Can I keep my child from her father till we have a court order?

2011-08-01 22:05:16 UTC

The father of my baby (who is a 31 yrs old major in the air force) left me (I'm a 20 yrs old hostess at a restaurant) upon finding out I was pregnant (I was 6 weeks along). We'd been dating 6 months at this point and he tried to force me into getting an abortion and the more I refused it the more he started insulting me as a person. He insulted my intelligence, my family, my job, my career choice (to be a web designer), and anything else he could come across. He was mean and unresponsive for the first 6 months of my pregnancy, refusing to talk about plans, doctors visits, health history or names. I began dating someone else I was friends with about 2 weeks after the father left me and we are still dating (my daughter is now 2 months old). The father came up to Indiana (where I live) from Florida (where he lives) when she was born and out of no where tried to get back with me despite my current blossoming relationship. Upon my refusal to get back with him, he got nasty again and started saying that I don't care about him and how could I do this to him?

It's been one month since this showdown and he came into town 2 days ago to see her and we had a meeting today to try and agree on child support. He makes $8,000 a month and I work at a restaurant making $600 a month. Everything was going well and he was very pleasant and nice until we had the child support meeting. He got angry that I wanted money for child care so I can go back to school and work more. He insulted me, my family, my income, and then tried to play the drama queen and tell me how selfish I am and that I can't live the life I want to live anymore and I have to make sacrifices for my daughter. After going through all the paperwork and spending 2 hrs going back and forth and bickering, he picked up the papers we were supposed to sign and told me he was going to have his lawyer friend look over them and we left the meeting without coming to an agreement and now we have a court date set.

He was supposed to come by after the meeting but frankly, I don't trust him and I feel like he is extremely unpredictable. We currently don't have any agreements or court orders dictating visitation rights of any sort. I'm really not comfortable with him being here right now or at all until we have court orders. Am I allowed to tell him he can't come to my house or see his daughter until we have the court orders?

A little extra background. :
He lives in Florida above a bar and he parties several nights out of the week. His way of dealing with the idea of having a baby on the way was to completely ignore me and go out and buy a Mercedes convertible and a boat and party his butt off while I actually tried to accept the huge change in my life. He STILL parties every night but he has the audacity to tell me I need to wake up to reality and start making changes in my lifestyle even though I am the one up every night with our daughter and making sure she is healthy and safe.

He hasn't been around our daughter for a month and yet he takes her for an overnight visit (before the meeting) and he haphazardly gave her too many gas drops without asking me. He fed her too much and too often. He pinched her arm in a harness he bought and when I asked him, he lied straight to my face and told me it had to have happened before he picked her up. He admitted it later that day as if he magically figured it out. I told him not to take her outside cause there is a heat index of 103. The baby acne she has now is evidence that he took her outside again. (he's done it before and it resulted in the same symptoms.

Can I keep him from her till I have an order that says he has to bring her back?