How many other words can I come up with to describe the roundtable meeting..... Spike and I had a meeting scheduled last wednesday, and it was meant to be us and our lawyers and the kids lawyer, but it ended up being me shut in a room with my lawyer running in and out, conversing with his lawyer who was in another room with Spike. He had come into the meeting and told his lawyer that he didn't want to change a thing. Didn't want to do the 50-50. Said he had some concerns.
God i love my lawyer. She rocks. She told him that I had been asking over and over for him to specifically cite his concerns to me, and as he hadn't done so would he mind going over them with her? Haha. He said nothing. Then she says to him, sweet as. if you do not want to agree on this and you want to drag this out even though we were all in agreeance that 50-50 would go ahead, fine. We will see you in court, we will go to trial and the judge can decide. Because that was literally the only thing that could happen. If we couldn't come to a conclusion and finally get a final parenting order, we had no more options but go to a hearing and let a judge decide.
The kids lawyer has been to all our mediation's and meetings, and she meets with the kids as well, and she thought the idea of 50-50 was good, after all the last school term when I got to have the kids a little bit more it was in preparation for this bigger change to take place at the beginning of term one.
A bit more to-and-fro-ing and my lawyer came in with a big grin on her face. He caved. He fucking caved. He agreed to and signed an order giving us both equal rights as parents.
FINALLY!!
I just about cried I was so happy. I asked my lawyer if Spike would be able to join us so we could discuss financial matters. But he said that he had something else to do and not enough time. Hmmpf.
In regards to the financial stuff, well I wrote in our communication book the ideas I had about splitting bills for day care and after school care and school costs, and he wrote back that it all sounded fine.
Thing was, he was over a thousand dollars in arrears with afterschool care. I rang the owner of the centre that runs the programme and explained the situation, and she agreed to create us split bills; I will pay for whatever days she is in care on my weeks and Spike will pay for his week, and his arrears. I was so happy when I got off the phone. Daycare wasn't so happy to arrange separate bills, so both of us will just have to split the bill weekly.
I am so very happy that this has finally come to an end. We have a FINAL parenting order which states that we have equal rights and equal time.The fucking power struggle and the games are over. I hope. This should never have taken this long. I have missed out on far too much.
See, when I went to Aussie the first time, for three months, Spike and I had agreed that when I got back from looking after Dad that we would start 50-50 custody. How naive I was not to sign anything before hand, to trust him. and it has taken two and a half years of constant court battles, accusations and rumours all trying to make me look like the bad parent to finally come to this conclusion. This has not been an easy road. And I guess going 50-50 right when I am about to start nursing school full time and buy a business is not going to be an easy road either. Which is why I am still having trouble sleeping.
Thoughts just go round and round in my brain. Money, mostly, but other worries as well like how will I fit all my homework in with the kids homework and playing with them, and working. How will I fit it all in? I am a naturally organised person, I lie being organised. But I like knowing how things are going to pan out in advance. I don;t like not knowing how stuff will work out. I need to have a solid plan! And at the moment I dont.
Two more weeks.... counting down. Wow two more weeks and I will finally be there. I am nervous and excited at the same time. I got my book list and it was expensive! I managed to pick up all but one of the required textbooks from trademe, and i'll get the other one this week when I get my course related costs from studylink. I have to buy a uniform for clinical placements amongst other items like a stethoscope and nurses watch etc.
So we are just about ready to buy the business. T-Bone just has to do a few more things to get the money and we will be ready to take over. I can't see it being February but it will be March. We Incorporated the business, so it's all ready to go ahead as soon as we get all the money together. Another good bit of news.
Then we got a couple of bad bits of news in the same week. My friend L's mother has two large tumours in her stomach; they don;t know if they are cancerous yet but one is so big it has it's own blood supply. So she will be undergoing heaps of tests in the coming weeks. My heart goes out to L, because she has suffered from anxiety for years and this will just bring it back on again. I know how it feels - actually L was with me the day my Dad rung from Aussie and told me he had lung cancer. I couldn't breathe, I just listened to what he said and when he hung up I sobbed for hours. But Dad knew right from the start that it was terminal. His doctor never gave him the illusion that he would be cured. All the chemo and radiation he went through was only to prolong his life a little. So I know how it feels to have a parent who is dying, who has died. It fucking rips you in two. My Dad should have never died so young.
The other bit of bad news is that our flatmate is moving out. Great fuckin timing, she knows that we are financially strained and she wants to move out the weekend right before I start nursing school. So i'm pissed about that. I know we will have to rent the room out again, and I know we can get a lot more money for it than she was giving to us. But I just don't really like the thought of living with strangers. I'll have to put an ad up next week for a new flatmate.
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