My son is twelve. Its been a journey but finally there may be a light at the end of the tunnel.  You see, I have been supporting my son since he was born but yet have never been able to support him.  Supported in dollars yes, but not in the normal sense of being a father in the same house.  It started with my relatively new girlfriend of two months going cold on me.  One month later she told me she was approximately two months pregnant.

I now assume the coldness was the hormones kicking in from pregnancy.  Shocked is an understatement, but I was keen to fulfill my duties.  You see, I didn’t mind being a father. I thought that the pill would suffice but if the percentages didn’t work then it would be all ok (it was at the time – too good). Little did I know that the pill and antibiotics were not a good mix.  Anyway, after I got the cold shoulder I learnt of my son’s birth. I wasn’t told until after it happened – it did hurt being left out.  New boyfriends were showing her the way.  I guess thats what you get for taking her off of someone else in the first place.

She took a lot of persuading to convince her to put me down as the father for child support duties.  As a consequence, I stupidly assumed that my name would go on the birth certificate.  Ten years later, it turned out in my favour, but later with that. Yes, I did ask if he was mine, pretty much got slapped in the face verbally. Looks, Acting ability, Humour, traits, brains – my sons got it – she aint.

In the mean time I tried to keep in contact with my son.  I wasn’t that good at it, but was good at paying my bills.  Flew over a few times and got to know my son a bit more, he started to realise who i was.

Something happened while I was over here that changed things a lot.  My son’s mum left their house after my son’s sister was one year old.  She left for a few days aparently and the leech pounced.  He used lawyers to gain custody of my son and his (birth) daughter.  My son’s mother was virtually diagnosed with bipolar and it went downhill from there.  She moved 100km away, he decided to use lawyers to pressure her to allow him to move to the other end of NZ.  Caught her on a down day, she signed and it worked, I didn’t have guardianship and was overseas so wasn’t consulted.  He took the house cause he could.

I changed to paying child support to my son’s supposed step father – weird!

It has helped a lot with my son getting to stay at my parents each christmas holidays for a number of years. Now he is really getting to know me and misses me heaps.

I recently talked my son’s mother into allowing me to get added to his birth certificate.  There was no father on there and I got added after 2005 so i assume that I now have guardianship.  Have not rocked the boat yet.  In the mean time, my son’s mother has now had a third child (yes, three children to three fathers).  If you are wondering, she pays (minimal) child support to my sons stepfather for her daughter and my son.

What’s the next move?  You guessed it, my son has requested to stay a whole month this christmas.  It won’t be long before his feet do the talking. This is to my 13 year old stepdaughter’s glee.  She’s got that brother she has always wanted.

I am still a father, just swapped kids.