Juliann Mason, 28, was forced off drugs when she was in the city jail for three months last year. It was long enough for her to stop using the heroin she came to by way of Vicodin and OxyContin abuse.
But as soon as she was out the door she was using again. And then she got pregnant. Her daughter is due in August. Now she is on methadone and working hard at recovery. She doesn't want to live on the street anymore or dance on the Block. She wants to go to nursing school. She wants to be able to care for her 10-year-old daughter, who is in the custody of her parents.
But for her, that nine months isn't long enough to get well. So she will put her child up for adoption.
"I've made a lot of bad decisions in my life," she said. "I feel like this is the best decision I've made in my life."
When the baby is born, Mason plans to detox from methadone, too, a blind detox where the amount is slowly lowered and she won't know how much she is getting.
She wishes there was a way to not be taking methadone while she is pregnant, but she feels as though this is what is best for her now.
"Addiction is really a disease," she said. "It's like diabetes. When somebody gets pregnant, they don't stop having diabetes."
Pulley, the woman who had her baby last week, says the program has given her new hope.
"I don't have to be miserable," the Baltimore woman said. "I don't have to live in abandoned homes. I don't have to have sex with strange men."
The way she sees it, this latest pregnancy "wasn't a bad thing."
"It was a beautiful thing - or I'd probably still be out there."
