Childhaven helps grateful mother work toward reuniting her family

Dashing around the house, grabbing one book after another and listening eagerly as his mom reads to him, the 2-year-old offered no clue.

"Truck!" he says, jabbing a finger at a picture on the page.

Life in this Burien apartment looks pretty normal, even though the past says it's not. Little Christian Tittel was born on methadone. His mother, then a homeless 28-year-old, had thought months earlier that her life would be — should be — over.

As it turned out, life had just begun anew for Gabrielle Tittel.

"I'm starting from scratch," Tittel said, with equal parts pride and shame.

Childhaven, one of 13 agencies in The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy drive, has been there to help. The agency, which serves children and families in King County, has not only provided specialized day care for Christian through its Drug Affected Infant Program, but it has offered a helping hand to Gabrielle in so many ways it almost can't be measured.

The shirt she's wearing? From Childhaven's donation pile. Christian's outfit? A "graduation" gift when he moved up a class.

"I don't know if people donating know what sort of an impact they're having on people's lives," Gabrielle said.

When she's struggling with typical parenting hurdles — like getting Christian to sleep, or wondering whether his speech is developing normally — all she has to do is ask. When she runs out of laundry soap or diapers, Childhaven helps with that, too. It's all part of the focus on improving the whole family, agency officials say.

"We're so grateful," Gabrielle said. "I tell them all the time, 'You guys are just like family.' "

Family is what Gabrielle lost during her years of drug use, and what she most wants. It's what keeps her focused.

On her kitchen table, next to a stack of books with titles like "Shame and Guilt" and "Stumbling on Happiness," is a photo of a smiling blond girl — Juliette, Gabrielle's first child. She is the sister Christian has never met, and the daughter with whom Gabrielle wants so much to reunite. Juliette, now 7, is a symbol of Gabrielle's past, and of her future.

Gabrielle begins her story with an explanation, not an excuse. There is addiction in her family. She "knew better and did it anyway."

At 16, Gabrielle dropped out of Bellevue High School; by 20, she was hooked on heroin. Crack came next. The lifestyle was harsh. She lived between the streets and friends' couches until deciding, at age 21, that it was time to get clean and sober.

For three years, she did it, becoming pregnant with Juliette along the way.

"My mom was a single parent. I had thought, no sweat, I could do it too," she recalled. "I underestimated how difficult it was going to be."

A week before her 25th birthday, she started using heroin again.

Gabrielle lost her job, dropped out of community college, where she was studying to be a surgical technician, and once again was walking the streets. One day, her mother drove by her Capitol Hill apartment and noticed a window was broken.

"She said she knew she had to get my daughter out of there," Gabrielle recalled.

Her mother immediately filed for custody of Juliette. The fact that Gabrielle didn't show up for most of the court hearings speaks volumes about the hold drugs had on her life.

"I was attacked, assaulted and robbed. I had just about every horrible experience you can have, and I still didn't get sober ... That is the really sad truth about addiction."

After losing Juliette, she moved to Mexico with a boyfriend who had family there. The idea was to get clean. The reality, she said, was a relationship that turned bad. Somehow, some way, she knew she had to leave. But first, she took a pregnancy test. "Positivo," it said.

"I remember holding that piece of paper and crying," she said. "I thought, I can't do this again."

Then she had a revelation: "It was an opportunity to do things differently."

She made it back to Washington and, after calling a doctor, switched her heroin for methadone. The crack was harder to kick, but she said she did that, too.

"I thought using drugs and not using drugs is like a switch and you just turn it off," she said. "It's so much bigger than that."

Think of it as a huge rewiring project, where every old connection has to be replaced, every mental pathway must be rerouted, and every frayed wire — all the bad choices, betrayals, and horror that make up the addict's life — are held up for all to see. Most fail at least once.

Having Christian, Gabrielle was determined not to relapse. As a new mother, she was eligible for drug-treatment housing, where she lived with 14 other women and their children, all in similar circumstances. The program requires daily attendance at drug-treatment sessions. That's what led her to Childhaven.

"The child is here, really, so the parent can follow through with their treatment, which is time-consuming" said Vicki Nino Osby, of Childhaven.

Children are eligible from infancy through age six, when they go off to public schools. Upon arriving, they are screened for medical problems, developmental delays, hearing and vision. Specialists, such as speech therapists, are available for kids who need them. Each child's progress is tracked daily, which makes improvement — or any setback — easy to see.

Childhaven sets goals with the parents, too, like finding a job. Gabrielle's goal is to reunite with her mother and Juliette, who moved to the East Coast before Christian was born.

Gabrielle knows Juliette has suffered because of her drug abuse, and it's a source of tremendous guilt. Although she's worked hard to repair the relationship, she knows there's a lot more work to be done.

Gabrielle knows that if she relapses, "everything's off the table."

For now, Gabrielle finds hope in the little things, like how well Christian is doing at Childhaven.

"Some days, I think this world is so hard," she said. "And then I think people are so great, too."

Maureen O'Hagan: 206-464-2562 or mohagan@seattletimes.com