Door of Hope a Ray of Light for Teen Mothers : Caring: Salvation Army program houses young, unwed mothers and teaches them how to cope with their new responsibilities.

Nobody had told Marisela Gallegos about birth control, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when she got pregnant at the age of 15, just like her mother and younger sister, who next month expects her first child.

When Marisela was 13, she was “taken away” from her drug-addicted mother by social workers. Today, the 17-year-old recalls it as one of the harder times in her life.

She moved in with her grandmother, where she watched her live-in uncle shoot heroin. She eventually ended up in a foster home, but was unwanted once she got pregnant.

Marisela was in her first trimester and living in her hometown of Indio when a social worker referred her to the Salvation Army’s Door of Hope program for young, unwed mothers in San Diego.

“This is a place where a cycle is broken,” said Mariam Rudd, program administrator. “The girls have an opportunity here to break what has been the norm and find out they are good people. They have been beaten down so badly and, as far as they know, they’re worthless. They feel all they have to give is their bodies.”

Marisela and 23 other unwed mothers and mothers-to-be live free on the Door of Hope grounds in Kearny Mesa. Many services are offered at the 6-acre facility, but the program focuses on mothers from the ages of 11 to 18--and their children.

A young woman in the Door of Hope program will begin her stay with residential prenatal care, Lamaze classes, counseling and family support. The girls are seen by doctors and nurses from Mercy Hospital, which is situated by the Door of Hope.

After the baby is born, the mother will continue to receive psychological counseling. Child-abuse prevention services also are offered to help make the future better for mother and child.

The young women also attend school as part of the program, and are encouraged to get their high school diplomas. But most of them have trouble passing their classes, Rudd said.

“Very few and far-between are ‘good girls’ who accidentally got in trouble,” she said.

Birth control is also stressed for these women, Rudd said. Many of the teen-agers have contracted a venereal disease, which can harm newborns, so safe sex is taught.

“This program lets me know I need my education for my baby,” Marisela said. “I have learned that my baby comes first. . . . I have changed my ways in my attitude, and how I will react when people do things I don’t like, instead of just beating them up.”

“I’ve changed because of Monique (her daughter),” she said. “I just don’t blow up any more. I was really mean.”

Marisela, a street-smart Latina, belonged to a gang and was considered one of the tough girls at school, she said. But she didn’t take drugs because she saw what they did to her mother and uncle.

Rudd said many of the girls at Door of Hope are former gang members, so the wearing of certain colors is not allowed.

“We do have some gang kids, so we don’t allow colors or gang writing,” Rudd said. “We can’t have gang wars here, we have to have babies.”

When Marisela got pregnant, she realized it was time to grow up and become more mature, she said.

“When I found out I was pregnant, I felt scared, but then again, I was happy,” Marisela said. “I thought (Door of Hope) would be a pretty good place for me to get away for a while.”

She said she has changed a great deal in the nearly two years she has been at the campus, and has taken on many new responsibilities.

For one, she takes classes at a continuation school in hopes of getting her high school diploma. At the same time, she takes parenting and stress-management classes at Door of Hope.

But her biggest responsibility is caring for 17-month-old Monique without the support of the infant’s father. Monique, a very active toddler, sees her father in Indio twice a month, but the relationship between him and Marisela was severed long ago.

Marisela, who has never met her own father, plans to live with her new boyfriend, Arnulfo, after she leaves Door of Hope. She said she is ready to start a new life, and that she knows it will be hard work. But hard work is really nothing new to her.

As a child, she took care of her younger siblings for her mother, who is deaf.

Marisela is fluent in Spanish, English and sign language. Although it has been suggested that she become an interpreter, she wants to work in child care.

Reflecting on her own childhood, Marisela said she was always moved back and forth from her mother to her grandmother.

“Sometimes it was happy, and then there were bad times,” she said. “The really bad times were when (I) got taken away from my mom. At times when I’m mad, I say I hate this place, but now that I’m leaving soon, I know this helps me a lot.”

Marisela has been at Door of Hope longer than most and has taken classes in sewing, cooking, shopping and independent living.

Rudd said Marisela is doing exceptionally well in the program, which serves San Diego, Imperial, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, but that not all of the young mothers find such success.

Among the young women who have entered the program, Rudd has seen a pregnant 11-year-old and a handful of pregnant 12-year-olds. She said the average age of the program’s unwed mothers is 14 to 15, but that “they are getting younger all the time.”

One 14-year-old, who had a severe drug problem, delivered a baby with undeveloped lungs and ran away after the baby was born, Rudd said. She turned herself in, is back on drugs and pregnant again.

Rudd said most of the girls do not face such severe problems, and all of them are given a lot of love and attention at Door of Hope.

Volunteers at Door of Hope can’t help but become attached to the young women and their babies.

Ola Morton has been a foster grandmother at Door of Hope for 15 years. She spends four hours every day with the babies.

She rocks a 3-week-old girl in her arms while the baby’s mother is at school.

“The babies come and go, and that hurts sometimes when they go,” Morton said. “You try not to become attached, but they just won’t let loose of you.”