MOM IS BACK FROM THE BRINK

Back In School And Taking Parenting Seriously

Hayley Nicholson was high on crystal meth when she went for the
ultrasound test.

She knew she was pregnant -- two little coloured bars on a home test
kit had told her that. She had bawled when the bars turned blue,
because she knew she was in no shape to have a child, she says.

She was 17 and had dropped out of school and had been hooked on meth
for about five years. The father, her first love, was a meth addict,
dealer and thief. Hayley was living with her mom, but they weren't
getting along. It's hard to deal with a daughter who stays high for 13
days straight and cuts herself and obsessively colours on the walls
and sterilizes her bedroom, scrubbing the ceiling for hours on end,
she admits.

Hayley never knew her own father, a drug addict. When a young friend
told her to try meth, the drug "felt amazing," and made her happy. The
people she got high with became her family, she says.

Eventually the drug and her life were one. When Hayley, her mother and
a friend drove to the ultrasound clinic, she was leaning toward
getting an abortion.

And then she saw the grainy black-and-white image of the baby, and
changed her mind.

Looking back now, aged 21, Hayley says she thinks two lives were
chosen in that moment--one of them hers.

She's sitting on the couch in her basement apartment in
Surrey.

Three-year-old Brooklyn, with blond hair and blue eyes, looks like a
miniature Hayley. The child is running and shouting and spinning in
front of the TV.

Coming out of the clinic crying, Hayley decided never to do meth
again. She cut herself off from the people she did the drug with but
admits relapsing once.

"It was with [Brooklyn's] dad nine months ago," she says. "I was
trying to give him a chance but he wasn't ready."

The young man is in jail now. Hayley returned to school to get her
high school diploma, and is taking courses to assist children with
special needs.

Brooklyn's father has said he wants to go straight when he gets out of
prison, but Hayley is not sure if he'll make it.

Hayley Nicholson is one of the thousands of citizens who were helped
this year by 27 Christmas bureaus in B.C. that are funded by The
Province's Empty Stocking Fund. Last year, Province readers raised
$335,000 for the ESF, now in its 91st year. The money is used to
provide food, shelter and gifts.

As our ESF campaign winds down, the fund's phone lines will stay open,
and readers can continue to donate by mail or online well into 2010.