June 12 – October 26, 2022
On the night of June 11, 2022, as I told in the Prologue, I was alone in my house, texting a friend: “so I’m just by myself until hearing in two weeks unless it’s moved sooner.” It wasn’t moved sooner, and it wasn’t two weeks. This chapter covers the fifty-four days that passed before I saw my sons again, the two-hour supervised visits I was allowed after that, the week the judge who had taken them from me left our case, and how, after those visits ended, I came to see my sons one hour at a time in Lori Long’s office.
Sunday, June 12, 2022: Affidavits
My parents had driven through the night to get back to Florida. At 8:09 that morning my mother wrote:
“Good morning. We are almost to Florida and we drove most of the night. [My Younger Son] has been on my heart very strong and I’m just believing that God is going to intercede for him.”
The house was quiet in a way it had never been. Charlie, the tech expert my lawyer had hired, had put in the security cameras and knew how they worked. I didn’t want the inside ones watching me all day. That morning I asked him: “Can you set the inside cameras to record from 10pm to 6am?” A minute later: “Not a fan of feeling under surveillance lol 😂 ptsd already with it.”
I spent the rest of that Sunday on the phone with my lawyer, filling out affidavits. “On phone with lawyer filling out documents,” I told one person at 6:23 PM. “I cannot talk to you right now I’m filling out affidavits,” I told another. At 6:54 PM my attorney reminded me: “Also on all affidavits make sure you put both case numbers per Attorney Chapman.”
That night I went through my contacts and sent the same message to friend after friend:
“Do you have any record screenshots you can send me of the text messages I sent you of [my husband]’s abuse? I deleted the sent ones since he was stalking my phone”
For years I had deleted what I sent so he wouldn’t find it. Now I needed it back.
At 7:33 PM I wrote one more thing, because the order had said I was a risk to leave: “Also I was in Ohio on Thursday when she ruled signing papers for my jeep.” And then: “I can prove I was local.”
Monday, June 13, 2022: “I want those kids back yesterday”
I woke up early and started texting before 8:30.
“Can we get those kids back within the next few days - I specifically stayed in hotels for almost two months to prevent them from being harmed by him”
At 8:40 AM: “I want those kids back yesterday.” At 8:45 AM: “I’m not allowed to see or talk to my kids.”
People kept asking me what had happened, and I kept trying to explain it in a few lines. At 10:09 AM I wrote to one of them: “it wasn’t custody hearing.” Then: “I have a protection order against him.” “For domestic violence.” “he claimed I was going to abscond with the kids.” “With zero proof.” I told another friend, “I took them on vacation to see my parents,” and “my atty told me to get out of town for my safety.” And: “I lived in hotels for three weeks and staying with a friend in Florida for another three.”
That afternoon, at 4:04 PM, John Chapman filed my counterclaim for divorce. On the line asking who should be the residential parent, it named me, and gave the reason in one plain sentence:
“due to mother being primary residential parent since birth.”
The same day, Judge Steinhauer signed a judgment entry appointing a guardian ad litem for my sons: an attorney named Brendon Kohrs. His rate was $75 an hour. Each of us was ordered to deposit $612 toward his fees by June 30, 2022, or appear on July 5 at 2:00 PM before Magistrate Elisa Hill to explain why not.
The guardian was supposed to be the person who would look at everything with fresh eyes, talk to my sons, talk to me, and tell the court what he saw. I waited for him to call.
Tuesday, June 14, 2022: “When will I be able to”
On June 14, Kimberly Valenti filed a motion asking the court to order a mental health evaluation and drug testing of my husband.
That same day the court granted the motion Sarah Heid had filed on June 9, ordering me to disclose where the children were and return them. I had handed them over three days earlier.
At 9:42 AM I asked my lawyer: “How do I get access to calling my children.” And then: “a judge can’t just alienate a child from his mother he speaks to every day and who was their primary source of comfort.”
