I'm 29 years old, I'm a registered child minder with my own business and two children aged just 2 and 4. For most of my working life I have been in Child care and took a degree at University to forge my path and a career as a self employed child minder.
My business was up and running and having dealt with a drunken and violent ex, I started out on my own - my business started to boom. Because i lived so close to a school it was ideal and my customers became extremely close friends and my places ran at full capacity with a long waiting list of mums and dads who wanted my services for their children. Life couldn't be better, happy and independent.
My ex continued to be a drunken clown when he collected our girls and i did start to worry about his attitude and behavior, especially as a new boyfriend came along.
As my ex's behavior got worse I started to enforce some rules around contact and eventually after he continued to break them I refused all contact at all. Life seemed to run along quite smoothly and whilst I had tried to make contact work it was now down to Dad to get his act together.
My 4 year old took to my new boyfriend from the start like a house on fire they clicked and my now 2 year old would climb all over jim and give him a sloppy kiss. lol
As I had pre-arranged a holiday with my Mum, me and the girls and my mum spent two weeks in Spain and came back having had a great time and really spent some quality time with the girls. However my youngest seemed to now reject my boyfriend and this was worrying. Its as if she wanted Mum full time and no one else, even rejecting my brother and being strange with my dad too.
Her sleep patterns changed too and she began getting up in the middle of the night and literally scaling her cot and getting out of bed. She has her own room and as you'd expect full of teddies and toys, but literally at 2am or 4am would be up, out of her cot and in the morning I would find her asleep on the floor or under her cot. To start with it appeared funny but the more she climbed the more she bumped her head and fell out etc etc.......she's a really really clumsy baby - but this started to worry me.
I took the side of the cot off and replaced it with a bumper bar, but she continued to get out of bed and one morning we found her downstairs in the front room having scaled a baby gate to get out.....There was no stopping my little one.
She had bruises on her head where she continued to bang herself and for some weeks now i had been in touch with my health visitor to try and explain what was happening. My Heath visitor initially passed it all off as funny too....and then when I continued to push - she advised me to visit my GP and ask to see if "sleep clinic" would work?
I made the appointment and took my little one to the doctors. My GP advised me to visit our local hospital to see a pediatrician and I genuinely thought we were on the right tracks now to get this sorted.
However when I got to the hospital I was met by a police officer and social services and my children were removed from my care. My business was shut down and I was unable to be with a person on my own who was younger than 16............. I couldn't believe what had happened ...... my world right there just ended.
My two girls went into voluntary custody of my parents and Social Services informed me that this may take a few weeks until they did some investigations.
A Pediatrician said that the bruises on my little ones head were "un-explained" and I watched in horror as my little girl under went tests, blood and skeletal to see if I had been abusing my little girl.....of course the test came out negative but yet this doctor would not move on her views and social services had to go along with a medical report that proved no conclusions and the police started a full investigation.
What started in November last year continues today - and I can honestly say I am no further forward in understanding when I might get my two little girls back.
I don't know if after interview the police will continue with their investigation, I've submitted the pictures of my little girl half in and half out of her cot and where we have found her in a morning etc and all my telephone records to show I was talking to my health visitor.
Social services seem to be un-willing to offer any dates of what my happen next and in what time frame, and I've got a solicitor who kind of stands on the side lines and chips in when i have an interview or a discussion.
My family are at breaking point. My mum is severely disabled and looking after my girls and my dad is trying to hold down a job too, my boyfriend is pulling his hair out as he wants to get onto the Police and Social services and see why this isnt progressing.
I have been passive - as I'm scared to death of up=setting social services in case they decide to take my kids away from my family and put them into care.
My ex has only recently found out whats happend as I and social services knew that he would become dangerous and now my house and my parents are on the POLICE RED list if anything should kick off with him.
He's threatening to go for custody and has now stopped all my CSA payments.
I can't get benefit and the system which I relied upon is trying to break me and turf me out of my house.
I suffered for years with domestic violence and now this animal wants my kids and social services are telling me I have to give my acceptance to let him see them. Yet he lost his driving lic 4x times, threatend me with a knife and literally kicked my front door in - during a drunken rage before the girls came along.....
If I say no - will social services act against me.
My boyfriend is telling me to fight and appeal all these decisions and get stuck into the system to see whats happening, but I feel utterly broken, alone and extremely scared and ......................lost.
Can anyone offer some practical advice - This is a complete nightmare
My little girl climbed out of her cot and now social services have both my babies in care............. I can't cope