19. Rush

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to pursue a restraining order against Keller. That felt so harsh and so final. What if he got help? What if he changed? What if I wanted him to be in our lives at some point in the future? If I pursued a restraining order, I knew there would never be a chance for Keller to be in our lives again. He would never forgive me for keeping him out of our lives like that. I didn’t want to rush into something that had major consequences. 

A restraining order meant I was afraid of him. Was I afraid of him? I didn’t think I was. I knew most of what he was saying was just threats and talk. But what if it wasn’t just talk? What if he actually did what he was threatening to do? What if he actually didn’t bring the baby back to me? What if he showed up at my apartment when he wasn’t invited? What if he drove drunk while the baby was in the car? What if he tried to hurt the baby to get back at me? What if he tried to hurt himself while he had the baby? I really didn’t want to think about those things. However, I had to consider the possibility of those “what ifs” actually occurring. 

I wanted more time to figure things out. However, my friends and family kept pushing me to file a restraining order against Keller. It was spring 2019 and my due date was quickly approaching. I felt like I needed to get things figured out before the baby arrived. There would be consequences to every decision I made and I wanted to make the right decisions. 

Maybe they were right to rush me? These questions couldn’t wait. They had to be answered immediately. I couldn’t go back and undo anything once it was done and making the wrong decision could really blow up in my face. 

I talked to 3 different lawyers about the harassment I was experiencing over the course of my pregnancy. Each lawyer told me they couldn’t help me until after the baby was born. I called all of the DC domestic violence shelters and was told there was nothing they could do to help me. A lady who answered the phone at one of the domestic violence shelters actually told me to “call back when he hits (me).” I left messages for the Domestic Violence Unit at the police department and never received a call back. 

It was extremely discouraging to hear there was nothing I could do to stop the harassment from Keller. Clearly what was happening to me wasn’t a big deal to anyone who could actually do anything about it. It wasn’t important enough or dangerous enough for anyone to take it seriously. 

I looked into filing a restraining order without a lawyer. I found the paperwork online and began filling it out. I got to the part of the paperwork where I had to describe the physical incident that occured. “Physical” – but what was happening to me wasn’t physical. For some reason writing something like, “He constantly contacts me via phone calls, text messages, and emails even though I’ve asked him to stop” didn’t seem strong enough. There was no way a judge would look at that and grant me a restraining order against Keller. I just sounded like I was whining. I stopped filling out the restraining order paperwork. What was the point? If I filed a restraining order against Keller and it wasn’t granted that would just make things worse. 

Since I couldn’t get any legal advice on what I should do, I talked to people who had been in my shoes. A woman named Jenny shared her story with me. She gave me advice on what I should do about the birth certificate and about letting Keller know the baby was born. It was so encouraging to talk to someone who had gone through something similar to what I was going through. 

I decided not to pursue the restraining order at least until after the baby was born. I simply wasn’t ready to. A restraining order is a very serious thing and I wanted to be sure I wanted to go that route. I didn’t want to feel rushed into it. 

Fast forward a few months – Gideon was 2 weeks old when I went with my parents to speak to a lawyer about a restraining order against Keller. Having Gideon in my arms changed everything – I had to protect him. I sent Keller a picture of Gideon when he was a few days old. I sent him the picture with no identifiable background. When Keller saw the picture, he accused me of not sending him a current photo. He told me that the photo I had just sent him was taken a few days earlier. It was true, I intentionally sent him a picture that didn’t have anything identifiable in the background and that picture happened to have been taken a few days prior. I have no idea how he would have known that information because there was no date included on the photo. That scared me. It certainly seemed like Keller wasn’t interested in seeing the baby but instead was trying to find out where we were. For the first time I was actually afraid of Keller. 

My therapist, Lauren, recommended a lawyer. I then had a couple close family friends also recommend that lawyer. My parents were in a Bible study with another woman who worked for that same lawyer. It was set. I made an appointment to meet with that lawyer. 

I was so nervous to speak to the lawyer. I still wasn’t sure I was ready to pursue a restraining order, but at least now that Gideon was born I could talk to the lawyer about all of my options. I told the lawyer what was happening – about all the emails and other unwanted contact from Keller. He told me that while what I was describing was bad, I would most likely not be granted a restraining order unless I was represented by a lawyer. Harassment cases were really difficult to prove and there was very specific evidence that would have to be presented. 

By this time I had changed by phone number, but Keller still had my email address. I never blocked his emails. I wanted there to be some way for him to contact me. I didn’t want to be accused of cutting off all contact from the father of my child. The lawyer told me it was a good thing that I never blocked Keller’s emails. Those emails would be how we would get the evidence we needed to go to court. 

The lawyer said he was giving me the advice he would give his daughter if she were in my situation. That made me feel better. But that feeling quickly went away. My dad told the lawyer he wanted to know what could be done to protect me. The lawyer told my dad that he completely understood his feelings as a father wanting to protect his daughter.  However, he said as a lawyer he wanted things to get worse between me and Keller. He said, “If things escalate that will be better for our case.” 

The law clerks said I could email them all of the evidence I had. Yeah . . . that wasn’t going to work. There were thousands of documents that I needed to send them. It would cost me thousands and thousands of dollars to have the law clerks look through all of those documents to find the evidence they needed. There was no way I could afford that. I decided to put everything together for them in a way that was understandable. Plus, I knew what was in most of those emails so I could find it a lot faster than they could. 

I started going through all of the emails Keller sent me. It was so difficult reading and rereading each email. It was going to take me forever to get through them all. My mom offered to help me go through the emails. I was hesitant to let her or anyone help. These emails were a direct look into my relationship with Keller. Everything was in there – the good, bad, and the ugly words would be on display for everyone to see. Some of those emails were love letters. Some of them described horrible things. I didn’t want that stuff to get out. I still wanted to protect Keller even though I knew I needed protection from him. Finally, I agreed to let my family help me with the emails on the condition that no one talk to anyone else about what they saw in them. 

For the next month my family and I printed out every email Keller had ever sent to me. I had to go through and forward all of the emails that Keller sent to my work email to my personal email so I could print them out. We organized each email by date and time sent. It was thousands of pieces of paper and a bunch of computer ink. After the emails were printed, we went through and highlighted pieces of information we thought would be of note. We highlighted each threat in one color and each suicide attempt in another color. We then logged all of the information on a master spreadsheet. We made a binder for each month so all of the emails could stay organized. In total, we had 15 binders containing over 2,500 emails and over 190 voicemails that Keller had sent me. It took 5 of us over 100 hours to get everything organized so that the evidence could be turned over to the lawyer. 

Once everything was logged and I could actually see what Keller had been sending me I was sick. My family knew it was bad, but they didn’t realize it was that bad. The law clerks said they had never seen such a large volume of evidence for a harassment case. However, I still was convinced it wouldn’t be enough. Even with everything organized and logged, it didn’t seem like enough evidence to get a restraining order. To me, I still sounded like I was whining and complaining about a few emails and phone calls. The discouragement I had felt before crept back in. Maybe I really would have to wait for things to escalate and get worse. 

Love, 

Redeemed Mama

*If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline for help. If there is immediate danger, call 911.