07.13.09 - 11:46 am

The Evaluation.

the david of my memory is older. mid fifties. he has dark black hair with greys around his ears. i think he has the start of a comb over. his eyes are small and dark. he is tall and slender. he has ever so slight gaps between his large teeth. the more i try to remember what he looks like, the more cartoonish or villainous he becomes in description. and ultimately, it doesnt matter. her responses to his questions do.

the evaluator was hired by me, via $500 i paid from my grandmothers inheritance. usually both parties pay $250 and the process moves along. but, fearing sarah would have stalled and never given her share i paid for both of us. at the time i was 8 on a list that takes as long as it takes to get an evaluator. weeks to months. i didnt have any time to waste waiting on sarah to pay before we could get on a queue.

weeks later, i got a letter saying that instead of being number 8, i was now number 10. and that because the evaluation takes three months from start to finish there was a good chance i wouldnt be placed with an evaluator and have their report finished by my october court deadline. thus delaying the process for up to a year, the letter stated. this was very frustrating.

so i was preparing to pull my $500 back out and put it towards my june attorney bill of $1500, when i got another letter explaining i had been placed with an evaluator with an appointment. the ball was rolling.

this first appointment involves sarah and i sitting next to each other. the second appointment is individual. following this is a home visit.

sarah ignored me as i walked directly past her to go repark my car. blatantly. as if i were invisible. i was half surprised she even showed up. of course david saw us each individually first, to make sure there were no safety concerns and then it began.

first with paper work. forms. signatures. consent. none of what we say will be confidential. it all goes down in his report. when he fired off his first question, my heart sped up slightly. from the moment we open our mouths and he writes down our statements, his official report is being created. david is forming professional opinions. his report is weaving. a judge will see what weve said, paired with his professional recommendation and come to a final judgement. there is a sense of gravity to this appointment and the others that will follow.

he gives me two forms. a personal reference form and a professional reference form. they dont hold much weight to his report since so much bias will follow his typed questions. friends, family members, bosses. questions regarding their thoughts and opinions on my ability to parent.

he asked what parenting time schedule we each wanted.

i said during the school year i could do every other weekend, friday to sunday. with a single over night per midweek. this was a concession i was willing to make public, as long as i received a week on/week off summer schedule. and all of the school holiday vacations. this would be a 50/50 schedule at the end of the year.

sarah said she agreed with my school schedule, sans the midweek over night. and during the summer she proposed a two overnight/three overnight alternating monthly schedule.

"so you are not in favor of a 50/50 schedule, sarah?"
"no."

david pointed out that during the school year we were very close on our proposed schedules. and that to go to court over a 24 hour difference would be a waste. but thats what the mediator told us as well. sarah just wont budge on giving me one extra day with ashton.

david asked us about alternating holidays, how had that gone. sarah explained that we usually do just fine figuring it out on our own, and that this christmas ashton actually got to spend it with his father which "was kind of nice...for him". as if i didnt have to get my attorney involved to have ashton christmas eve to christmas morning. something sarah tyrannically has claimed for the previous 5 years in complete disregard of my feelings.

then he asked about our relationship.

"it wasnt a serious relationship."
"we were very young and careless."
"we were together only a few months before i got pregnant."

that was a bizarre punch to the stomach. it wasnt a serious relationship? you wanted to get married. you wanted to move in together. and this was before you got pregnant. i spent a lot of time with your family, at your moms house. at your aunts house. i was pretty actively involved in your siblings lives. i would think my roommates remember you being around quite a bit.

oh, and then you broke up with me so you didnt have to hear me criticizing your methamphetamine use.

he asked me what my thoughts were on her statements. i said we had been together from 2002 to 2006 with frequent separations. she vocally denied such a long relationship.