At 10:10 AM I wrote something that I’d been thinking about since the handover:
“they never once asked for their dad in a month and a half”
“not a SINGLE TIME”
My cleaning lady came that day, and the two of us started boxing up his things so he could pick them up. At 8:18 PM I wrote: “I want to see and speak to my children.” Then: “When will I be able to.” At 8:35 PM: “When is the GAL showing up or calling?”
June 15 – 21, 2022: Waiting for the guardian
At 5:45 the next morning I wrote: “I haven’t seen them since Saturday.”
At 12:47 PM on June 15 my attorney emailed Mr. Kohrs with my contact information. I asked her the next evening, “When is the GAL supposed to be calling me?” The morning after that: “Still no email or call from the GAL.” On June 21 at 7:26 AM: “Why hasn’t the GAL contacted me yet? Is there a timeframe?”
In between, I tried to keep myself from coming apart. On June 16 I asked my lawyer whether I could leave town for the weekend: “I don’t have my kids it’s driving me nuts.” Late that night I told a friend, “I’m having a rough day not having my kids now for five days.” The same day I texted his mother that her son needed to arrange to pick up his things from my house, including the GPS tracker he’d had on my vehicle.
On June 19, John Chapman filed a motion to withdraw as my counsel.
I gathered whatever I could to show the court who had actually raised my boys. On June 18 I sent my lawyer proof I’d been trying to get my Younger Son into Hudson Montessori. On June 20 I sent her more: I had toured the school in February and put both boys on the waiting list. I gave her the names of people who had seen me drop off and pick up my Younger Son every day, and I told her about his teacher:
“[She] only ever saw me dropping him off and how much he loved me he would hug me three times and kiss me before I left every time and hug me again”
At 7:28 AM that same day I wrote: “Haven’t seen my kids in a week now.” Twenty minutes later I wrote: “I need to find a therapist for my trauma right away.” By evening I’d booked one. “Got therapy scheduled for me with Pam July 7 @ noon.”
I also got out of the house and onto the water.
Wednesday, June 22, 2022: The recorder
On the morning of June 22 I found something I hadn’t seen in a long time. At 7:29 AM I sent my lawyer a photo: “Look what I found.” Then:
“This was the recording device he put in my purse before - I thought I lost it”
It was a small Sony voice recorder, model ICD-PX370. My lawyer wrote back right away: “Do NOT touch it beyond what you have.” Then: “I am glad you have it.”
The same day, Darren DeHaven filed a notice of appearance as my co-counsel. And that afternoon I wrote to a friend: “I got accepted into a trauma therapy study at case western today.”
Thursday, June 23, 2022: “Except for an hour two Saturdays ago”
At 3:04 PM on June 23 I wrote to my lawyer:
“It’s now been almost three weeks since I’ve been with my kids except for an hour two Saturdays ago - the GAL still hasn’t contacted me - is there a timeframe they’re supposed to do that in?”
The hour was the afternoon in Medina, the last time I’d held them.
My calendar for that day just says “Ashlee waterfall.” My friend Ashlee Kay and I went to the falls.
Monday, June 27, 2022: Continued
The initial hearing in the divorce had been set for June 27 at 2:30 PM. That was “the 27th,” the date I’d been holding onto. On June 27, upon a motion from my side, Judge Steinhauer continued it to August 2, 2022. Darren DeHaven approved the entry as my attorney.
The day before, I’d written to my lawyer: “My children ARE my life.” On June 27 I had trauma therapy over Zoom.
Wednesday, June 29, 2022: “Scandalous”
At 2:32 PM on June 29, Sarah Heid filed my husband’s response to our motion for his mental health evaluation and drug testing. She asked the court to strike our motion from the record “for the reason that said Motion contains scandalous material.”
The response said my motion and affidavit contained “incoherent and outrageously slanderous statements.” It said that each time the court had not accepted my “bizarre and alarming statements,” I had “escalated” my allegations, which now “border on the grotesque.” It also asked for attorney fees.
He wasn’t opposed to testing, the response said, “should [the guardian] deem it to be necessary,” as long as both of us were tested and I paid for it, “as the requesting party and primary income-earner.”
