Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts

So my crazy question and situation is kind of complicated but here goes... So I have been married to my husband got married back in 2000, at the point we had custody of a child from the state who we were adopting and we decided to also get legal custody of his son from a previous relationship who the birth mother did not have custody her parents did. So my husband and I were paying child support to the child's grand mother until my husband got custody. We believe there was no child support paid by the birth mother to her parents while she did not have custody. We waited several years before we looked into the possibility of getting some kind of support from her even if it was just putting her son on her free state health insurance and paying half of the dentist/doctor copays. We went to court, she didn't even show up and the judge told us because the birth mother is on SSI that we "can't get blood from a stone" and that was the end of it. So we have supported this child on our own. For the past few years our son has been getting into trouble at school, experimenting with drugs and we do not allow that behavior, he does not like our rules and when he goes to the birth mothers house he gets away with everything, so he talked her into taking us to court last year, mind you he just turned 16 last year and wouldn't you know she wants custody and support?! I don't understand this legal system, the court told us that if we didn't agree to shared custody my husband would have to pay her child support even though she never paid us and we still very much want to finish raising him. The whole situation is beyond crazy and don't understand how she as a MOTHER does not have to pay support?? Is this legal? in the stat of MA

Thanks for attempting an answer on this one.

Denise

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