FROM STREET ADDICT TO PROUD MOM

Once an addict on the streets of Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver,
Jessica Peacock is a proud mother now, confident her life is moving in
the right direction, thanks to the Calgary Urban Project Society
women's health program.

When Peacock discovered she was pregnant three years ago, she went to
the CUPS Community Health Centre, where she found non-judgmental support.

Her journey had been a difficult one.

"I had been on drugs for 91/2 years," she says. "I lived on the street
as a squeegee punk for seven years. I travelled all around.

"In Toronto, I got my van towed, so I got to drinking and ended up in
a Dumpster. And I got dumped."

Peacock was injured as the truck compressed the garbage, and as a
result lost two toes.

With the help of her family, she returned to Calgary, but was not
ready to give up drugs.

Learning she was pregnant was the incentive she needed. She began
going to a methadone clinic.

When the baby was 341/2 weeks along, Peacock had a morphine relapse
and was rushed to the hospital. The physician she had consulted at
CUPS decided it would be best to have the baby then, so labour was
induced.

The baby needed to be kept in the ICU for monitoring for a week, and
to assist the infant through drug withdrawal.

"But she's fine," says Peacock.

The CUPS clinic continued to help her as she adjusted to motherhood.
She became pregnant again, and had another girl.

"I kept going to the (CUPS) clinic," she says. "They are so
understanding there."

She's down to taking 11 milligrams of methadone daily, compared with
100 milligrams daily two years ago.

"I'm ready to get off it," she says. "I want sobriety, I want to stay
clean."

She now has part-time work cleaning houses, and a full-time role as a
mother.

"I'm just really happy my little miracles came," she says. "It's a
miracle to watch them grow and learn."

Peacock says she will use her own experiences to teach her girls to
stay away from drugs and to be successful.

The people at CUPS are helping her do that, she says.

"They've really helped me down there," she says. "For Mother's Day,
they sent me . . . to get my hair done. It hadn't been done for three
years.

"I have a bond with the ladies there -- if I ever feel down in the
dumps, they get me out of it."