I have said for years you just can't understand until you are a sp, and after seeing this site, it is wonderful, and yet horrible to see so many like myself! Thank you so much for the support. Let's make this short, shall we?

Firstly, my husband and I are religious. That needs to be said as we raise our children to abstain until marriage and behave in a manner that may be different if we had different beliefs. When we first got married, bm had run off and then came back after a few months and stole the kids for a few days. He did nothing b/c he assumed they were hers, what would she possibly do to them? When they started coming over at ages 2, 4, and 6 covered in lice with nothing on but a diaper in freezing cold weather and the first words out of their mouths were, "I don't love you." not even hello, he changed his mind. The 6yr started screaming for the police every time we went near one to take dh away, throwing a fit every time she came over trying to break the windows to get back to her mother. When we called the police, they did nothing. However, it wasn't long after that when DHS called to accuse us of putting marks on the 6 yr old. She's 13 now and still refuses to tell us what happened, we assume bm or bm's boyfriend did it so they could blame us and get child support, but we don't really know.

We skipped town to keep from going to jail as we just found out I was pregnant and the 6 yr old started going into hysterics if I was mentioned, let alone within sight of her. DHS had ruled me out, but his family bought the show hook line and sinker!

Two years later, we get a call from the police, they're going to take the kids from her. There's not electricity, they've missed so many days at school they failed their grades. They find out we live in a different county and refuse us custody. They were about to sign over custody to us until then. We then got 1-2 weeks per year that the bitch would "let" us see the kids. Covered in lice still. We finally saved up and spent thousands suing for custody to be told that we were nothing but a bunch of bickering idiots and we wouldn't either side like it if we showed up in his court again. We assumed that meant the state would take custody. We had pictures, and the 6 yr old was now 10 and willing to testify...sigh

But we did manage to get more that 2 weeks a year so it's every other weekend and vacations and such. We live 2.5 hours away. I spend 10 hours on the road every other weekend to pick up 3 kids that hate the trip as much as I do. My husband is disabled, I have to do every bit of the driving completely myself, the bm doesn't have to do a thing!

So now, I got to where I cared about them. Got to where I was treating more like my own all the time. I have, literally, whipped them into 3 girls that are no longer embarrassing to take out. We have kept our tongue EVERY time against their mother. She has done nothing but bad mouth us and turn them against us. We provide them enjoyment, extra money when they need it, all the food they need. She tells them and everyone else the sob single mom story. After all we have done for them, including remove the lice from the hair EVERY weekend that we have them STILL, the oldest, now 13, says on her myspace page that her mother is her hero. Do I want to be her hero? No. But does THAT need to be? And they know she's a whore and talk about how she has "friends" that are boys and how she lies all the time and used to complain about it all the time so why would she do that? Why would she look up to that?

Here lately, this past year, it's like they don't see her for what she is anymore and we're worried that if that's her hero!!??? Should I be as concerned as I am? Oh, she also said that American Pie was her favorite movie. Not at 13, she has no business seeing that, let alone it being her favorite.

Now their mother has decided she's going to travel all over the place and she never spends time with them as it is, they're always at friends' or relatives' houses while she goes gallivanting around, but she'd shoot them b4 she let us watch them instead of someone else. Probably to tell others how bad scum bf is b/c he "never sees them" or something. So now I'm afraid I just need to close my heart again b/c she's going to take them away. They even told us how she was going to take them to Michigan until she realized they would have to go to school and get found that way.

Any help?