The same filing that called my statements grotesque described me, in passing, as the family’s primary income-earner. I had become the one earning because he stopped. On Tuesday, November 26, 2019, I told his mother he had come home “really upset about the whole thing that went on with Paul,” his uncle and a partner in his father’s company, at work that morning. On December 2 he texted me: “Paul changed the locks to the office of Friday.” The way I remember it, he quit that December, and he didn’t go looking for another job. When I wrote to him on March 9, 2021, “Get a job or help me,” he answered: “Get a job so that the state can garnish my wages?” So I worked, and I was still the one caring for our boys full time. Later I came to believe he had been stealing from the company to pay for his drugs and alcohol. In my counterclaim I was the parent who had raised them since birth. In the court’s order, he was the primary caregiver.
The motion they called scandalous rested on things I had lived with. On June 14, the day it was filed, I had been going through his things to box them up so he could pick them up, and I found the bins of kratom. “This is the Kratom,” I texted my lawyer at 11:40 AM. Two days later I sent her a document of everything I had gathered: screenshots of his own messages, and photographs.
Among the screenshots was a long message he had sent me in the middle of the night on July 3, 2021. It ended: “You need to FEEL it in your heart-space that I’m truly sorry and remorseful Careyann.”
July 1 – 11, 2022: One month
“I haven’t spoken to my children or seen them in three weeks,” I wrote on July 1. On July 3: “I don’t have my children and haven’t had any contact with them in almost a month.”
My calendar for the Fourth of July says “Kayak with Ashlee, Lake Erie.” I spent the holiday on the water with my friend.
On July 5 I told my lawyer, “Guardian still hasn’t reached out to me.” The same morning: “I’m going twice a week now to get this trauma release therapy.” That afternoon, in a conversation with a friend, I wrote: “Not being able to talk to or see my kids.”
On July 7, Lisa Dean filed my husband’s reply to my counterclaim. He admitted that we were incompatible, denied the rest of my grounds, and asked that my counterclaim “be dismissed with prejudice.” The same day I had therapy with Pam Syblick at Twinsburg Child Guidance. On July 8 I had a session of narcissistic abuse therapy.
At 7:55 AM on July 11 I wrote:
“Today is one month since I’ve seen or spoken to my sons”
Tuesday, July 12 – Wednesday, July 13, 2022: “Fully cut off”
On July 12 the court issued a judgment entry on my motions. According to my lawyer’s response the next day, it sealed the motion and affidavit we had filed about my husband’s mental health and drug history.
Darren DeHaven filed a response the next afternoon. He argued that my husband’s response had come in after the deadline and should itself have been stricken, and that the court had ruled before my time to reply had run out. He wrote: “This matter has not been set for trial and all evidence has not been taken. No discovery has been exchanged between the parties.” And he put into the court record what my life had been for a month:
“The Court has fully cut off all contact and communication between [Carey Ann] and her children and ordered them to be in the full temporary custody and care of [my husband].”
That same Wednesday, July 13, my sons were sitting in Lori Long’s office. I only saw her notes later. She wrote that they had come in “to work with me on their anger,” that “They are outwardly expressing with each other,” and that both of them were “having a difficult time staying focused … but particularly [my Younger Son].”
Tuesday, July 19 – Friday, July 22, 2022: Show cause
On July 19, Judge Steinhauer signed an order, submitted by Lisa Dean, ordering me to appear on July 22 at 1:00 PM “to show cause as to why she should not be held in contempt of court for failure to comply with the prior Order(s) of this Court.” It warned: “Upon Defendant’s failure to appear, the Court may issue a capias for her arrest.”
The order said it was issued “Upon Motion of Plaintiff.” The only contempt motion his side had on the docket was the one Lisa Dean filed on May 13, 2022, a week before the May 20 hearing. It accused me of violating the court’s March 23, 2022 mutual restraining order. It said that after I was served, I had “changed the residence of the parties’ minor children with the intention of removing the children from the jurisdiction of the Court,” and that I had “refused to disclose the location of the children.” It asked that I be held in contempt and ordered to pay his attorney fees. By July 19 my boys had been in his custody for more than five weeks.
