BETRAYED BY A FRIENDSHIP
When a former girlfriend offered to help look after her son, Circe Hamilton was grateful — until her ex tried to grab custody of the child. What followed is every single parent’s nightmare
Manhattan photographer Circe Hamilton, 45, was in a relationship with 53-year-old businesswoman Kelly Gunn for six years. In 2011, more than a year after they broke up, Hamilton adopted a son, Abush, from Ethiopia. The women remained casual friends, and Gunn was part of a large support network that helped care for the boy. But last year, after Hamilton decided to move back to her native England, she got a shock: Gunn was suing for custody of Abush. For the last nine months, Hamilton has battled a court case that has drained her finances and threatened to give her son to a woman who isn’t his parent. Here, she tells The Post’s JANE RIDLEY her story, which has alarming consequences for parents across the state. It all began Sept. 1, 2016, two days before Hamilton and Abush were due to move, when she received a phone call that rocked her world.
I’M busy packing when my cellphone rings. “I’m representing Kelly Gunn as her lawyer . . . and you need to be in Supreme Court in an hour and a half.” Just like that, I find out that my ex-girlfriend — whom I haven’t been with in seven years and who is neither a biological nor legal parent to my son — is suing me for custody of the little boy whom I adopted from Ethiopia and love with all my heart. Ninety minutes later, I walk into what feels like a courtroom ambush. I listen to Kelly’s legal team say things about my child which aren’t true: that Abush has special needs, that he’s 40 percent deaf, that I’m an unfit mother because I’m on Medicaid. The judge orders me to hand over Abush’s passport. A temporary ruling bans us from leaving the United States, or even New York state. Kelly — his godmother — is soon allowed time with my child twice a week. I’m totally blindsided. It feels unreal, like I am in a TV drama. So much so that when I find Kelly weeping outside the courtroom after the hearing, my instinct is to hug my old friend. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. My reaction may seem confusing, but if you know the full story of our relationship, hopefully it will make sense.
IT was Valentine’s Day 2004 when I met Kelly at a party. I was 31 and she was 39. I’m a mild-mannered Brit, and she was a smart, savvy New Yorker with a good sense of humor. Opposites attract, and she seemed fresh and new.
After a year of dating, I moved into her apartment in the West Village. Life was good. I was helping Kelly with her career, working part-time for her company, which supplies signs to clients including Apple. I also had my photography career, shooting for magazines such as GQ and Elle.
For a long time, I’d dreamt of being a mother. In 2007, when we bought both an apartment on Sullivan Street and a home on Fire Island, I had this feeling it was time to make my dream come true. Kelly had given up the hope of having children in her life. But it was very important to me. As a gay woman, you don’t accidentally get pregnant, and the IVF route is incredibly complex. Most importantly, there are too many children without a home. So we started talking about adoption.
The adoption agency thought my best bet was to apply for a child in Ethiopia — as a single mother. Same-sex couples are unable to adopt in Ethiopia, and Kelly accepted that she had to be listed as my roommate on the application.
Throughout 2009, she was increasingly busy traveling for work. We barely saw each other. I knew the pressure she was under, but I was still shocked when she made flippant remarks about not wanting to be a parent. She said things like, “What if the child has medical issues?” and “Do I really want to give up my lifestyle?”
Then, on Dec. 8, 2009, I was in England when I received an e-mail from Kelly. “We have become a family over the last six years. I am not unraveling that here. I would be doing both of us a disservice and a kid, if I didn’t express my hesitation [on adoption]. I knew it would make you sad, but it’s important to be clear in matters this serious.”
Four days later, when we were at home together, she told me, “I don’t want to adopt. I just can’t be a parent at this time.” Then she dropped another bombshell: “I’m back together with my ex-partner.”
I spent the night in the guest room, sobbing. My world was crumbling. But the one thing that was not shaken was my determination to be a mother. Still, I wondered: “How am I going to do this alone?”
OVER the next year and a half, I continued working for Kelly — though we communicated mostly by e-mail and were officially broken up. We legally removed my name from the deeds of our homes, and Kelly paid me $350,000 in line with an agreement we’d put into place in case we broke up.
By February of 2011, I was happily settled into a West Village apartment that I had purchased the previous December. My photography business was doing well and I was casually dating somebody. I was thrilled when I got the call from my adoption case worker to say I’d been matched with a 15-month-old Ethiopian boy abandoned at an orphanage.
