Former "American Idol" contestant Syesha Mercado and her partner, Tyron Deener, have been reunited with their newborn daughter, Ast, after temporarily losing custody of the child two weeks ago.
Mercado, who appeared on the seventh season of the longtime talent competition show in 2008, shared the news on Friday in a four-minute-long video posted to Instagram, in which Deener informed supporters and followers that “Ast is home.”
“We have Ast with us. ... We want to say thank you. We still got work to do to get Ra back, but we want to say thank you because of y'all and my family, we've had the proper support to get the best attorneys in the country to be able to bring justice that Ast is back,” Deener said in part.
In the video, Deener panned to his side and showed viewers a glimpse of Ast sleeping in a baby carrier in a car. He also turned the camera to show Mercado sitting in the front of the car.
“We respect the process. We respect the courts. We respect everybody's position but wrong is wrong,” he continued. “But we got Ast back and soon, Ra will be home. I know that because we got the support of the people.”
The development comes just days after the 34-year-old singer shared an emotional video about losing custody of both of her children, daughter Ast and one-year-old son Amen’Ra. Amen’Ra currently remains under the custody of Child Protective Services.
In the Tuesday video, Mercado tearfully pleaded for custody of her kids while at a press conference. "This is my first time being a mom and I've been deprived of holding my babies and feeding my babies. I didn't get to see Ra say 'momma' for the first time and I didn't get to see my babies meet for the first time," she said at the time.
"I'm just missing out on so many precious moments," she added. "I've been deprived of that and I don't know how to articulate it, but it just hurts so bad."
Earlier this year, Mercado's son, Amen’Ra, was taken by Manatee County Child Protective Services in Florida, when he was 13 months old. Her daughter, Ast, was taken two weeks ago, days after Mercado gave birth to her.
Mercado captured the incident on camera and posted the clip in an Instagram Live video, which has since been viewed over 3 million times. The video showed Manatee County sheriff’s deputies stopping her car in an unexpected welfare check and taking the newborn.
An activist group campaigning for Mercado and Denner's family said that in Febuary, Mercado took her son to Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida to get treatment for dehydration. But afterward, Amen'Ra was released into the care of CPS and not his mother.
An attorney for Mercado, Derrick McBurrows, said on Tuesday that CPS became involved with Mercado and Denner's family earlier due to allegations of medical neglect.
McBurrows told reporters that CPS alleged that Mercado had not taken her son to the hospital for a medical visit.
"We've explicitly provided evidence that completely refutes that," McBurrows said at the press conference. "It's a complete lie. It's a complete fabrication."
According to the attorney, Mercado took her son to Englewood Community Hospital in Englewood, Florida not in February but on Jan. 30.
"The mother was having lactation issues," McBurrows said. "This is a first-time mother who was seeking help yet she was criminalized."