Proposed Jennings County maternity home will ‘walk with expecting mothers’

By Natalie Hoefer

The statistic is sobering: Jennings County has the second highest teen pregnancy rate in the state, according to Indiana’s 2017 Natality Report.

Peggy Dyer-Bland’s story is also tragic: Pregnant at 15 after being raped by a trusted family friend in 1968, she surrendered the baby girl for adoption.

But those two elements have merged into a story of good, of help, of hope—Missy’s Hope.

Missy’s Hope Maternity Home, for which Dyer-Bland is executive director and visionary, is the name of a non-profit, faith-based maternity home for young women ages 15 and older experiencing an unplanned pregnancy. It is named for the daughter she offered for adoption, named Melissa Dawn by the adoptive parents.

“I was lucky—my parents kept me at home while I was pregnant,” said Dyer-Bland. “A lot of girls my age back then weren’t so lucky.

“So it’s been a dream of mine for a long time to open a maternity home in Jennings County where the girls can come, stay and be loved, cared for and helped.”

Dyer-Bland began plans for a four-resident maternity home in January 2020. Since then, a 501(c)3 license has been obtained, a business plan is in place and a board has been established to help drive the mission.

Two main tasks now remain: raising the funds to build, buy or rent space, then acquiring and preparing that space and hiring staff to make Missy’s Hope Maternity Home a reality.

‘We’re going to love and care for these girls’

Dyer-Bland’s vision is to provide women from Jennings and its surrounding counties experiencing an unplanned pregnancy with much more than a place to live.

“We’re going to love and care for these girls,” she said. “When I was younger, a [pregnant, unwed] girl got sent away. They were not treated nice at all. I don’t want that for these girls.”

She also noted the increased urgency for the need, given the overturning of Roe v. Wade this summer.

“They may have a temporary ban now” on Indiana’s law protecting most babies from abortion, Dyer-Bland said. “But we really need to walk with these expecting mothers now more than ever.”

Her words echo the Missy’s Hope motto: “We believe no woman should have to walk the path of an unplanned pregnancy alone.”

The organization’s website (supportmissyshope.org) explains the many services the maternity home will offer the women it serves:

“Our goal is to assist [residents] in setting and achieving personal goals in the five areas of wellness: spiritual, physical, intellectual, emotional and vocational.

“While at Missy’s Hope, women will learn valuable life skills like budgeting, meal planning, preparing for job interviews and continuing their education while pregnant or parenting. Counselors will help women with their emotional challenges—not just the pregnancy, but also other problems or issues they might need to process.”

Dyer-Bland added that the home “will offer Bible studies, but we’ll also require [the women] to go to the church of their choice or to watch a service online.”

The member of First Baptist Church in North Vernon emphasized that women of all faiths—or no faith—will be welcome.

Such interfaith openness is already in action on the Missy’s Hope Maternity Home board, which includes two members of St. Mary Parish in North Vernon.

‘A place to focus on themselves and their baby’

“I met Peggy at a Jennings County Pro-Life adoption-promotion event in January 2020—she was one of the speakers,” said St. Mary parishioner Kelly Elkins. She serves as secretary of the Missy’s Hope board and is a member of Jennings County Pro-Life.

“We have a great need in this county to help break the cycle of unwed teenage mothers living in tenuous or temporary circumstances,” she said. “Having a maternity home here will give them a place to focus on themselves and their baby and improve their self-respect. They’ll learn to take better care of themselves and love themselves, so they can provide a better future and not necessarily depend on a man or the welfare system.

“And it’s an opportunity for them to receive counseling and spiritual guidance to help decide whether to keep their baby or put their baby up for adoption.”

Fellow parishioner and Missy’s Hope board president John Webster agrees.

“I think [a maternity home] is very much needed in our county,” said Webster, a retired judge of the Jennings County Circuit Court. “It’s very important for young ladies [in an unplanned pregnancy] who need somewhere to turn.

“There’s never been anything like this in our community. It will be well-used once we get it up and going.”

Dyer-Bland noted that Missy’s Hope has already had two women inquire about the maternity home.

“We had to turn them away, of course,” she said, a situation she hopes will change by early 2023.

“We’re looking to buy or build or rent space with four bedrooms and at least two bathrooms,” Dyer-Bland described. “We’re also reaching out to businesses—we need big donations to get this started.”

Becoming ‘the parent we know they can be’

To help make Missy’s Hope Maternity Home become a reality, a fundraiser banquet and silent auction will take place at St. Mary Parish in North Vernon on Nov. 3. Dyer-Bland will offer the keynote address, and a talk will be given by Columbus Regional Health labor and delivery nurse, Alicia Tembo.

Guests will also have the chance to meet Missy’s Hope oversight board member Melissa Coles. The Columbus native’s story of offering her son for adoption after changing her mind on an abortion table in Indianapolis is told in the documentary, I Lived on Parker Avenue, and in the recently released motion picture, Lifemark.

“Everyone involved in Missy’s Hope has such a huge heart,” said Coles. “I stand by them and what they are doing.

“This home has to been seen through to the end,” she added. “It’s so needed and is going to help so many [women in an unplanned pregnancy] make the right choice for their child.

“And if that choice is to raise their child, [Missy’s Hope] will teach women how to become the parent we know they can be.”
 

(Missy’s Hope Fundraiser Banquet will be held at St. Mary Parish, 212 Washington St., in North Vernon, starting at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 3. Doors open and a silent auction begin at 5:30 p.m. Dinner follows at 6 p.m. Tickets are $25. Reservations by Oct. 30 are strongly encouraged for planning purposes, although walk-ins are welcome. For more information or to reserve tickets, contact missyshope4u@gmail.com or via Facebook at Missy’s Hope Maternity Home. For more information on Missy’s Hope Maternity Home, go to supportmissyshope.org.) †