"i know for a fact we were not together that long. at least, i certainly didnt feel we were together during that time."

so then david asked what were the main problems in our relationship.

her: "our lives were just going in different directions."
me: "i had concerns about having healthy child due to sarahs methamphetamine and cocaine use in addition to her unstable family."

sarah then broke into a tirade about how she was young, and justified her addiction and recreational drug use as a typical thing young people find themselves doing. that she has a mortgage now and a house and a new little baby and that...i dont even remember now where she was going with all that. she also claimed that she stopped doing drugs before she got pregnant and then turning to me, "and for your information i started going to professional drug counseling before i got pregnant."
what i will explain later however, is the tattoo october 13th, 2002 on her arm is not just when she found out she was pregnant. it was the day she spent doing meth so that she could muster the courage to get a pregnancy test and confirm what she already knew. this was five weeks after conception. then she went to NA meetings. then i went to al anon meetings with her mother. i guess i was the only one seriously invested in the relationship.

she was asked if our decision to have a child was mutual. sarah immediately threw out that i was willing to pay for her abortion. that she had to force me to attend appointments. and that i "made it to the birth." as if i was out doing other things and happened to get there just in time.

i explained that i missed maybe one doctors visit (but didnt state aloud only because it was a 15 minute check up that wasnt necessary for me to be present, since id be driving the 90 minutes from corvallis to the hollywood district of portland. and then back before work.) i explained that i attended all the birthing classes. i didnt get to explain to him that i was present the whole time between her given due date, july 13th, and her actual due date, july 17th, which we spent at the park walking and taking pictures.

sarah on my strengths: he plans fun things for ashton like camping and movies. he likes to make fun memories for ashton to have about the fun things ashton did with his dad.
sarahs concerns about me: its tough for jordan to hear ashton speak positively about me. ashton is embarrassed to tell his dad the fun things that he does with me.

jordan on sarahs strengths: sarah provides ashton with clean new clothes, she feeds him well, takes him to do fun things.
jordans concerns about sarah: that sarah has been phasing me out of ashtons life. over emphasizing her family and dusty and de-emphasizing me to a insignificant figure in ashtons life.

this is the second tirade sarah went off on. describing how sarah has a home and a new baby brother thats important to ashton. that ashton has friends and school with her in sherwood and that ashton has two dads. that dusty spends more time with ashton than i do. that ashton has a biological dad and another dad. that jordan is the biological dad.

this is where david stepped in. "ill be honest with you sarah, ashton only has one dad."

and then sarah continued trying to make the distinction of how im just the biological dad and that her family is stable and explained with her rambling exactly the things i had just vocalized as my concerns. i think, i hope, evaluator david picked up on this as obviously as i did.

he wanted an example of why i think im being relegated as an insignificant figure in ashtons life. i explained a perfect example is that when ashton is with me, we make mothers day cards. birthday cards. holiday cards. and i encourage ashton to give these to his mom when hes with me.

i have never received a fathers day card or a birthday card made by ashton when hes been at his moms.

sarah tried to trivialize this point by asking if all she needed to do to co parent was make cards, when david turned the conversation back on her.

"do you see the difference there in your co parenting ability?"

sarahs third ramble was about not lying to ashton. she said she doesnt sugar coat anything for ashton. that she doesnt have any sort of relationship with me, and doesnt want ashton to be aware of any sort of relationship with me. she doesnt want ashton getting any ideas in his head that we have 'that kind of relationship'.

david said, "im going to play devils advocate here and just suggest that i do feel its important for the child to see both parents interacting favorably, even when 'they dont have that kind of relationship'."

"well i just know that i would feel really weird standing over ashtons shoulders supporting him making a fathers day card. we just dont have that relationship"

i clenched an imaginary fist and pulled it towards myself with accomplishment. sarah had just admitted she is not interested in encouraging ashton to maintain a relationship with me while hes with her. this is exactly the shoveling i wanted sarah to do herself.

the last important question asked was how ashton handles the transition between households. i said he was fine and it was typically smooth. i could have elaborated on how sometimes he can be a bit bratty but by the end of my time with him hes just a darling. sarah however said that ashton was a different child each time he arrives from my house. taking from a day to up to three days to readjust back to her household. that hes emotional, bossy, resiliant. that he doesnt want to play by himself, doesnt want to be alone and that he wanders from room to room with a blanket over his head.

i have noticed similar things, but not nearly on such a dramatic scale. i didnt think him not wanting to play by himself was concerning. hes never really wanted to. he likes attention. he likes interaction. what child doesnt?

that was mainly the end of the appointment. after sarah got her next appointment date, she was out the door. i stayed, asked some more follow up questions. and briefly discussed traffic and riding max trains with david.

now i just need to gather some information. text messages. emails. letters. and get them ready for next wednesday. ill also need to get my house in order, because david will be showing up in about a month to go through it. room to room.

more to come.