Summer vacation turned into legal child custody nightmare!?

I was given sole custody of my daughter in '06 and permission from the judge to move out of IL with her. A visitation schedule was settled between her father and I, she was to have summer vacations with him. On 6/18/08 I boarded her on a flight from California to Illinois and a month later her father was somehow able to obtain temp custody, which I was unaware of until I spoke to family. I cannot even believe this happened and now I'm back in IL after having to quit my job and leave everything back home to try and even see my child. It has been a nightmare. I sent her with her own cell phone with GPX in case of an emergency, it appears he keeps the phone off because when I call, it goes right to voice mail. When I call his phone, forget it, he does not answer and does not reply to my texts. I hear from her every 2 wks if I'm lucky now. I'm not a junkie, I don't drink, I don't even smoke! I know she was a bit lonely being the only child and was asking my fiance when he was going to marry me and give her a little brother or sister.. Her dad has three other daughters, is married. I just found out today from the school she is attending that she is failing all her cles, she was an honor roll student when she was with me, her grades were above average and her only issues were that she hated to have to read for 30 mins everyday. I don't understand how a judge could decide this without giving me the opportunity to defend myself against whatever is being said. We had a hearing in Sept, now it's been continued for Jan.. I barely get to speak to my daughter and haven't seen her since the 18th of June when I put her on a plane to see her dad, I have dreams about her and it is killing me. I am pleading with her dad to return her and trying to make him understand that I want to raise my child. If anyone can advise me on a similar situation or offer any legal advice, I would be be most appreciative. I'm not some bitter woman trying to keep the kid from her dad. I tried for yrs to keep them in contact, he went as far as to plead to the judge to revoke his parental rights just to avoid having to pay a measly $100. a month in support! After that and statements from teachers and my daughter which proved he was abusive, I was granted sole custody and I never even asked for it. If you are standing where I am in this situation, it's clear that he's trying to get out of paying support and probably claim her on his taxes, he tried doing that in the past and got in trouble for it. I just want to raise my daughter, I know I have more to offer her and that's what I plan on explaining to the judge, but after having this happen, I don't know where this judge's mind is at. He's finally going to let me pick her up for the weekend, but I have to provide a notarized letter stating where I'll be with her this weekend.. HE'S TOTALLY POWER TRIPPING! Nonetheless, I am being cooperative, but I want things to get back to normal. I even told him that I am willing to appear in front of the judge and request that child support be waived because losing my little girl is not worth it. It takes him 2-3 months to pay anyway, can't even fit it into our monthly budget! The only info I have as far as how he was able to get temporary custody came from his jailbird dad who wrote to ME. He claims my daughter was evaluated by a child rep where she stated that she wanted to live with her dad and go to school with her sisters. As far as I know, this isn't a reason to just tear a child away from their legal parent! I would think the judge would have asked us to appear in court together to decide on this??