Our Day in Family Court

re:  Visitation with Jeff's daughter.  Ok, trying really hard here to view this as a win.  We wanted clarification on the Wednesday visitation.  Ok, so we got the clarification but it wasn't necessarily the answer Jeff wanted.  The visit is 3-8 p.m. and will stay that way.  If Jeff is more than an hour late to pick up the visit can be denied.  This is what had been happening  - visits denied because Jeff picked up after 3 - to promt us to go to court in the first place.  I'm not going to get into the part about there should have been an understanding between Jeff and OUR lawyer about what had been happening up to this point, or not, and there wasn't and they tried to figure it all out between 9:15 and 10:00 when the session was to begin.  Long story short on this part, we'd asked for visits to start at 3 but meant "as early as 3" and this was very important when the visits ended at 8.  However, for the past 5 years the Wednesday visits were overnights and Jeff picked sd up between 5 and 6 on Wed.  This was fine until a couple of months ago.  Don't know why it suddenly became an issue; can only suspect it had something to do with the impending birth of our 2nd child and possible sd's excitement over same.  Net:  Jeff has to pick up between 3 and 4 or lose the visit unless some agreement to make the pick up later is reached with the mom.  Yeah, right.  Ok, so we wanted to have the Wed. nite and every other weekend visits end in an overnight vs. return to mother's house.  Ok, so now our Sunday nights are overnights but not the Wednesdays.  We win there.  As for all of the not making sd available for the twice weekly telephone calls stipulated in the visitation agreement; the anxiety caused sd when she forgets to bring her socks back home to her mother's; the telling her she can't wear the necklace her brother gave her for Christmas; etc.  That wasn't addressed at all by the judge and our lawyer felt the reason is that ex had a file full of notations on instances where I had said or done bad things to her.   Net:  we were bad & she was bad so we got sent home with nothing on that.  Ok, so those were the issues and that was the outcome.  What's really making me sad is that sd's mother can work full time, take classes 3 nights a week, leave sd home alone for a few hours (age 9) if she doesn't have a babysitter, and sit there in a courtroom and say she's concerned about Jeff's parenting because sd broke arm at daycare (Jeff wound up taking her to the hospital but that didn't come out) and I said bad things about her and we lived together before we were married and blah blah blah.  None of that matters.  I treat sd as if she were my own.  She's been telling me every weekend that she's here that she wishes I were her mom and that ignorant woman can spew nonsense and I have no forum for rebuttal.  I guess I just had to get this all out and then remind myself of what I've been telling myself for the past 8 years....LOVE WINS IN THE END.  So I will take a deep breath, draw my own 2 children close and look in their smiling angelic faces and continue to love and care for sd to the best of my ability as if she were my own daughter and know that I am doing what I do for her and for myself and for Jeff and our family and I don't need validation from anyone else.  I try so hard not to think hateful thoughts but I fail.  This is my big test and I systematically fail at it.  Ok, I've not done anything ever to engender love from this woman and in fact have pretty much let her know how I feel about her but it's been 8 years and she's still trotting out her file and talking about perceived wrongs from 1996.  And so it leaves me feeling even though we gained something we lost....

So tomorrow should be tons more fun that today.  I'm off to find a bathing suit for my 30 lbs. overweight post partum (think Reubenesque) physique.  I should be flying high by this time tomorrow, huh?  I did weigh in 1.5 lbs. lighter today though.