"I have driven past the area where they are, and it's completely surrounded by police," she said. "I'm sure I could walk up to the door and get arrested ... and then what's going to happen to my children?"

When she was finally allowed to return to her home on the ranch, because of an ongoing search of the property by authorities, she said nothing was the same.

"Can you imagine what it's like to come back to nothing? Empty, ransacked homes, many things were taken, no pictures left."

She was able to find some pictures of when her children were younger, but all others were confiscated.

"I want the world to know that there is a nothing stronger than love and there is an inborn, God-given love between a mother and her children, and all a mother wants for her children is the very best" Monica said.

Despite her sorrow and frustration, she says she has faith that she will see her children again.

"I know I can't give up. I have to stay at it," she said. "I know with Heavenly Father's help I will be able to get them back."

'I couldn't believe it'

Shannon, a mother who was also off the ranch when officers served the search warrants, said she's also tried several times to see her three children but has been refused.

"Every day I've called them. They put me off saying they don't have the authority to let me in and there's no proof the children are mine. I tell them the children know who their mother is, and I know who my children are," she said.

The 30-year-old says she provided child welfare officials with identification and even birth certificates proving she is her children's mother. She says she and other mothers were told those documents could have been fake.

"I couldn't believe it. I wondered if we were in America or Russia," Shannon said. "I kept thinking, 'How can they do that?' They're breaking every rule. They're breaking every law."

Shannon has been told that her youngest child, who is just 2 years old, clings to her caretaker in the shelter. "She's sick right now and needs her mother."

Texas officials say they removed the children because they believe they're being abused or neglected. The raid was authorized by a judge after workers at a family domestic hotline reported receiving calls from a pregnant 16-year-old girl claiming she was being abused and was afraid to leave the ranch.

Shannon insists the children were not in any harmful environment at the ranch and were well-loved and cared for.

"We are not child abusers. We take very good care of them. These are innocent and sweet children," she said.

"The only abuse my children have ever had is since they've been taken away."

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E-mail: nperkins@desnews.com; bwest@desnews.com