Maybe we are, maybe we aren't.

People lie a lot on the internet -- that's very true. On the other hand, OP's story isn't an impossible one. Sometimes when people claim they're decent and the other parent is an asshole (regardless of gender), it's true. Sometimes there's only one asshole in a situation.

However, I understand your reluctance to believe OP straight away. It's terrible when a well-meaning father is denied custody simply because he's a man. My guess here is that, even if OP is being honest, the judge understands that shared custody is the ideal unless one parent has done something truly horrid -- and that, if shared custody is not established now, when the baby is a newborn, future judges will take the lack of shared custody as a precedent to deny the father custody in the future. The judge is probably thinking less about the newborn now and more about the newborn several years from now, and deciding that some hardship during the newborn time is worth making sure the newborn has time with the father in the future.