Baby girl taken from mother to live with dad and his boyfriend

[Darcey2105]

I'm horrified!! Have you seen this story this morning?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-32603514

A baby girl was taken from her mother and is now in sole custody of the dad and his boyfriend. The reason being that he said the baby was conceived to be their surrogate child. but she says he agreed to be her sperm donor so she could have the baby.

What is going on? Surely even if the mother had changed her mind about surrogacy she could still be allowed to keep her own baby. I am totally appalled. The men had a top female lawyer fighting their case. And it looks like it was a woman judge who ruled it was in the baby's best interest to live with the dad and his boyfriend - even though the baby was still breastfeding!!

how can there be so little support of mothers? Please tell me I hallucinated the whole awful story.

I think it's excessively cruel and wrong to deliberately break a commitment to a couple desperate for a baby, and to repeatedly lie and in order to stop them seeing that child. In one of the emails presented during the case she made the point that she was used to spending extended amounts of time apart from her children; the intent was there at the outset that she would not be the main carer. The judge ruled that as it was obvious that from the tone of the emails that H was desperate for a baby, and as such would be unlikely to acquiesce to a plan where he had minimal involvement in the child's upbringing.

The woman has problems. You can defend her due to the stress of the situation, the turmoil of potentially having to give her child up. But she had options, the men involved have kept the door open for her all this time. The judge pointed out that they have refrained from making it 'personal' during the case, despite her provocations regarding drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, the state of their relationship, even outing her friend of twenty years to his family back in Romania. Who do you think would be a more stable influence? Who do you think would present a truer and more accurate version of events to the little girl as she grows up? Toddlerhood is important, but it's a small part of childhood and becoming an adult. She's spent time with her Dad and his partner and is happy with them. If this is how your woman gets on under stress and when her 'plans' start to go awry, what the frig is going to happen when that little girl starts having opinions and ambitions of her own? It's a recipe for a regular poster on the stately homes thread.

The mother was toxic.
She only has supervised contact to start with - she can get back to a normal relationship if she makes the effort- it is up to her.
I think it is good that manipulative women don't get away with it.

I expect she is not a very nice person at all, and has probably led a fucked-up life.

No, in itself its not a reason to separate a child from its mother....on its own. but its not on its own. She isn't just someone who is not very nice.

She has used ALL her children as possessions, as hers only to use as she wishes. she does not treat them as a person.

She was not acting in the best interest of the child. It was all about her.

I think possessive mother nearly always get the come back as the child grows up and realise that she put herself before them.

I also don't think that being dishonest and manipulative is enough of a reason to separate them

What????

A woman manipulates a man in to making her pregnant. Lets forget that for a minute.

She then stops all possible contact with the father...She denies her child a chance to grow up knowing her father

She takes the child to that many hospital trips, to stop contact the hospital feel she is a safe guarding issue.

She has tied up the family courts in a previous case, she told the court her oldest 2 children did not have Romanian passports and she was told not to send them abroad. When their father got visitation rights, she got out their Romanian passports and sent the abroad...to spite their father. So neither parent had them.

She is likely to influence her dds thinking in regards to her father sexuality.

The child is in a sling all day, not because she thinks its right (which i am sure its not) but to keep her claim on the child.

This woman is a huge risk of leaving the country and subjecting her dd to severe emotional abuse.

But you know, lets keep her dd with her...because she carried her.

Not to forget the ultimate noble act that trumps all others in the world of Motherhood - demand breastfeeding indefinitely.

CactusAnnie the case wasn't about whether the mother could provide an adequate home for the child but which parent could provide the better home.

She can get back to 'normal' parenting- it is up to her. She only has to prove herself and acknowledge that the child comes first. It may take a while after her behaviour- but she can go on to have a normal relationship. It sends out a good message to other toxic parents.

shewept I'm not saying that giving birth to a child is the be-all and end-all, I just don't see anything that, to me, would justify separating a very young child from its mother permanently.

I think it is entirely justified. She is emotionally abusing her dd for her own gain.

Especially not when the father and his partner have entered into such a messy and ill-thought-out agreement in the first place. They hardly come out of it covered in glory either.

And so did the mother, so if this affects whether the father can have the child or not...it should affect the mothers case too.

The mother will still get visitation. The father have never asked anyone to ban the mother from his dds life. Unlike the mother.

I can not believe some people think a child should be left in a home with an abusive parents, just because they are the mother.

CactusAnnie
however, I don't agree that this in and of itself is enough of a reason to permanently separate a 15-month-old baby from its mother.

Eh? Who said permanently?

The Judge makes it quite clear that she is aware that it will do harm to the child to remove her from her primary carer. But she balances that against the harm that she believes the child will suffer if she remains with her mother. She also recognised the distress it will cause to the mother if residency is awarded elsewhere.

