I now had a new goal. I would show them that I could take care of myself and my kids. This is when I found out that my ex didn't want the kids to come back under my care, While I was in the hospital, he had moved to a new neighborhood with the kids and by the same token had to change their sitter and their school and he refused to put the kids through all those changes again. So I became a part time parent. I didn't know that I could fight this and didn't get much support from my family because they also thought this was best. I didn't agree. My parents thought they were looking out for me. They thought of me as their little girl and didn't see it like I did, a mother being kept away from her kids.

I went along with this arrangement for 5 years. My ex now used the excuse that I was paralyzed therefore unable to look after the children, He didn't think like that when every second weekend he sent them to my place. Funny how I could look after them on weekends but too handicapped to have custody. I was realizing more and more that I was a good mother and could do this full time no matter what anyone said. I got myself a lawyer and fought for the custody I had before the stroke. My lawyer suggested joint custody. At the time, I thought that was the best solution all around. So thats what we did until the children were old enough to make their own decision. That time came when Marc, my oldest, started high school. He chose to live with his father. I was hurt but never showed him. That was a hard decision for him to make and not fair to make him choose. I assured him that I understood and that my door was always open. I understood that he wanted to live there because they lived near the school and where all his friends were. Marc talked to his aunt, my sister about it. He didn't want me to feel rejected because he chose to live with his dad. It turned out that both our homes had a turn stile on the door. I was getting Dan, my younger son, every second weekend and Marc was very often at my place too. Try to plan and budget when you never know if you are doing it for 1,2 or 3 people. Those were hard days for me but I would not of had it any other way. Those kids were my life. A few years later they each decided, at different times to come live with me. Now that was hard because they had left my place, they were babies and came back as teenagers and I wasn't emotionnaly equipped to deal with that but I did my best. It was rock and roll sometimes but we made it to adulhood and that is a story for another day.