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Portraits By William Dietrich

Bob Lichtenham

Offers a father's care to the abandoned and addicted

FATHERHOOD IS a daunting responsibility for any man, but Bob Lichtenhan has more grit than most. At age 47, gay and single, he should have completed this past week adoption of a 2 ½-year-old boy named Alex.

When pregnant, the mother was addicted to methamphetamines, drugs that affect the baby by killing appetite and slowing development.

"It's scary," Lichtenhan says. "Even though I've had him since he was an infant, the step of adoption is a big responsibility." But what it means is that Alex is growing up normal — he's recovered from his mother's drug use, father and son have already been to Disneyland, and Alex was scheduled to be a ringbearer at a recent family wedding.

Lichtenhan was raised in Long Beach, Calif., and first lived in Seattle as a flight attendant. Now working in management services and living in Belltown, he became involved with drug-addicted babies a decade ago when he began volunteering at the Pediatric Interim Care Center in Kent, possibly the only such facility in the nation.

PICC was founded by two Kent women, Barbara Drennen and Barbara Richards, who had become expert in caring for drug-affected babies. It has cared for 1,800 babies since opening in 1990, but estimates Washington has 12,000 newborns each year addicted to or affected by illicit drugs. Bob joined its board in 2000.

Lichtenhan became licensed for infant foster care — his sexual orientation was not an issue — and took care of his first baby for a year and a half. Because the infant was Native American, a couple of that race got preference for adoption.

Next came a baby he kept for four months, who was then moved to Colorado.

Alex was born on the last day of 2003, and Bob took over his care a little more than a month later. This time he's enjoyed the support of the mother's family for adoption.

Drug-affected babies can be slower to develop, Lichtenhan says, but typically there is no lasting brain damage. "My goal is that he discovers what makes him happy and purposeful."

Will it be hard being a gay father? "I don't know what people will assume, but I'll take it as it comes," he says. "Right now, I'm just a single dad."