The Judge also makes it clear that the breastfeeding itself isn't an issue - and indeed makes reference to it being widely accepted that it brings benefits - her point is quite simply that it is being used to manipulate proceedings and to prevent the father being involved with the child.

I think it's clear that the Judge has put the welfare of the child first, she is concerned about the impact of the mother's actions on how the child will perceive her father and indeed herself. Contact is restricted only initially and only because prior contact has been traumatic and the child had witnessed this. The Judge was concerned that the mother would react badly to the judgement in a way that would significantly harm the child or cause the child to witness unpleasantness and she wasn't prepared to countenance that until the mother provided evidence that she would refrain from such hostility.

The fact is that this woman is going to damage her child if she continues to be so resistant to the father playing any role. She has refused to accept that the child has a shared heritage, cultural and religious with both parents. She is homophobic, she has damaged family relations between the men and their conservative families. She has alleged domestic abuse. She has subjected her child to unnecessary visits to the GP and hospitals.

The child has formed an attachment to her father and his partner. She has stayed overnight without any issues for over six months, independent experts have confirmed that there is a bond and that both the father and his partner are keen to have the mother remain involved, substantially so, in the child's life.

This is not a child being forcibly removed from her mother because the father fought a better case, it's a case of a child's welfare being considered and the court recognising the damage that is done when a child is used as a weapon between two parties. How utterly horrendous for a child to grow up and learn that even as a baby she was used in such a way.

Boffin has just almost single-handedly changed my mind on the whole issue.

She's absolutely right.

OF COURSE babies need a mother. I can't believe I'd sleep-walked into thinking they didn't. (And I say that as someone who has an awful 'mother')

Why, as a society, are we commodifying babies like this?

As for this case, was it even established properly that there WAS a surrogacy arrangement? A lot of the conclusions from the judgement seem distinctly eccentric. How much hands on parenting experience of babies does the Judge have? And, if very little, why not?

If it wasn't so outrageous this would be laughable -that a child of 15 months is apparently subject to 'enmeshment and stifling attachment' because the mother doesn't work and uses a sling!

CactusAnnie, do you seriously think it's appropriate for a 15 month old to be carried around all day by her mother in a sling?

I AGREE that the woman in question was dishonest and probably deliberately misled the men and deliberately kept the child away from them. I expect she is not a very nice person at all, and has probably led a fucked-up life. however, I don't agree that this in and of itself is enough of a reason to permanently separate a 15-month-old baby from its mother.

It might not be, if that were the only reason. But you know that it isn't, don't you, if you've read the judgment. It has to do with things like deliberately submitting the child to intrusive medical examinations just to avoid her having contact with her father, making up horrible homophobic accusations against the father, allowing the details of her child's circumstances to be publicised on social media when she knew that there was an order for confidentiality in the child's interests, stopping her child having overnight contact with her father, getting her baptised into a religion not accepted by her father and with names not agreed by him, and much more. The breastfeeding/co-sleeping issue is based in the fact that she was not doing this in her child's interests but solely in order to stop the child being able to build up a relationship with her father. Do you seriously think someone like that actually has the child's best interests at heart?

And she won't be permanently separated, she will have access visits.

And that's pretty much the only post this thread needed Blistory

How much hands on parenting experience of babies does the Judge have? And, if very little, why not?

Her experience of parenting isn't relative. She's a judge, she's highly qualified and trained and relies on independent experts to provide the factual matrix.

She doesn't have to have been murdered to sit on the bench in a murder trial. She doesn't have to have been involved in fraud to hear a fraud case. As long as she's impartial and balanced, her direct experience is irrelevant.

And from evidence on here - there's plenty of different ways of parenting that are all equally balanced.

FWIW she doesn't have children.

As for this case, was it even established properly that there WAS a surrogacy arrangement?

Is not a surrogacy case!!! The surrogacy was discussed as the mother claimed he got her pregnant, with the view that she would keep the child with limited input from them. They had emails that said otherwise, which reenforced the fact that she had lied and deceived. It was a custody case between 2 biological parents.

The judge said she believed the father....but the she wasn't there to rule on the surrogacy. She was there to decide on the best interests of the child.

How much hands on parenting experience of babies does the Judge have? And, if very little, why not?

Whats that got to do with anything? Having a child does not make you anymore likely to make a good decision. Read bilstory post, it explains it very well.

Buxhoeveden, have you read either the judgment or the thread? It was fully accepted that there wasn't a surrogacy arrangement in law. This judgment is therefore not based on that, but solely on the welfare of the child.

Are you seriously saying that all babies need mothers even if those mothers are abusive and put their own interests before those of their children's?