the court repeatedly denying him any rights, they gave Diane some of the parental rights he was continually fighting for. The in home visits continued and Danny and I started noticing bruises on Daniel's body. We also noticed he had a consistent diaper rash, which indicates infrequent diaper changing and possible neglect. As the summer went on, little Daniel became more and more upset whenever our visits ended and it was time for him to go back to his foster home. One day toward the end of the summer, I handed little Daniel over to Diane and he was crying because he did not want to leave. Diane started toward her car as the CPS worker drove away. I went back into the house and turned to watch them leave. Danny was watching from a different window. Diane gave little Daniel his sippy cup and put him in the car, then got in the front seat. Before she drove away, little Daniel was not calming down, and she turned around and slapped him. Danny and I both witnessed it. We were furious and called CPS to report it. During one of our following visits, Sandy showed up to discuss the incident. She told us that little Daniel was never hit. What we saw, she said, was Diane handing him his sippy cup. In reality, she had handed it to him before they even got into the car. It was infuriating that all of the false accusations against us were recorded and held against us, and when we reported a fact, it was dismissed. Danny likes to talk. He talks a lot. During out visits, CPS noticed this. They took things out of context and twisted his words until they could make it seem as though Danny was emotionally abusing my girls. My daughters love Danny. They came to me one day and asked if they could call him Daddy. After I made it clear that Danny was not their biological father, and they did not have to call him anything other than Danny, they came to the decision on their own that he was Daddy. It was what made them comfortable, and it was what they wanted, so Danny has been Daddy ever since. He has never abused them in any way, and in their eyes, he is their father. It was just yet another false accusation. On another occasion, CPS said that living in our home would not be in the best interest of little Daniel because we seemed to favor him. They said it could be dangerous in the future. They basically said that because we spent time with him during the few visits we had with him, we were somehow going to spend too much time with him in the future. In October of 2009, Danny's rights to his son were officially terminated. The actual court termination order states: persistence of jeopardy cannot be found for little Daniel by clear and convincing evidence, but only to a preponderance, which basically means that they had no real evidence of our home being a danger to Daniel, but there were so many allegations (even if they were all proven false) that it couldn't possibly be a safe place for him. We still have our daughters, including the youngest, who was born in December of 2009. Little Daniel will be three years old this December and we will not stop this fight until he is home with us, where he belongs. We will do everything we can, research everywhere we can and ask anyone we can until this is set right. Daniel belongs with the people who love him, Daniel belongs with his family. --this is just the sum of everything.

[www.cpswhirlwind.spruz.com]