Born Free
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By LIZ MAPLES and BRENDA S. EDWARDS
lizm@amnews.com and brenda@amnews.com
PEWEE VALLEY - A bond between a mother and her infant begins in the womb.
For many, the connection is cemented at birth. Little fingers, miniature toes and suckling cheeks melt the heart. It's instant love.
So imagine a mother having to leave the hospital without her baby.
Kelley Coles, 25, was in her second trimester and in prison before she found out she was pregnant.
"I was doing drugs, I didn't know if I was pregnant," she says.
A mother of four, Coles is serving a one-year sentence at Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women at Pewee Valley for violating her probation by possessing marijuana. "I do the time, I don't let the time do me," she says.
When she talks about her baby, Jacobi, she is all smiles and bragging. She dreams of one day having a good office job, one that will support her and her family.
Coles' three older children are being cared for by her mother and aunt, but Jacobi is at the Gallilean Home in Casey County. "I didn't want to put another kid on (my mom)," she says.
Other prisoners told her about the Gallilean Home's Angel House, a place with smiling, young women who treated mothers behind bars as "normal human beings, not inmates."
"When I first got here, all I heard was Galilean Home, Galilean Home ... how good they were with the babies," Coles says.
A second chance
Patricia Clay has been at Pewee Valley since October. She spent two days with her newborn at Baptist Hospital in La Grange before she was ushered back to her cell.
Her baby boy, Zeldelicca, or ZaZa, was taken to rural Casey County to live at the Angel House, headquarters of the Born Free ministry.
Clay, a mother of five, is serving a three-year sentence for second-degree assault. She was in an abusive relationship, and when she struck back, she was arrested for assault, but it is not her whole story.
The 27-year-old loves to sing gospel music and wants to learn how to play the piano. She wants to find a job to support her family.
Her dream is to live in Chicago, work in the music business and make the cut on "American Idol." She looks at the Galilean Home as a second chance for her dreams. "Most states don't have places like this," she says.
Women inmates often have few choices: give the baby up for adoption, to a family member or the state system. Getting the baby back when they get out is often difficult.
"This is giving me a second chance. God can work it out. If it wasn't for Him, I would not be sitting here," Clay says.
The Galilean Home "never turns you down. When you get out, they're at the gate with the baby."
Clay regrets her crime and the abusive relationship that spurred her to it. "I should have thought first," she says, adding that she has learned a lot since that time. "We all learn from our mistakes."
The only good thing that came out of the relationship was little Zeldelicca Isaiah Ingesies, she says. "My babies were never mistakes, just their daddies."
Her aunt cares for her older children while she is incarcerated.
"I can't wait to walk out that gate and pick up my kids," she says. "I can't wait to get my hands on my young son. He was only 6 months old when I left Elizabethtown."
Visits
The Galilean Home brings the babies to prison on Thursday. Mothers are allowed to visit with their babies two hours.
"Sometimes I get frustrated because Thursday doesn't come fast enough," Clay says. She has not seen her other children since she came to Pewee Valley in October. Coles has seen her other children only once.
Clay hopes to be released at the end of the year. By then, Zeldelicca will be trying to walk and sounding out syllables.
Until release, the women live for Thursdays.
Coles cradles her baby boy, Jacobi, and nuzzles her nose on his face.
"I loves him," she says. "More than anything."
Jacobi was born with an angel kiss, a red birthmark on the forehead between the eyes.