“They’re trying to say I’m in contempt of court so my lawyer filed back,” I told Ashlee on July 21. The hearing was continued that day by Magistrate Elisa Hill. The reason on the docket reads: “PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR CONTEMPT IS BEING INVESTIGATED.”
On July 22 I read the order again and wrote to my lawyer:
“This says she gave me parenting time to see my children for two hours on weekends and two hours during the week”
Two hours, twice a week, supervised. I was told to call Place of Peace about the supervised visits, and I did. On July 24 I explained it to Susan: “[he] has to call to set up for me to see the kids two hrs during the week And two hours on the weekend.” And: “the guardian ad lidem is also taking his time.” On July 26: “Place of peace called me back.”
On July 29 I wrote: “It’s been nearly two months since I’ve seen or spoken to my children.”
Tuesday, August 2, 2022: Court
The initial pretrial was at 9:30 AM on August 2. I was up before five, emailing my lawyer things to print. At 5:54 AM I sent her photos of what I planned to wear: “With or without sweater?” She wrote back: “With.” At 6:42 AM I was standing outside Walgreens waiting for it to open so I could print pictures to bring.
At that pretrial, the guardian ad litem, Brendon Kohrs, set up my visits differently. Instead of a visitation center, the boys would come to me, at our house, with a private supervisor watching. The supervisor was Scott Stutler, a man Mr. Kohrs recommended. In October, under oath, Scott confirmed that Mr. Kohrs had been the one who recommended him for our case, and that every one of the visits he supervised was at my residence.
After court I set up an Our Family Wizard account. At 12:49 PM I wrote to Scott to tell him the account was ready and to ask what came next.
At 4:24 PM I texted my mother:
“I get to have supervised visitation sometime this week for two hours”
To another friend: “So I get to see them sometime this week for two hours supervised visitation.” And: “Guardian is coming Friday.”
Wednesday, August 3, 2022: “Please have the correct change”
At 12:58 PM Scott asked me: “Can you do a visit tomorrow morning?” I said yes. Then I waited. At 6:00 PM I followed up:
“Good evening! I know you’re probably very busy - I don’t mean to bother you - just wanted to follow up to see if you’ve secured a time yet for me and my sons to see each other :) thanks!”
At 6:04 PM: “How about 10:30 am until 12:30 pm.” Four minutes later:
“Please have your fee of $50 per hour for a total of $100 payable at the beginning of the visit. Also please have the correct change. Thanks”
My husband was not happy about where the visits would be. At 3:08 PM that day Scott had asked him: “Would you be able to get the kids to their mom’s house tomorrow morning for a visit?” At 5:04 PM he answered: “Yes I would, however it’s my house as well – actually mortgage is solely in my name, but that’s semantics I guess.”
At 7:14 the next morning he forwarded the thread to Lori Long, the counselor he had taken the boys to after the handover, with his own account of the pretrial:
“the guardian Brendon Kohrs decided to let Careyann get away with not seeing her boys for almost 7 weeks because she didn’t want to lower herself to do supervised visitation at a facility and has requested that I set up supervised visitation at our home with a gentleman named Scott Stutler to supervise.”
For eight weeks I had been told I couldn’t see or talk to my kids, and I had kept texting my lawyer that the guardian hadn’t called me. Now the guardian had decided my boys would see their mother in their own home.
Thursday, August 4, 2022: Fifty-four days
At 6:40 that morning I wrote to Susan:
“I get to see the boys for two hours today supervised in our home at $50/hr. It’s been 54 days”
At 7:25 AM Scott texted: “Good morning this is Scott. I forgot to mention the only method of payment I accept is cash.” I answered: “I have cash thank you.”
At 8:24 AM my mother asked when I’d see the boys. I told her: “Today.” “10:30-12:30.” “I have to pay $50/hr.” “to see my children.”
At 10:30 my sons came back into their own house for two hours.
Near the end of the visit, at 12:26 PM, I texted my lawyer:
“They’re all bruised up and crap”
At 12:30 they left. At 1:10 PM I sent my lawyer two pictures from that morning.
