I just want my baby home!

Hi.....
I dont really know where to start, im very nervous so i hope things all makes sense.
I am hoping to get some advice from this site as my friends keep telling me that my story doesn’t sound right. I was a single mum and raised my beautiful little girl for over 5 years happy and healthy. My mother and I have always had a difficult relationship and never were able to see ‘eye to eye’ on parenting matters. This cause a lot of arguments and one particular argument turned into a fight where she decided not to return my daughter home.

I contacted the police, who advised me it was a family court matter as she was family and I had placed my daughter with her, she hadn’t came and taken her. After 3 months of torment and searching for my mum and my daughter with no assistance from the police, I turned to legal aid to help find an address for my mother or any of her friends ect. It took months to be appointed a lawyer who put through a location order which failed and hired other agencies to help find her. None of them worked.
Words cannot describe the heart wrenching pain and massive earth quake this caused in my whole life. Every area of my life shut down and everything and everyday was about FINDING MY BABY. Over a year later I received a taunting video message from my mother via my e-mail. The video showed my daughter playing with my younger sister, and a message at the bottom said, SHE ISNT WITH ME ANYMORE, GOODLUCK EVER FINDING HER. I fell apart, but never stopped, I went from family friend to family friend trying to find clues or a trail, I found nothing.

Finally mum slipped up in a conversation with someone and mentioned going to interstate, I was then to later learn that my mum had tracked down my daughter’s biological father whom she had never met and sent my daughter on a plane 3 states away to live with him. To my amazement i was then in a family court matter and now have been granted time to spend with her. The court sees her as living there stable and don’t take into account how she got there. Worst thing is my daughter remembers been taken and hidden from me, they told her i left her and didn’t want her anymore so Nana had to find her a new home.
I had not one single complaint against me as a mother and never had a child safety or child protection services complaint or anything. I just don’t think the way this happened was legal and fair. No one can answer that for me.
I haven’t heard of PAS, until I looked up this forum, I know they have told her i gave her away when she was little, they have also told her that I don’t love her and I was never looking for her while she was missing. My daughter can get quite cranky and ask me ‘why i never called’ ‘why I sent her so far away’ and ‘why I didn’t come and get her’. These questions break my heart as I ask why I couldn’t just go get her in my head every day.

I wish it was a false claim that took her away because then i would have something to fight. My mum took her away and ruined her life. Scared and frightened her terribly, she cries when she tells the stories. I just want to understand how my mum cant get into trouble for taking the law into her own hands, i should have had some right to know where my baby was