<\/p>\n
I spent a year in court fighting my ex-husband, Jack, for custody of our daughter, Mia. I won, but just barely. Since then, I\u2019ve been working nonstop as a caregiver and living with Mia in my father\u2019s tiny apartment\u2014the only thing Jack didn\u2019t take.<\/p>\n
One weekend, Mia came back from Jack\u2019s house glowing, talking about his new wife, Kira\u2014her gifts, waffles, train tracks, and how she let Mia call her \u201cMommy.\u201d Jack and Kira even invited me to dinner, pretending we could all be one big happy family.<\/p>\n
At dinner, Mia clung to Kira, and then they dropped the bomb\u2014they wanted Mia to live with them \u201cfor her own good,\u201d even planning the seaside trip Mia always dreamed of. I agreed just to avoid being the \u201cbad mother,\u201d though it broke me inside.<\/p>\n
Then everything collapsed. I was framed for theft by Kira\u2019s mother and fired. Days later, I received court papers\u2014Jack was trying to strip me of my parental rights. I mortgaged my father\u2019s apartment to fight back.<\/p>\n
In court, the judge asked Mia who she wanted to live with. She stood up and said, \u201cI have two moms. But Mommy Lora loves me just because. Mommy Kira loves me because Daddy pays her. I want to stay where love is real.\u201d<\/p>\n
The courtroom went silent. We won.<\/p>\n
Afterward, Mia and I went home, set up a tiny inflatable pool in the yard, and I told her, \u201cHere\u2019s our ocean.\u201d For the first time in ages, everything felt calm.<\/p>\n
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I spent a year in court fighting my ex-husband, Jack, for custody of our daughter, Mia. I won, but just barely. Since then, I\u2019ve been working nonstop as a caregiver and living with Mia in my father\u2019s tiny apartment\u2014the only thing Jack didn\u2019t take. One weekend, Mia came back from Jack\u2019s house glowing, talking …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9236,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9234\/revisions\/9236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifevibesever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}