The Facts:
Respondent is the biological mother (herein the respondent-mother) of six-year old boy (the subject child or the child) conceived through artificial insemination and born in December 2003. A New York Family Lawyer said the respondent-mother and petitioner met in 2002 and entered into a civil union in the State of Vermont in November 2003, the month before the subject child’s birth. The respondent-mother repeatedly rebuffed petitioner’s requests to become the child’s second parent by means of adoption.
Sometime in the spring of 2006, the relationship between the respondent-mother and petitioner soured and they separated. Thereafter, respondent-mother allowed petitioner to have supervised visits with the child each week on a Sunday, Wednesday and Friday for specified periods of time, as well as daily contact by telephone. However, sometime in the spring of 2008, respondent-mother began scaling back the visits. By early May of 2008, she had cut off all communication between petitioner and the child.