Harbor Life Ministries

Recently, HLM received the following letter from a former client.

“Hello.  I was a pregnant teen who stayed with Karla and Doug (house parents). I didn’t stay at the Harbor House, I stayed with them in their home along with their children. (This was because HH was being remodeled.) It was the summer of 1993, I was 16 at the time and was only there for a few months. I gave birth to a baby boy, which I had decided to put up for adoption. However, before it could go through, the biological father of my son and his parents found out and so I made the decision along with my parents that I would bring my son home.”

“It has been tough at times, I was very young when I had my son. My mother, father and my sisters and brother were all supportive and helped through out the rest of my high school days. The biological father was never around. I had to financially provide for my son, even though my parents helped, I still was responsible for him. I decided to go to the Vocational Center because they had a program for unwed mom’s in which they could take their child there for the daycare for little to no cost, while they continued to finish high school. In the fall of 1995 I met a boy at the Vocational Center. He took me for who I was as well as my son. We have been together now almost 15 years. We have been married for almost 13 years. My husband adopted my son in 1998, for which my son has only known him as his father. Our son is now 16 and we have a daughter and she is 12. I have been blessed with a wonderful husband and children.”

“Although my life is great now, I always think about what Karla and Doug did for me. I think about the fun we had while I was there, the support I received from them. They are good people, who would do anything to help you.”

I recently met with a judge and two probation officers who had asked HLM to help some delinquent pregnant teens. The judge wanted to share with me the impact that HLM had on the teens. He said that HLM had an outstanding program. The results were incredible. He said that the teens lives were changed for the better. He encouraged us to keep up the good work and said that he would be seeking our help in the future.
We thank God for His help and the opportunity to make real, lasting and eternal changes in the lives of troubled teens.

Induction is scheduled at 9pm tonight, Feb. 4, for Chelsy, whose due date was two days ago.

The sex of the baby is undetermined, so even though an induction takes some of the surprise out of the birth, the baby’s name could be Carson Zavier or Adelynn Joelle.

Chelsy will be parenting her child, boy or girl. Her mother Lena will assist her.

Please pray for Chelsy to have a healthy baby, and remember to check back tomorrow. Subscribing to our feed is a good way to keep on top of news from HLM.

Bill Rieth, HLM Interim Executive Director

For approximately 20 years I have had the privilege of serving HLM on the board. Now, God has given me the opportunity to assist HLM by being the interim Executive Director.

In this capacity I hope that the Lord can use me to expand and improve the life changing ministry of HLM.

The day started at 5:30. Hannah woke Kirsten, our 18-year-old leaving for college in a few days who has become good friends in a short time with Hannah.

“Kirsten,” she said in her soft voice, “I think I’m really in labor now. The contractions hurt.”

The contractions were occurring about every two-to-three minutes. Kirsten and Hannah “hung out for awhile” (in Kirsten’s words), then woke Karla around 6:45 am. After showering and pulling everything together, they left for the hospital around 8.

The nurses checked her and found her cervix to be around 5 cm. dilated, half the distance to full dilation needed for childbirth.

They notified the doctor, who said she be in as soon as she could to break Hannah’s water. In the meantime, Hannah got comfortable–or as comfortable as she could get–in bed. The nurses wouldn’t allow her to get up and walk around until her water had been broken.

She tried out a few different positions as the contractions continued to get stronger.

The nurses did allow her to get onto the birthing ball for a short time. The birthing ball is air-filled plastic vinyl, about 3 feet in diameter, like a giant kickball. It helps stretch the muscles around the vaginal opening, loosening and relaxing them. It also takes some of the edge off the labor pains.

The doctor, who as it turned out had patients booked all day today at the office, stopped in on her lunch hour and broke the water. There had been speculation that Hannah would not have much water but that proved untrue.

With the water broken Hannah is able to get up and move around more, taking walks down the hall if she wishes.

The adoptive parents and their little 4-year-old daughter have been by Hannah’s side this morning, although they decided to send their daughter home at lunch with Grandma.

