I Came Home From A Hospital Shift To Find My Fiancée And Baby Gone. The Police Called It A “Civil Matter” And Refused To Help. How Do I Find My Daughter?

Lily Remembers

My third visit started like the others. The visitation center smelled like cleaning products and stale coffee. I showed up 15 minutes early with a bag of toys I’d bought specifically for Lily: soft blocks and a stuffed elephant.

The monitor checked me in, same woman as before, clipboard already in hand. She led me to the same sterile room with the same plastic chairs and worn carpet.

Lily was in a playpen near the window. She looked up when I walked in. For a second, she just stared at me. Then something changed in her expression. Not recognition exactly, but maybe familiarity. Like she knew my face even if she couldn’t place it yet.

I sat down on the floor near the playpen and pulled out the stuffed elephant. Made it dance a little. Lily watched, curious. I made a silly face, scrunching my nose and sticking out my tongue. She smiled. Actually smiled at me.

My chest got tight and I had to look away for a second because tears were pushing at the back of my eyes. When I looked back, she was still watching me. I made the face again. She giggled this time. A real baby laugh. I nearly lost it completely.

The monitor wrote something on her clipboard, but for once I didn’t care what she was documenting. Lily smiled at me. That was all that mattered.

I picked her up carefully, waiting to see if she’d cry or pull away. She didn’t. She grabbed my shirt with her little fist and settled against my chest. We sat like that for 10 minutes, maybe more. She played with my fingers and babbled sounds that weren’t quite words yet.

Then she got fussy and reached for the monitor. I handed her over without arguing. The monitor noted in her report that Lily was becoming more comfortable with me, that the attachment was forming.

I left feeling something I hadn’t felt in weeks: hope. Real hope that maybe we could fix this.

Financial Exploitation

Reed called two days later while I was eating lunch in my car between shifts. He’d found something. “Keith’s employment history showed a pattern. He’d been fired from his last job at a tech company. The official reason was performance issues, but Reed had talked to someone who worked there. The real reason was inappropriate behavior toward a female co-worker. Nothing criminal, no charges filed, but enough that the company let him go quietly.”

Reed had also pulled Keith’s financial records. The public ones at least. Credit card debt over $30,000. Multiple cards maxed out. Collection notices on two of them.

But here was the interesting part: Becca had access to money. Her grandmother died 2 years ago and left her about $80,000. Becca had mentioned it once when we were together, said she was saving it for Lily’s college fund.

Reed found bank records showing regular transfers from Becca’s account to Keith’s over the past few months. $500 here, a thousand there. Keith was borrowing from her. Or maybe not borrowing, maybe just taking.

“The pattern suggested Keith’s interest in Becca might not be purely romantic. He’d moved in with a single mother who had access to a decent chunk of money. He had no job now and significant debt. The math wasn’t complicated.”

I thanked Reed and told him to keep digging. This information could show the judge that Keith wasn’t the stable father figure Becca’s lawyer kept claiming he was. He was unemployed, in debt, and potentially using Becca for financial support. That wasn’t a good environment for my daughter.

Jeffrey filed the motion 3 days later. He requested full psychological evaluations for me, Becca, and Keith. The motion argued that Lily’s best interests required understanding everyone’s mental health, motivations, and fitness to parent. Jeffrey explained that psychological evaluations were common in contested custody cases, especially when there were concerns about a parent’s judgment or a third party’s influence.

Becca’s lawyer objected immediately. Filed a response calling the request invasive and unnecessary.

Jeffrey smiled when he showed me the objection. “That’s a good sign. They’re worried about what an evaluation might show. If they had nothing to hide, they’d agree readily to prove Keith is stable. The objection tells me they know something will come out that hurts their case.”

We had a hearing scheduled to argue the motion. The judge listened to both lawyers. Becca’s lawyer claimed the evaluation was just a delay tactic, that I was trying to drag out the case and rack up legal fees to force Becca into settling.

Jeffrey countered with Reed’s findings about Keith’s employment termination and his financial situation. He argued that given Keith’s significant presence in Lily’s life and Becca’s insistence on his parental role, the court needed to understand his psychological fitness and motivations.

The judge granted the motion. Ordered evaluations for all three adults. Becca looked pale when the judge made the ruling. Keith wasn’t in court that day, but I imagined he wouldn’t be happy about having his mental health scrutinized by a professional.

The evaluations were scheduled to start within 2 weeks. We’d each meet with a court-appointed psychologist named Megan Swanson for multiple sessions. Her report would be submitted to the court and would carry significant weight in the final custody determination.