First, I just wanted to thank all of you for writing. I've been lurking for a while, reading what many of you have written. I decided to make my first post, b/c I saw "that will never happen" in several other posts, and it really made me sit up and pay attention.

My fiance has a 14 yr old who currently lives with her mother (and I'm going to try REALLY hard not to make this a bitchfest about her). In the last 7 months, his daughter (SD for the sake of the story) has voiced more and more of an opinion that she would like to come and live with us. BF and BM were never married, and split over 12 yrs ago. Since then, BM has been married 2x. In this most recent marriage (3 yrs) she had one child, and is now pregnant with another. She some sort of nursing credentials, but chooses not to work, although up until she got pregnant she was bagging groceries for 10 hours a week to have some sort of health insurance. They live in a small, 2 bedroom house where SD has a mattress on the floor for a bed (we just found this out last weekend) and her husband just started his own business, and they have little/no income, except of course BFs monthly child support, which is basically supporting this family.

About 4 months ago, after dropping off SD from her weekend visit, BF gets a phone call from BM stating that she can't deal with SD anymore, especially now that BM is pregnant, and says, starting this summer, SD has to come and live with us.

Since I met BF, his dream has always been to have his daughter live with him, but he was cautious at this point, trying to be sure this was not resulting from a fight or an argument, or was in fact what both of them wanted. BM insisted it was, and so he said he was open to it, but that she would need to call the caseworker and see what needed to be done to officially change custody and recind the child support.

I guess maybe she didn't think about that last piece, b/c a few weeks went by, and when he addressed it to her again, she said she changed her mind and it wasn't going to happen.

Since that time, BF has discussed this topic many many times with SD to be sure this IS really what she wants. She has said over and over that it is, and has told her grandfather (mother's father) she intends on moving in with her dad. The last time this all hit the fan, less than a month ago, and after repeated reassurances from SD, BF told BM he wanted custody, and she said "That will never happen."

I've been doing research about this, (that's how I am, I like to know as much as I can before going forward) and it looks like the next steps, since she's not going to let SD come and live with us willingly, is to file for a temporary removal of custody, and at the same time, file for a removal of guardianship, pay those two fees plus the sheriff's fee, and then she gets served with papers. Apparently she then gets appointed a lawyer (for free) and SD gets appointed a lawyer (for free) but we're on our own.

I guess my question is, what are our chances? At 14, does what SD want count enough? Financially we are in a much better situation to take care of her than her mother is; we both come from an educated background and we are in a better position to support her as she enters high school and college. BM is more interested in starting a new family and basically treats SD as a maid/live in free baby sitter, Can she use pregnancy as an excuse to not show up in court and drag this out indefinitely?

I worry so much about this, and unlike so many here, I LOVE my SD, she's an amazing kid, who clearly responds to the attention and interest her father and I take in her and her life. For the past two years, we've been the ones going to her sports events, her 8th grade graduation, reading her papers for school, driving her to dances, taking her to interesting places and basically making sure that SHE comes first, no matter what. As she enters high school, I KNOW how critical of a time this is for her, how she NEEDS to do well to be able to succeed in college, and in life. I also appreciate how difficult it is, and how dangerous it can be for a young girl to not have caring and supportive and ATTENTIVE parents. Her father and I are more than willing and able to give her this, and it's what SD wants, but the question is, will the court see it that way?

Thank you for reading and for any responses, they're greatly appreciated.