On January 29, 2024, Johnson County removed my five children. No hearing. No warning. This is what I did next.

On January 29, 2024, my five children were taken from me under an emergency ex parte order in Johnson County, Kansas. There was no hearing. There was no warning. I was not questioned. Within hours, the custody I had held for years was gone — based on allegations that the Kansas Department for Children and Families would go on to never substantiate.

That was the moment. Not because it was the first time the family court system had failed my family — my original divorce and custody litigation began in Missouri more than a decade earlier, between 2013 and 2016. What happened on January 29 was something new. It was the day I understood that even when allegations collapse, the system does not self-correct.

A single judge’s signature was all it took.

What a Kansas ex parte order actually means in practice is this: a judge can sign an order, Johnson County can enforce it, and five children can be gone before any evidence is tested. No evidentiary hearing followed mine. DCF — the Kansas Department for Children and Families — did not substantiate the allegations. And yet access to my children remained blocked. I was still denied contact. I was still denied due process.

If the allegations had been true, there would have been a hearing to prove them. There wasn’t one. If DCF had found anything to substantiate, they would have said so. They didn’t. My five children — referenced in court filings as M.R.M., C.B.M., T.B.M., J.N.M., and J.A.M. — stayed separated from me anyway.

This is a court case with names. I am going to use them.

What follows is what I have alleged, filed, and sworn to in federal court. I am not asking anyone to take my word for it. I am asking them to read the pleadings.

The judge: Keven O’Grady. The Guardian ad Litem: Randy McCalla. The court-appointed therapist and evaluator: Julia Battle. The opposing party is my ex-husband, Craig R. Miller; his current spouse, Shelly Miller; and their attorney, Katie McClaflin. DCF personnel involved: Michelle Merritt.

What I allege in federal pleadings is not that my children’s removal was a rare procedural anomaly. What I allege is a coordinated failure. Craig Miller receives approximately $19,000 per month in disability income. I have faced ongoing financial barriers that limited my access both to my children and to the court process itself. I allege that Craig Miller, in coordination with Shelly Miller and certain court-involved professionals, influenced or coached narratives that were later relied upon in proceedings. I allege that Julia Battle and Randy McCalla advanced those narratives despite the lack of DCF substantiation and despite contrary evidence I had placed in the record.

I further allege that Shelly Miller played an active role in assuming control over the children and in facilitating their separation from me — consistent with a pattern I have documented over time. I possess approximately forty-five minutes of police body camera footage which, I contend, supports my account of events involving Shelly Miller. DCF’s non-substantiation is on the record. My unanswered motions are on the record. The disparity in financial capacity between the parties is on the record.

Every sentence in the paragraph above is a claim made by me in court filings. None of it has been adjudicated. You are welcome to read the pleadings yourself.

When the state court won’t give you a hearing, the federal court is the only venue left.

I filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas. The claims are specific, and every one of them has a statute attached.

In parallel, I pursued state-court action in both Kansas and Missouri — motions to vacate void orders, motions to compel rulings, actions to reinstate custody. I raised judicial conduct concerns through the appropriate channels. None of this is closed. All of it is documented in the public record.

What started as one mother’s record became the country’s record.

By the late summer of 2024, I had a choice. Keep telling my own story in isolation, or build the infrastructure to collect everyone else’s. We chose infrastructure.

In April 2024, Stand With Meg started as my case. By the end of 2024, StandWithMeg.com was live, the Family Rights Survey was open, and other mothers, fathers, and grandparents had begun adding their cases to a shared record. As of today, the Family Rights Registry holds 2,449 verified submissions across all 50 U.S. states — now growing globally, $497 million in documented family loss, and more than 4,655 combined years of lost parenting time.

If you read nothing else on this page, read these five.

1. 01Children can be removed without a trial.A single judge's signature on an ex parte order is all it takes. Parents may never get an evidentiary hearing.
2. 02Even when allegations are unsubstantiated, the system does not automatically correct itself.DCF cleared me. The court did not act on that.
3. 03Access to your children can become conditional on money.Supervision fees. Guardian ad Litem fees. Therapy fees. This is what I call pay‑to‑parent.
4. 04Procedural barriers are used to delay or deny justice.Hearings blocked. Motions ignored. Requirements designed to be impossible to meet.
5. 05This is not rare. It is systemic.2,449 families are on record saying the same thing — across all 50 states, and now growing globally.

Your case is not rare. The court wants you to believe that. The registry proves otherwise.

If you have been through it — or are in the middle of it — your record belongs here. There are four things I am asking of you, in order.

One: submit your story to the Family Rights Survey. It takes under fifteen minutes. You choose what is public, what is admin-only, and what is anonymous. You remain the author.

Two: share this page. Tag your legislators. Tag reporters. Tag other parents. The pattern only becomes undeniable when enough people are willing to point at it.

Three: support the mission. Donations — even small ones — fund the registry infrastructure, state reports, and legislative work.

Four: contact your representatives. Use your state report when you do. The numbers give weight to what you already know.

My case is only how we got here.
The record is what comes next.