Please keep praying. Hopefully we’ll be able to announce soon, “it’s a boy!“

She arrived in early March from sunny southern California, and her time here in north central Ohio is almost at an end.

The contractions are five minutes apart. Some are painful, some are moderate and some are really light and quick.

It’s been a full day so rest, even sleep if possible, is necessary to give her energy to make it through the delivery.

The adoptive parents are certainly waiting by the phone for news, but nighttime is upon us and…who knows when the little boy Hannah has carried for nearly 38 weeks will make his appearance.

While we all wait, we sleep and rest. Good night.

Hannah has started having contractions but is still at home. If you would like to keep up on Hannah’s progress, you can follow Harbor Life Ministries on Twitter.

Harbor House Maternity Home’s original location in Celina is now for sale.

Built in the 1920s as a home for Dr. John Gibbons Sr., the founder of Gibbons Hospital in Celina, the home is actually connected to the hospital building by an attached garage, which, up until the closing of the hospital in 1980, was where the ambulance parked. From inside the garage you can either head east into the house or west into the hospital.

Entering the house from the garage brings you first into a small laundry room and then into the back hallway which links the kitchen/dining room with a back entrance and bedroom hallway. There’s a full bath and half bath on the first floor, three bedrooms, an office (in the front of the house directly off of the master bedroom), a room that served the maternity home as a lobby/foyer (the front door is part of the room), and a side door (that exits into the Fayette Street front drive) with a landing and stairs to the basement.

A historically unique feature of the house is found on the second floor, where at one time, during the baby boom of the 50s and 60s, you could find the delivery room, baby nursery, and maternity ward. With the large Catholic population in Mercer County, during the post-war late-1940s Gibbons Hospital had the highest birth rate per total patient count of all hospitals in the United States.

When the home was originally constructed the second story was a normal second story, but with the baby boom, Dr. Gibbons decided to rebuild his home’s second floor and connect it over the garage to the second floor of the hospital. Due to elevation differences between the house and the hospital, the connecting hallway had to be sloped to accommodate moving gurneys and carts easily between the two. Dr. Gibbons also extended the second floor to the east beyond his home, and built a medical office under it, which was dubbed the Gibbons Medical Center. Even though they shared a common floor/ceiling, the hospital portion of the remodeling had completely separate HVAC/electric/plumbing, so that the medical office could be leased or even sold to a third party.

Harbor House Maternity Home bought the old hospital building, the home and the second floor extension from Dr. Gibbons’ son, Dr. John Gibbons Jr., in 1990 on a land contract. In 2002 the adjoining-but-separate medical offices to the east, along with a free-standing carriage house turned three-bay garage behind the offices, were also purchased. Three tenants came with the property and provided income to help pay for taxes and maintenance.

One of the first upgrades to the property after the 2002 purchase was to replace the flat roof over the eastern corner office with a DuraLast(TM) 30-year roof, a $12,000 investment. Other upgrades were made over the past few years such as installing new furnaces.

Where does time go?

I know I hadn’t blogged in a while, but our Harbor Life update mailing went out today and with the blog link in the email version, I figured I’d better check to see when the last post happened to be.

How did I get that far behind?

Here’s the deal: I’m going to go through my off-line journal and then back-post to the blog. I know that’s not really kosher and sort of defeats the “instantaneous” nature of a blog. I do journal almost daily, but my off-line journal contains a lot of mish-mash of impertinent minutia and private thoughts along with stuff that people would find interesting on the blog.

So…check back. I will promise to do my best to fill in the gaps and then keep up to date on this.

This is live in an aspiring maternity home in Norwalk, Ohio. Don’t ask why the aspiration for something so quintessentially Victorian in origin. We are a Christian family that has spent the last 17 years housing pregnant teens in Celina, Ohio, a town of 10,000 in the west central part of the state.

This year we moved to Norwalk, less than 30 minutes from Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky. We were coaxed into moving here after we were given a home that had closed, and then had a generous local donor offer to provide a year’s worth of operating expenses up front.