Legal Question in Family Law in North Carolina

I'm the mother of three children that currently reside in Florida for the last two years. I live in North Carolina. I pay child support and we have shared custodial rights but since mediation in February of this year we are not agreeing on my children returning to me or the details of who lives where. In addition to the $1400 a month I have to pay leaves it a challenge for me to survive. I never set out for it to be permanent the children living with him. I've never lost my tights, am gainfully employed as a registered nurse and I left him four years ago due to his drug prodm. I raised the kids alone for two years allowing him to get his life together. I sought no compensation from him during this time and took no legal action. He got clean moved to Florida and I decided it'd b appropriate for the kids to visit for the summer. Once down there they were doing well so we agreed to let them start school and stay with him for a while. A big motivation on my part for this was at the time he was more available to them working a normal traditional 40 hour work week and lived with a women and her daughter, the women is a teacher and this meant a lot of available time for him to spend with the children. This gave me a chance to get caught up on some things financially without leaving the kids with a sitter or their set sister while I worked my 12 hour nights four to five of them a week as this had been the situation when I left him. Now my situation has changed for the better. I am on maternity leave bc I have recently had a baby with my boyfriend that I currently live with. My financial situation is stable enough that I will not be going back to work for the same type of hours in a week. I will be working two shifts a week sometimes three but never more. I feel that due to the needs of the children at least my oldest daughter that is 11 should return to me. She has expressed her desire to do so and out other two children are boys age six and nine. I feel like the kids would be best taken care of if they were divided though not ideal since he chose to move we can't co parent in a traditional sense. He is at a different job not making a considerable amount more as far as income but works many weekends and later into the evening.. I feel like he could give the boys more undivided attention and it's a good idea for them to stay but my daughter with my schedule would be better with me. His girlfriend spends far more time with the children than he does. This is fine in there spect that she is a good caring women. However there is friction now between my daughter and her and also her daughter and my daughter. I apologize for the length but I do not know what's relevant and what's not so I just wanted to incorporate all details possible for the hope of getting the best advise. I'm wanting to know if I have a strong cdse for custody and how I go about pursuing this since he filed the papers first for child support and custody in florida so this is why everything has to b handled in that state. What papers do I need to file and how do I go about this? Please help as in many cases I don't have money for an attorney bc of the child support I pay a swell as this summer I will thankfully have the kids but still need to pay child support as well as financially take care of them for two months and their father has informed me I have to buy there summer clothes bc he doesn't have the money. I will say in his defense I the court said I could pay $900 till September bc of being out of work due to having a baby. But I did pay this for three months so I've given $2700 in three months as well as him ckaimg them on his taxes this year so it's a tough pill to swallow doing this and having to get all their smer clothes. I feel as if I have no rights at all.

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