I’d been waiting 2 ¹/2 years for this moment, and now I had no doubts I could do this on my own. When I was e-mailed a picture of Abush, he looked so vulnerable. I immediately fell in love. I shared the photo with my family and friends, including Kelly.
“I’m doing my best to temper my own emotional reaction to this and want you to know I am so proud of you for following your dream,” she e-mailed me. “You made this happen! I saw his face, and a wave of grief rolled over me. He was supposed to be our son. I’m not sure I will ever get over my regret and sorrow over that. But I will be very, very happy for you and for him, and hope to find a way to be in your lives.” It was a compassionate e-mail, which I welcomed.
Two months later, I flew to Ethiopia. Seeing Abush the first time, he was malnourished and scared. I needed to not overwhelm him, yet all I wanted to do was hug him. I played with him and took notes: how his motor skills were compared to the other babies, what size clothing he’d need. It was heartbreaking to leave him after 10 days because I already felt he was my son.
After I got the news that my son would be coming home at the end of August, Kelly hosted an informal baby shower. My friends from her company brought beautiful gifts, like a little backpack for Abush and blue and white onesies. I felt surrounded by so much love.
I returned to Ethiopia for 10 days to pick up Abush. While there, I e-mailed updates to between 80 and 100 friends and relatives, including Kelly. She happened to be in Europe on business, and offered to use [airline] miles points to upgrade our existing tickets on the London-to-Newark leg of the flight to the US.
BACK in my apartment, my life began as a single parent. I had an 18-month-old child running around, and I felt ecstatic. Dozens of friends helped me out with chores and baby-sitting over the next few months. They filled my fridge and drove me to doctors’ appointments. Kelly offered to take Abush for an hour here and there. Eventually, she said she wanted to take him to a Tumbling Tots class at Chelsea Piers. It was a kind gesture, and I said yes.
After enjoying spending time with Abush, Kelly asked if she could be called his godmother — and I agreed.
Earlier in 2012, six months after Abush’s arrival, he had stayed overnight at the apartment I once shared with Kelly. “Why don’t you go out and have a drink?” Kelly told me, a new parent who never went out. “Why don’t I put him to bed?”
I was grateful for the help, but her demands began to make me uncomfortable. By 2015, Abush had been with me for four years and Kelly was frequently sending e-mails, saying: “When am I going to see Abush?” and “What are you doing for the holidays?” My girlfriend at the time thought that Kelly was obsessed with me.
Kelly asked for more time with Abush, where he would sleep at her house one night a week. I told her I wasn’t keen on a formal arrangement. By then, I had a family of single mothers whom I hung out with, and the relationship with Kelly was a very small part of our life. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She kept calling or e-mailing to ask, “Why aren’t I included?” in this or that.
She was particularly jealous and hurt when I took Abush to visit his biological dad in Ethiopia in May 2015. “I know nothing about your life,” she wrote to me. “I just get to hear about things, but I’m not part of it.”
I’d grown frustrated with her demands. I sent Kelly an e-mail, saying, “You are the godparent of A. I am his adoptive parent. This role allows me to make decisions about him regarding his everyday world, his future, as well as the communication between his birth family, his birth heritage and culture . . . I don’t know when or how Godmum became second mum. I included you as a close friend. But I honestly thought that you had moved on, that we had separated and you were giving as a good friend, rather than an expectation of being a second parent.”
I was disappointed that someone who broke up with me six years prior was asserting herself in a way that was so inappropriate. But I respected her relationship with my son. She was a good godmother and, because I had put boundaries in place, I didn’t feel strange about Abush spending time with her. In the lesbian world, there’s a tradition of exes helping with each other’s kids.
In July of 2016, Abush and I went to England, which I still think of as home, for six weeks. I visited old contacts who said they had future work assignments for me. By that time, I’d been taking Abush to the UK twice a year and we had a lot of friends there. So I decided what I’ve been thinking about for years — we should relocate to London. Abush was excited about it and so was I.
I put the wheels in motion, buying plane tickets, figuring out a place for us to stay and enrolling Abush in school. Kelly seemed happy for us, and knew we’d be coming back to New York regularly.
