Joe Scheller

Shaina Alloway, left, Reese Reed and Morgan Brodt laugh while watching their babies play inside of the Hope House where residents in the ABCs program at the Ohio Reformatory for Women live, in Marysville. “We’re all in prison here, we all struggle, but raising a child here is a whole different struggle that people wouldn’t understand if they hadn’t been there,” Brodt said. “And to have that with each other, it’s a bond like you wouldn’t… Like we’re learning, we’re learning to not just be parents, but parents in prison and we’re doing it together.”

Steve Brown walks towards the Hope House at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in an Easter Bunny suit, in Marysville. The infants regularly see a pediatrician and are enrolled in Early Head Start, the school readiness program. Additionally the program aims to give the children as normal of a childhood experience as possible. This includes celebrating holidays with crafts and activities, and visits from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Pediatrician Andrew Searcy, right, and Abby Small talk during a schedule medical checkup for her 8-month old daughter Gianna while officer Joe Bisang attends his station inside of the ABCs nursery program at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville.

Morgan Brodt kisses her son Axel inside of the Hope House at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville. “Even being in prison I’m more free now than I was in the madness of my addiction,” Brodt said.

A dream catcher is seen hung in the window of Reese Reed's room inside the Hope House at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville, Ohio.

Abby Small holds her 2-year-old daughter Quam Judah while her father and mother Tom and Terri Small hold another of Smalls daughter’s, Gianna Judah, while the two children meet each other for the first time at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville.

Inmates move about the kitchen inside of the Hope House at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. Individuals in the ABCs program purchase their own food from a dispensary inside of the prison and take it back with them to the Hope House, where they live.

Morgan Brodt talks with Corrections Officer Ernest Vehorn while holding her son, Axel, inside of the Hope House at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville. “Whenever we get somebody in over [here], the line I always use is, ‘If you’re going to be in this place, you just won the lottery,’” Vehorn said.

Morgan Brodt, third from right, attends a guest-presentation on parenting in a classroom at the Ohio Reformatory for Women, in Marysville. Inmates from both the nursery program and general population are enrolled in the classes together, Laura Pearce said, an educator at the prison, but that can cause issues. Pierce said that mothers who do not have access to their children find it difficult to hear the nursery program mothers complain about being tired or their baby having colic. “They have the privilege, but not everyone does.”

Abby Small, center, hugs her mother and daughter after saying goodbye after a family visitation day for inmates in the ABCs program at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville.

Shaina Alloway, left, Reese Reed and Morgan Brodt joke with each other while watching a baby monitor inside of the Hope House at the Ohio Women's Reformatory, in Marysville.