That afternoon I texted his mother and asked her to tell her son to set up the Our Family Wizard account “and schedule the daily zoom calls he’s supposed to schedule for my sons to communicate with their mother please.”
That night Ashlee asked how they were. I wrote:
“They were happy to see me and didn’t want to leave”
Scott said the same thing under oath that October. Asked whether the boys seemed happy to see me, he answered: “Very happy to see her.” Asked about hugs and I-love-yous, he said: “[My Younger Son] told her over and over and over how much he loved her.”
The next morning Scott sent new instructions. “Also, for further visits, please remain inside your home at all times during the exchanges. If we are outside towards the end of a visit, we will need to return inside your home approximately 10 minuets prior to the visit ending to avoid any visual contact between you and [my husband]. I hope this will make your time with your children during visits less stressful.”
Sunday, August 7, 2022: “You’ve got an amazing arm on you”
The second visit was that Sunday evening. My Younger Son, I told my lawyer that night, “hasn’t had a single friend to play with in two months,” so I took him to play with my neighbor’s son.
At one of those first visits my Older Son hit a ball all the way into the woods. I wrote down what was said:
“Me: holy crap! You should be playing baseball - you’ve got an amazing arm on you!”
I asked him if he wanted to play baseball this year. He said no. His dad had put him in soccer. “I like soccer,” he said.
During that visit my Younger Son kept calling me “grandma.” At 8:01 PM I wrote down what he had told me:
“Grandma says this isn’t my home anymore - her house is my home now.”
Tuesday, August 9 – Monday, August 15, 2022: Zooms
On the morning of August 9 I met with Mr. Kohrs at his office, eight weeks after he was appointed. The next day my therapist, Stephanie Young, told me she was willing to speak with him.
The same day, my husband called Lori Long to complain about Sunday’s visit. Her call log for August 9 records what he told her: that we were “Not supposed to be leaving the home to go anywhere. They went some number of houses down and went swimming.” He told her our Older Son was “acting more and more defiant towards me and he’s more anger.” It also records: “His attorney filed for [a motion] to get visits stopped again.”
That afternoon Scott told me he’d been copied on an email from my husband’s attorney “indicating that until the order is filed and provided to all parties they are not willing to schedule any further visits.”
The court filed its order that same day, August 9. As I later quoted it in an affidavit, it required both of us to “submit to a 10-panel fingernail or toenail test to be conducted by Any Lab Test Now within 24 hours of the date of the Order,” and to cooperate with scheduling supervised parenting time and Zoom calls with the boys. It also required all communication between us to go through Our Family Wizard.
At 7:37 the next morning I texted my mother: “Heading to anylabs now lol.” At 10:50 AM on August 10, 2022, Any Lab Test Now in Medina collected my fingernail sample. The laboratory’s final report, dated August 11, 2022, lists all ten drug classes, from amphetamines to cannabinoids. Every one reads “negative.”
On the morning of August 11 my lawyer wrote that, per the order, my husband had until 10:23 that morning “to report to AnyLabTestNow for his drug testing to be performed.” In October I swore in an affidavit that he had not taken the test.
On August 10 I wrote to a friend: “the court gave me one hr zoom call a day starting last week - haven’t had any.” I let my husband know through the Wizard which days I understood to be mine.
The first Zoom call came on August 12. That night I sent my lawyer a picture: “[My Younger Son] drew this.” My lawyer kept me company through the call by text: “YOU are a BEAUTIFUL person, woman, mother.”
On August 13 I told Ashlee: “8pm zoom with the kids.” At 7:32 PM I told my lawyer: “[He] isn’t on zoom.” Charlie later kept a log of the calls that started late or never started. For those first weeks it reads: “8-13/8-14 … late,” and “8-18/8-20 … no show.”
On August 11 my calendar says “Canning with Ashley.”
By August 15 the visits I had been promised had come down to a number I could count on one hand: “court ordered me two hrs twice a week and I got that only twice in two months.” That evening Scott offered me Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning. I said yes to both. “I get my kids Thursday 1-3,” I told Ashlee.