The week before we were to leave, Kelly held a farewell pizza party for us. She offered to take Abush to Fire Island for a few days while I packed. I accepted and planned to join them on a Thursday before the move on Saturday.
Abush was at Kelly’s home on Fire Island when I got the call telling me to show up in court. I had no inkling of the nightmare to come. Otherwise why would I have hugged Kelly that day?
AFTER that first court appearance, I hired attorneys to fight Kelly’s claim to be recognized as Abush’s parent. The case was heard on various dates between September 2016 and February 2017.
I couldn’t understand why Kelly was doing this. Her claims — including that I don’t attend to my son’s special needs — were hurtful and outrageous. Stunned, I listened as she referred to him as her son. She told the judge that I was too busy working to spend enough time with Abush and that her parenthood claims were valid because she was a part of the adoption process after our separation. All this was fiction.
She said the $350,000 I received from our homes was to help fund an apartment for Abush and made her partly financially responsible for him. She said I had taken advantage of her generosity for activities at Chelsea Piers.
One of the many ridiculous things she said was that I’m “heteronormative” — that I didn’t fit into the box of being gay. That couldn’t be more opposite of the truth.
I argued that I never encouraged, condoned or recognized Kelly as a parent to my child. It was a grueling six months, but I was lucky enough to have the support of family and friends, who testified that they’d never heard Kelly call Abush her son. I could only hope the judge would see through Kelly’s lies.
Meanwhile, Abush knew nothing of the case. He saw Kelly on Thursdays and Sundays, as the court had decided. When I handed him off, Kelly and I didn’t look each other in the eye, but we kept things cordial.
This whole situation came about because, in August 2016, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that nonadoptive and nonbiological “parents” could sue for custody. It was hailed as a major victory for the LGBTQ community, but, in my particular situation, it was being abused and used against me.
My case also showed that if someone has a lot of money, they can afford to put together false claims and keep you in court for a long time. I went broke because of legal fees and had to sell my apartment. I couldn’t take on certain photo jobs because of the time spent either in court or at the office of my legal team. Not to mention not being able to leave the country. My life was not my own.
Thankfully, on April 11, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Frank Nervo ruled in my favor, saying that Kelly did not have an “unabated plan” to adopt and raise a child with me. I felt as if a weight had been taken off my heart. On May 23, the court ended Kelly’s contact, and Abush and I were allowed to travel at will.
(Of the outcome, Gunn told The Post, “My heartbreak is indescribable, it’s devastating. There’s no winner here — just one loser and he’s 7 years old — our son whom I have coparented for all his life here in New York and who knows I am his parent. My rights to parent the son I planned for and raised were entirely contingent on my partner honoring the tacit agreements between us. I put every protection into place that I could for Circe and our future child. I honored every agreement we made in building and supporting our family, regardless of the winding road of our own relationship. I never contemplated that I would need to protect myself from her.”)
Right now, I am still in a lawsuit and I understand Kelly is appealing the decision. Her team has nine months to perfect a case. This terrifies me.
I still haven’t allowed myself to celebrate. I cry a lot, away from Abush, of course. To this day, he has no knowledge of what’s happened. The last time Kelly saw him was May 25, and they said their goodbyes. Just like all the other times, it was cordial.
We flew to the UK over Memorial Day weekend and are surrounded by a wonderful support system of family and friends. Abush had been waiting for a very long time to roam his grandmother’s garden and check out his favorite playgrounds with his uncle, reconnect with his friends, and dive into his favorite English foods.
I have had other gay moms reach out to me, frightened. They see that it could have been them in that courtroom. They all rely on friends, exes and godparents to help raise their kids. I fully support the new law because it supports the continuation of a real two-parent family — gay or not — but my situation was never that. This law affects everybody, not just the gay community. Every New Yorker — especially single and divorced parents — needs to understand how this law could be misapplied.
Nothing should deter loving relationships with people who care about your child, but this case might make parents gun-shy. I’m worried now that any situation can be misread — it’s made me conscious about what I put in e-mails and how I speak to people.
But I’m not changing how I bring up my son. I want the support of family and friends in raising Abush and won’t let what happened deter me for a moment.
TheT relationship withw Kelly was a very small part of our life. But she wouldn’t take no for an answer. — Circe Hamilton on Kelly Gunn’s role in her son’s life