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A 26-year-old Oklahoma student who did not  know his girlfriend had adopted out his son has successfully won full-time  custody of his child. Jeremiah Sampson, of Coweta, has officially  been a full-time single dad since Christmas last year.

However his battle to win back his son,  three-year-old Hilkya, has taken three years and cost him almost everything he has. In 2008, Sampson was recruited to play  running back and receiver for Pittsburg State, a small public university in  southeast Kansas, where he met his girlfriend, Tulsa World reported.

In December 2009, after not seeing him for a  few weeks, the girlfriend came to his house with an opened box of pregnancy  tests and disappeared into the bathroom to take one, Sampson said.

When she came out, she showed him the  positive result.  Sampson said they needed to go to a doctor  but she refused, causing him to doubt her pregnancy. ‘I really thought it was trickery,’ he said.

‘I thought it was all mind games.  The relationship ended and he heard nothing  else about the pregnancy, Sampson said, until March 2010.  His cellphone rang as he was walking out of  class.

A woman identified herself as a  representative of an adoption agency.  ‘You’ve been alleged as a potential father,’  she told him.  Sampson asked for a paternity  test.

In September 2010, Sampson was awaiting the  birth of his child, and a few nights before the due date he stayed up all night  texting his ex-girlfriend. She was complaining about  contractions.

At daybreak he drove two hours to Joplin,  Missouri, to be with her, but when he got there she wasn’t answering her  phone.  The hospital had no information. He drove to her house and her grandmother  slammed the door in his face.

Stunned, he sat in his car across the  street.  ‘Sir,’ a neighbor knocked on his window, ‘is  there anything I can do for you?’

Sampson drove five hours to Rolla, Mo., once  or twice a week for more than six months to challenge the adoption in  court.  His son now lived in Florida, but under  orders from the judge, the adoptive parents brought the baby to Rolla when he  was 6 months old.

Sampson caught his first glimpse of him in  the courthouse lobby, but the other parents quickly threw a towel over the  baby’s head.  ‘I saw how they looked at me – like I was the  devil,’ Sampson said.

‘How can anybody hate me that much? I’m the  father. ‘People complain about men who don’t take  responsibility for their children.  ‘Well, here I am, wanting to be a father to  my son.

The judge nullified the adoption in July 2011  and temporarily put the baby in state custody while giving Sampson visitation  rights.  Hilkyah, pronounced Hill-Kye-Yah, warmed up  immediately to Sampson’s attorney.

But light-skinned with streaks of blonde in  his hair, Hilkyah wouldn’t come to his father, who’s dark-skinned with  shoulder-length dreadlocks.

‘They say babies are color blind or don’t  notice any of that,’ Sampson said.  ‘But I tell you, they do. They  notice. It didn’t take long to bond,  however.  ‘He has a lot of energy and reminds me a lot  of myself,’ Sampson said.

He shared custody 50-50 with the birth mother  until the day after Christmas last year, when a Missouri judge granted Sampson  full custody with visitation from the mother.

Sampson dropped out of college to pay for the  three-year court battle.

His case resembles last year’s monumental  ‘Baby Veronica’ custody battle, pitting a biological father in Oklahoma against  adoptive parents out of state.

Veronica went to South Carolina for the first  two years of her life before her father, Dusten Brown, won custody in 2011 and  brought her back to Nowata, an hour north of Tulsa.

Then Veronica’s adoptive parents appealed all  the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and, after a four-month standoff in various  courtrooms across Oklahoma, took Veronica home to Charleston last  September.

Sampson is now suing the adoption agency for  allegedly violating his parental rights by going ahead with the placement even  after he objected.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

 

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