Thursday, August 18, 2022: Hot dogs and s’mores
I planned a cookout. On August 16 I wrote to the mother of my Older Son’s best friend:
“I have my kids this Thursday from 1-3 pm and we were planning on doing a hot dogs and s’mores cookout in my back yard - would [your son] want to come over to play?”
She said yes. “Yay! [My Older Son] will be so happy!” I wrote back.
When they arrived, Scott texted to ask who they were, and reminded me that anyone else attending a visit had to be approved ahead of time. I didn’t see his texts until after the visit. At 3:04 PM I wrote back:
“Apologies I didn’t realize I needed permission to have them have a play date - [my Younger Son] expressed two weeks ago they haven’t seen any of their friends at all so I arranged for [my Older Son] to see his friend”
“Ok thanks for letting me know who this child is,” he answered.
The same day, in the courthouse, a judgment entry was filed in our case: “RECUSAL-TRANSFER TO VISITING JUDGE.”
That night I had a Zoom call with my kids scheduled. At 7:31 PM I asked my lawyer, “You think he will show up to zoom tonight?” Charlie’s log for that date says “no show.”
Saturday, August 20, 2022: “Went very well”
Our next visit was Saturday morning from 8 to 10. At 11:56 AM Scott texted me about the schedule, and then added:
“Also the two visits this week went very well. I know this is very difficult situation for you, you have Handled situations these last two visits appropriately. I appreciate you adjusting. Thank you!!”
I forwarded it to my lawyer. She wrote back: “You were great the first visit.”
That morning my mother had written: “please don’t Forget to tell the boys that I miss them very much.”
Monday, August 22 – Tuesday, August 23, 2022: A new judge
On August 19, a friend texted me: “You get your new judge yet? How are the kids doing? Happy to at least have a little time with their mama?”
On August 22 the clerk sent out notice of a judgment entry:
“ORDER TO TRANSFER OFF THE DOCKET OF JUDGE STEINHAUER DUE TO A PERSONAL CONFLICT”
The docket recorded the change in one line: “THIS CASE WAS TRANSFERRED FROM JUDGE: STEINHAUER, SUSAN TO JUDGE: HOFFMAN, JOHN.”
The next day a certificate of assignment from the Supreme Court of Ohio, signed by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, was filed in our case. “The Honorable John R. Hoffman, Jr., a retired judge of the Stark County Family Court,” was assigned to preside in the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division, “for the period of July 1, 2022 through September 30, 2022 and to conclude any proceedings in which he participated that are pending at the end of that period.”
The judge who had given my sons to their father was off our case. Her order stayed in place. My boys were still living with their father in his mother’s house, and I was still paying to see them, two hours at a time, in my own.
August 22 – October 19, 2022: Fourteen visits
On August 22 Scott texted me: “I have been advised that pursuant to the court’s order your visits can only be at your house.”
After that the visits settled into Thursday afternoons from 3 to 5 and Saturdays. On August 25 Scott told me the cost would now be split: “Today and all future visits each of you will owe $50.00 per visit.” On August 31 he wrote: “Confirming our 3 pm until 5 pm Thursday September 1, 2022.” On September 14 he passed along that my husband wanted to move that Saturday’s visit because of my Younger Son’s first soccer game, and asked: “Would you be willing to reschedule to Saturday at 5:30 pm until 7:30 pm?”
The nightly Zoom calls were hard on them. Both boys had to share one screen. After the call on August 30, I went back through the recording and wrote down what I saw: twenty-two minutes in, my Younger Son was hitting himself, and near the end of the hour one of them asked, “mom are you coming back?” On September 12 I wrote to my lawyer: “[My Younger Son] ended the zoom screaming bloody murder from frustration and banging his head and hitting himself.” The next day Lori Long wrote down what he told her about it: “The other day we had a bad call and I was unhappy and I was crying a lot.”
