So long story as short as possible, the baby’s dad and I dated for about 4 months, I broke up with him, and a week later found out that my birth control failed and we had gotten pregnant.

We tried to work things out but he was horrible to me, disrespectful, manipulative, and had his priorities completely messed up (not paying rent, phone bill, etc. but drinking often and not seeking work) we have had a few unpleasant exchanges throughout the pregnancy when I’ve stood my ground on him getting his crap together, he now has a new girlfriend, I have no idea what the state of his work or alcohol issue is, etc. at this point since it’s been months but after thinking heavily about all of it, all of his issues are hard to prove in court since he doesn’t have a legit record and his mom and sisters are willing to bend the truth in order to see their nephew/grandson even though they’ve been in agreement with me about his issues.

So it boiled down to praying, consulting a few trusted/level headed mentors, and trusting God a hell of a lot and extending an olive branch to be a step ahead of any court exchanges by meeting with him before the baby is born and getting a parenting plan together for the first 3-6 months. Given that if he even gave an inkling of effort in court he would have visitation of some sort, I feel that this would be a good way to essentially check in with how he’s doing prioritizing, establish a positive foundation to go off of, and give me a bit more hands on approach to how we both navigate this vs court just demanding.

We will be meeting with my church’s pastor/counselor to get it all sorted out. I’ve been researching parenting plans but wanted to hear from people who have been through it what they feel was most important to address or they wish they would’ve addressed?