By DEXTER DUGGAN
ESCONDIDO, Calif. — A sign by the front door of the Lamb of God Maternity Home here says, “Welcome to our home. Enter with a happy heart.”
The spacious home in a comfortable neighborhood in northern San Diego County — with chickens, quail, a five-month-old puppy, a vegetable garden and a swimming pool out back — may feel more accommodating than many dwellings the expectant residents have known. There’s spiritual encouragement, too.
A pregnant mom of any age could be welcomed here, but the recently married program director, Sarah Saccone-Lanza, referred to residents as “girls” when The Wanderer made a return visit here on July 17, after previously dropping by in December 2014.
Although when it opened three and one-half years ago Lamb of God planned to serve only moms pursuing adoption for their developing babies, its board decided the facilities were underutilized and that moms planning to parent would be welcome, too.
Saccone-Lanza told The Wanderer that before the change, the number of moms the home served in a year was “maybe in the 20s somewhere,” but last year there were 36.
“We wanted to be a greater resource to the local pregnancy-care centers,” she said. “. . . Everyone is like so thankful” for the change.
The Lamb of God home was established in March 2013 by the Agnus Dei Foundation (agnusdeifoundation.org), a nonprofit founded by successful businesswoman Grace Dulaney, who herself once had an unexpected pregnancy followed by adoption.
The home, which is funded by private donors, has a $250,000 annual operating expense, Saccone-Lanza said.
The residents have had problems, with 50 percent or more having experienced substance-abuse issues, she said. “We prefer they’re at least sober” when they start here.
The four homey guest bedrooms have a maximum capacity of six people, she said, with five residents when this newspaper returned in mid-July. Three computer terminals near the dining room allow them to do job searches.
A young houseparent couple lives downstairs, Rachel and Joseph Breda, to lend a hand and provide an example, Saccone-Lanza said, explaining that the residents “see a loving example of a married couple. . . . A lot of these girls have a negative vision of men in their life.”
Residents are expected to have jobs, pursue their education, or do volunteer work while awaiting the births, but Lamb of God is still their home to return to at the end of the day.
“People picture a shelter, (but) it’s not. It’s so much more,” with a family atmosphere, Saccone-Lanza said, adding that people are expected to be home for 6 p.m. dinnertime.
“Some girls love to help prepare” the meal, she said. “Some, it’s like pulling teeth. . . . A lot of the girls grew up on fast food.”
When asked what she liked about the meal, a mom replied, “I’d never sat down for dinner before,” Saccone-Lanza said.
Even Saccone-Lanza’s large office looks more like a living room. In addition to her desk there’s a curved couch, a piano, and a long table for board meetings, with three large gift baskets for moms sitting on it.
On the wall are pictures of the Madonna and Jesus as the Good Shepherd as well as baby photos. A white-covered Bible is on a table. A sign says, “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
Listening to Saccone-Lanza speak of all the prospective parents hoping to adopt a baby, one might think of the dominant pro-abortion media’s careful avoidance of this topic as it promotes the self-focused “personal choice” of permissive abortion. However, she doesn’t say anything about editors’ slant.
“There are couples who want nothing more in the world than to have a baby,” she told The Wanderer, describing moms at the home as the couples’ “heroes.” “There’s still a sadness” in giving up their babies, “but they know it’s bringing someone else joy.”
The couples “are so thankful and happy to have a baby. . . . What we say is there’s no such thing as an unwanted baby,” Saccone-Lanza said, and racial and congenital considerations aren’t a concern.
The home uses the open-adoption process, in which its residents go through profiles of prospective adoptive parents to see who meets their desires. Once the decision is reached, they engage in activities together, including dining out, going to the park or to medical appointments.
Two of the moms sat down to speak with The Wanderer.
Hayli Smith, 22, said, “I guess I was going through some stuff” personally “that ended up not really being able to stay” with her own family.
Twenty-four weeks pregnant at the July 17 interview, she said, “I honesty have no idea” where she would have gone without the Lamb of God home. “I’m really grateful for this home and everyone who . . . supports us here.”
Smith said she works 40 hours a week at a health-food store and is “trying to save money, basically, and paying off my school debt.” She had previous experience doing behavioral therapy with autistic children.
She was thinking of choosing the name Anabell for her baby girl, she said, and the adoptive mom coincidentally asked her, “What do you think of ‘Anabell’?”
There are 11 chickens in the coop in the backyard. “We like to go pick eggs from the chickens,” Smith said.
Saccone-Lanza said the home’s garden has celery, onions, squash, green beans, artichokes, and tomatoes.
Meditation
Erin Bell, 26, said she came to Lamb of God when she was three months pregnant and was six months at the time of the interview.
Learning she was pregnant, she said she went to her church, which placed her with a pregnancy-care center, which put her in touch with Lamb of God’s facilitator. “I’m so happy to be here.”
Bell said she works part-time at a grocery store and is taking an English course in school.
She looked through about 20 profiles of prospective parents, she said, then chose “the second profile I read. . . . What they wrote is what I was looking for.”
They got together at a bistro along with both sets of grandparents. Meeting the grandparents “was so important to me,” she said.
“We pray before dinner” at the home, Bell said, and she’d done a devotional that morning with the Bible and prayers.
Residents meditate on one word a week, and the current word was “joy,” she said.
The home sometimes gets a call from the New York-based Sisters of Life inquiring about sending a mom there, Saccone-Lanza said. If it seems the right fit, “we figure it out” how to pay for the transportation across the country.
If a Lamb of God resident breaks substance-abuse rules, Saccone-Lanza said, she generally is dismissed from the home — although there might be an exception — but she’s not just shrugged off. “We try to get them into an environment” more suitable to their situation.
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