On Thursday, September 22, I had them until five. The last visit was two days later, on Saturday, September 24, from 8 to 10 in the morning. About half an hour in, my boys started fighting over my Younger Son’s box fort, and he got more upset than he usually did. He started punching himself in the face. I picked him up, held him, and took him upstairs until he calmed down. That night I wrote to my lawyer: “I’m really worried about my kids and their behavioral issues they’ve started getting worse and worse since they were taken from their mother.” And: “if you would have seen how hard [my Younger Son] punched himself with both fists in his face.” When Scott was asked about it later, he called him “a child who is significantly distressed.”
At 10:37 AM on September 28, Scott wrote to me:
“As a result I believe your family would be better served at this time with therapeutic supervised visits, with a mental health professional observing the family dynamics during visits who could then be helpful in determining what is going on and develop an appropriate intervention plan. At this time I am withdrawing my services. I owe you $ 50.00 as you paid ahead.”
The next evening I told a friend: “As of now I’m not sure what’s going on with my kids - the supervisor decided he doesn’t want to continue my visits with my children due to fear of liability.”
School had started on August 24, and my Younger Son was starting kindergarten without me. On September 13 his teacher emailed my husband that he had been going to the bathroom “about 10–12 times a day,” and that when she talked to him about his behavior, “he will just look at me and laugh or smile.” That email didn’t come to me. I only saw it later. The next evening I told my lawyer what I had been able to learn: “[My Younger Son] is having major issues at school.” “Fighting with other kids - kids head butting him.” On September 20 a teacher called Lori Long. Her note says he was “having a lot of behavioral issues,” and that the school counselor believed “they may need to put him back in pre-K because behaviorally he is not able to handle the classroom setting yet.” By September 29 he had been moved down to pre-K. That same day I emailed the principal and asked for all of my sons’ records, “including but not limited to academic, sports, curricular and behavioral.” She answered the next afternoon: “Currently, there are no extra curricular schedules or behavior records on file for either of the boys.”
On October 14 Scott sat for a deposition. He said there had been fourteen visits, all of them two hours long. Asked about my parenting, he said: “Very well, very well done, good, good parenting skills. Child centered, very attentive, child focused, she’s all about the kids.” Asked whether I had been able to soothe my son at that last visit, he said: “Yes.”
On October 5 I texted my lawyer: “Guardian STILL has not called my therapist - please set up visits with my kids with her as soon as possible.” My therapist, Stephanie Young, could supervise on Thursdays at 3. The next day my lawyer explained that the guardian wasn’t opposed to her, but thought Lisa Dean might claim a conflict. The order named Scott Stutler, so any new supervisor needed a new court order, and until then there would be no in-person visits.
On October 17 Lisa Dean filed my husband’s pretrial statement with Judge Hoffman. It told the court that I had “refused to utilize a center for the supervision, and so did not see the children during the months of June or July,” and that my contact with the children “began again in August with Scott Stutler providing the supervision at the home where she is residing, but there have been problems and the supervisor is no longer willing to provide this supervision.” It called the nightly Zoom calls “a source of daily distress for the children” and asked that their “time and frequency” be shortened.
What those months did to me didn’t stay in my mind. From the extreme trauma of being stripped of my children overnight, and of the litigation that kept coming after it, I developed psychogenic seizures. The first one I wrote down came a few months after this, on January 9, 2023: “I’m getting irregular heart palpitations and had a slight seizure episode today.” By that May I was telling a friend: “I started having pseudo seizures when I lost them last June.”
That same day I called Lori Long, the boys’ counselor, to ask when I could start seeing them again. She told me that Wednesday at three. On October 18 I wrote: “Tomorrow at 2:45 I get to see my kids in their therapy session with Lori long!!!!!!”
On Wednesday, October 19, 2022, I sat in Lori Long’s office with my sons from 3:00 to 3:55. I brought snacks and Lego Minecraft sets. Her notes from that afternoon say: “Boys seem happy to see her.” My Younger Son sat on my lap for part of the hour.
It had been twenty-five days since my last visit at home.
A week later, on October 26, I was back in her office. Lori read the boys a book about a little unicorn whose mane changes color with his feelings, and my Younger Son sat on my lap eating his snacks while she read. When the hour was up, there were goodbye hugs, and “I love you” went back and forth until they had to go.