Woman Co-Parent Wins Custody Fight
A judge on Friday gave custody of an orphaned toddler to his mother’s longtime female companion, rather than the boy’s blood relatives.
“I have been co-parenting Collin,” Susan Bellemare, 33, told a Vermont probate judge as she fought to win custody of the 15-month-old. “I would parent the child; I would love him, nurture him.”
Bellemare was named guardian of Collin Hamilton in the will of Susan Hamilton, who died in a car accident in May. Hamilton’s parents are challenging the will, contending that they or Hamilton’s sister, Kathleen, would be a better guardian.
No one involved in the case would characterize the relationship of the two women, who owned a home together and reportedly exchanged wedding rings. They were companions for a dozen years and lived together while rearing the baby, who was conceived by artificial insemination.
“We’re not trying to cast aspersions on anybody,” said Patrick Monaghan Jr., the lawyer for the grandparents, Philip and Elsa Hamilton of Montvale, N.J.
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