The slogan “love them both” is often used in the pro-life movement. But what does it mean at its core?
Angie Odom, executive director of the TLC Community Center and Abortion Alternatives Women Center in Elizabethton, Tenn., has lived this idea.
Odom is the adoptive mother of a former client’s child. Bella Hope, now age 12, was discovered in her mother’s womb at eight weeks amidst a horrific drug overdose. Their story stands as proof that babies under the influence of drugs in the mother’s womb are worth saving despite negative response from others, and is a reminder that all lives matter.
Odom founded the TLC Center in February 2000.
The pregnancy center offers pregnancy tests and recently partnered with Save the Storks to run a mobile unit that offers free ultrasounds.
The center also has a “Mommy Mart,” educates clients in parenting, and provides them with emotional support.
The TLC Center has grown to reach beyond meeting the needs of expecting moms and infants.
The previous center location was one door down from an abortionist, Odom said. The current location is 3,000 square feet and allows the center to meet the needs of the community more effectively.
The TLC Center offers clothing and material for all children of all ages through their teens and provides basic hair care with a built-in salon. The center offers a community food program and an abstinence program in local schools. It has a sensory play area on site that includes a model of the town of Elizabethton that can help children become more familiar with their community.
One of the most visible impacts of the center is the “Adoption Tree” in the office. There are photos of babies who have been adopted with the help of TLC.
Among them is Bella Hope.
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Odom’s story was featured in a book she wrote as well as included in writer and reporter Sam Quinones’ book about the tragic impact of meth. In 2018, Restore Appalachia documented Odom’s testimony on video.
The story of how Odom came to adopt Bella Hope is heartrending.
Odom first met her daughter’s birth mother Starla when Starla volunteered at the pregnancy center. Odom described her as a third-generation drug abuser who was in and out of group homes.
Starla helped at the center as a teenager. By age 18 she returned pregnant as a client and later delivered a son and enrolled in the programs at TLC. Starla eventually ended up in prison and married a man while both were incarcerated, Odom said. The pregnancy help director did not think she would hear from Starla ever again.
However, the pregnancy center continued to be the setting of this story.
The TLC office received a phone call from Starla’s mother on February 14, 2013. The woman wanted to see Odom and showed up later that day at TLC with what Odom recalled as a “tiny, wrinkly baby” in an infant carrier car seat.
Starla’s mother informed Odom that Starla had overdosed several months prior and her mother had learned that she was pregnant with this child. The baby was born in Pensacola, Fla., while Starla was part of a prostitution ring there. A day before the overdose that required more than one dose of Narcan to save her life, Starla informed her mother she was eight weeks pregnant.
Odom recounted that Starla was taken to the hospital in Pensacola where a doctor bravely determined “we are going to have faith” for the sake of the baby in the womb. Abortion was not an option, he said.
Odom said Starla, reported to then to be in a vegetative state, had had multiple seizures throughout her pregnancy. Starla remained hospitalized and delivered via C-section at 34 weeks due to the umbilical cord being wrapped twice around the baby’s neck.
Starla was moved to a nursing home facility in her home state of Tennessee, three-and-a-half hours from TLC Community Center. Starla’s mom wanted help for her daughter and remembered Odom’s connection with TLC.
Odom travelled the three-and-a-half hours to find Starla with an infected incision from the C-section, and a gown wrapped around her neck, as her former client rolled around her bed uncontrollably. With the help of a congressman, Odom fought to have Starla moved to another facility.
Starla’s mom was the caretaker of the baby known as Hope. However, the thread of drug abuse in the family caught up with the grandmother as she failed a drug test and child protective services intervened.
Someone needed to care for baby Hope.
“They considered me as kinship,” Odom said, because of her relationship with Starla. Odom took the infant to meet her mother in her care facility, placing the baby against Starla’s neck. Starla’s uncontrollable turning ceased as she let out a wail and rubbed her chin on the baby, Odom said.
The nights were long as Odom, then a mother of grown children, sat straight up through the night to help the baby sleep due to dramatic reflux issues, during which she said the infant would “eject vomit like rain.”
Hope was going through withdrawal.
Doctors were certain Hope would either have a short life or an incredibly difficult one.
After months of multiple doctor visits, procedures and several diagnoses including cerebral palsy, the Odom family was given the opportunity to adopt baby Hope.
Odom took the little girl, now known as Bella Hope, to see her mother at the nursing home on many occasions until Starla passed away in 2019.
Odom’s adoptive daughter requested a party to celebrate her birth mom’s life. She asked for a cake that read, “I love you no matter what happened,” which were the same words etched on Starla’s tombstone.
At 12-years-old Bella Hope now runs track, dances ballet, and has “an incredible sense of humor,” Odom said.
Tweet This: Babies affected by drugs in their mother’s womb are worth saving, and is all lives matter.
During the many visits to specialists and medical facilities for baby Hope, Odom said there was one response to their situation that is forever embedded in her mind.
Before a surgical procedure, an anesthesiologist suggested due to the baby’s struggle with addiction from the womb that she was “another burden to society.” Odom responded that she was praying for a miracle.
“We’ll see,” the anesthesiologist said coolly.
After her book was published in 2014, Odom returned to that medical facility and left a signed copy for this medical professional.
Odom said her passion for the pregnancy help movement has only increased because of this journey.
“This helped me understand the ‘love them both’ concept,” she said, noting a sadness related to the fact that expressions of concern she received during the time Bella Hope was an infant and Starla was in a care facility focused on how things were going with the baby. While not every pregnancy help worker can adopt the babies in need, Odom said sometimes it is necessary to reach out of our comfort zone and reflect upon loving them both.
“Ask yourself, what does that mean?” she said. “How far would you go?”
