Paternity cases deal with parentage where no marriage took place. There are children, but the parties, mother and the father, never got married.
In a typical paternity case, the mother has the custody of the children and the father has visitation by agreement, but there is no existing parenting plan. That means, the mother can deny visitation to the father whenever she feels like it, and the father has no legal recourse to see his children other than to file a petition for parentage and declare he is the father of the children, so that eventually he can get a court ordered parenting plan in place to have visitation.
This is also the case when there is an administrative child support order in place. That means, as a father, you are obligated to pay child support, however you cannot visit your children because the mother arbitrarily or unreasonably withholds visitation. How fair is that? It is not fair at all; but in reality that is how the system works.
The case becomes more difficult if the father has not signed an affidavit of paternity and therefore he is not on the child's birth certificate. In these cases, if the mother wants to be difficult and denies that you are the father of the child, the only recourse is to get a court order to submit the child for a DNA test and subsequently get another order to have your name put on the child's birth certificate so that a parenting plan can be entered.
This process is complicated and given the need to start visitation with the child is urgent, you may want to hire a knowledgeable family law attorney to help you through it. At Celebi Law Office, we have the kind of expertise and the understanding of the law to help you in your paternity case.