good evening, all! i am new to this forum, so be nice!

i am 9 months (36 weeks) pregnant, and recently broke up with the baby's father, "jack". in my opinion he is a selfish a$$hole who doesn't think about anyone besides himself, and it took me about two years to figure this out. guess i'm a little slow... ;) anyways, so i have a strong suspicion that since we broke up, he's been hanging out with the wrong crowd. these people drink way too much and do a lot of drugs. of course, I do not want the baby to be around that kind of environment. who knows that kind of people jack will bring to his apartment, if he gets involved with drugs again? we both have smoked pot in the past, but when i found out i was pregnant, i quit immediately, and haven't touched it (or alcohol, or ciggs) since. before we broke up however, he told me over and over that he wants to smoke pot again.

today he "informed" me that he has a lawyer. i am assuming to fight for custody if i go through with not letting him see that baby.

i have all his drug paraphernalia, two police reports against him for domestic violence (another story, i did not press charges, but filed reports, just to document it), his bank account info, ss#, and other things. on the other hand, i got a dui over two years ago, and have filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in the past.

how much power does he really have? how much power do i have? could he use the dui and bankruptcy against me? i am financially stable now, and have completed all my dui classes, and got my license back.

we were never married, so i am not sure what to do. if he stays sober i would love for him to be involved in our baby's life. and i am definitely going to need child support from him regardless.

what do i do? help! :eek:

- d.

OK, can you stop him from any visitation, no,

can you make it supervised visitation, if you prove his drug use,
( OK, you have "his drug paraphernalia, that means you now have that in your possession, and if you got searched, have a hard time proving it was his) Next, if there are police reports, but they did not arrest or he was not convicted, it will only show you may have filed a false report since there was no action, they have some value but not much

And sorry going bankrupt is not an issue. The DUI is the best thing you have going, you will need witnesses to testify to his current drug use, your opinon that he most likely is, is not evidence.

But he will most likely get visitation, you may get supervised but if he does OK for it in a while he can file for unsupervised down the road.

So as soon as the baby is born, you want to fie right away for custody, and for child support. Then your attorney and his attorney fight out the details as to the issues.

Personal opinon from years around the family court

I wish I could tell you it would be differetn and maybe you will get that 1 iin 1000 great judge that does go that extra mile, but most will want firm evidence in court to use to make their rullings

In addition to the previous answer I would not put him on the birth cert. That way he would have to prove paternity and you would have sole custody of the child. That also means that you cannot collect child support from him though. If he were as detrimental to his health and the well being of your unborn child's I would just leave him off the cert.

As for the child support, you'll have to file your own motion for an order from the court for him to pay, preferably with the help of an attorney. If he's planning on petitioning for custody, then based on what you've told us here, it's not likely that he'd get it. If, on the other hand, he just wants visitation, it's highly unlikely that any judge would deny him that. You could have your attorney ask that he receive supervised visitation only, and in light of what you've told us it'd be a good move for you to do that, but don't count on any judge denying him visitation with his own child. And if you keep him from seeing the child if he wants to, that only makes you look like the baddie so I wouldn't advocate that, either.