When Bail Becomes a Barrier
A Personal Account of Pregnancy and my Husband’s Pre-Trial Detention
6/4/20255 min read
When Bail Becomes a Barrier to a Family’s Most Sacred Moments: A Personal Account of Pregnancy and my Husband’s Pre-Trial Detention
My husband is currently in pre-trial detention due to an exceedingly high bail - an amount far beyond our financial means. I am pregnant with my first child, and we are facing the painful possibility that he will remain incarcerated during the birth of our baby in August 2025.
I am not here to make a case for guilt or innocence, nor a legal argument about the justice of bail amounts. Rather I am here to share the implications for a family, and particularly a pregnant mother accompanying a loved one through pretrial detention. My husband is being held, not based on a conviction, but due to an unattainable monetary figure. This figure stands in the way of a father being present at his child’s birth.
There are multiple bodies of research which fit within the framework of our story and illustrate my personal experience. Some of this research studies and documents:
The emotional, psychological and developmental impacts for the child when a father is absent during the
prenatal period, birth and early childhood as well as the implications for both parents.
The effects of pre-trial detention on non-incarcerated family members.
The impact of a mother’s stress during pregnancy on the developing baby.
As I navigate this experience firsthand, I will return to discussion on these and other topics, as well as sharing our personal story.
The Cost of Absence: A Father Separated Before Birth
Bail is intended to ensure that an accused person returns to court and that the public is protected. If bail has been offered, there is a number at which the legal system has decided that the public is not in danger and the accused person is not a flight risk. But when bail is set so high that it is impossible for the family to pay, it ceases to function as a release option - it acts in the same way that a “No Bail” charge does. It becomes, effectively, a sentence served before conviction.
My husband has now been in county jail for almost 3 months, and the effect on his own health has been substantial. He has faced for the first time the grim reality of life behind bars, and has had to adapt to the harsh internal culture - he has even faced death threats from other inmates. But these challenges do not compare, he has told me, to the difficulty of separation from his family - particularly from myself, his 10 year old daughter, and our unborn child.
Facing the possibility of his absence at the birth and during the early stages of our child’s development has a powerfully depressing effect on the hope, faith and courage that he needs to prepare for his trial.
In a letter on Wednesday, May 28th 2025, he wrote:
“I know you can sense my suffering, I am tested by all things at the moment.
The absolute truth is my need to be there when the baby comes. The idea of not is dread, truly. It plunges me into a place I know I can’t return from.
I don’t know how I could ever face you if that comes to pass.
The Invisible Toll
Our situation is not unique, in that about 75% of people in California jails are held pretrial.1 Yet there is something extremely bizarre about the situation I find myself in - the life we have led up to this point contains no warning signs of this predicament. We have always lived simply in our marriage - we might be described as “hippies” were it not for many of our conservative values. We have a large organic garden, chickens, and a small produce business which we run jointly. Our favorite hobby is oil-painting, and we used to spend weekend nights painting and listening to podcasts. We are both college educated, my husband holding a Master’s degree in education. Our dream for the future is to own a small farm in Tennessee, and to raise our children outside of the big city. We had been planning intensively for the conception and birth of our baby - we plan to have a natural home birth with the assistance of a midwife.
Shockingly, I find myself now entering the final months of my pregnancy under circumstances that are opposite in every way to the vision we had together. It is disorienting even in my best moments, and leads me to anxiety and grief at less guarded moments.
Because of my own lived experience and through the scientific research that is readily available, I am aware of how maternal stress during pregnancy affects fetal development. Prenatal stress can cause adverse outcomes at birth, as well as behavioural and physiological challenges during early childhood development.2 I prioritize activities that stabilize and mitigate stress for the sake of my child, but it is an unavoidable consequence of being my husband’s primary support system and advocate. Not only this, but my own grief about potentially giving birth without him by my side cannot be overstated.
Additionally, paternal absence appears to be particularly detrimental during early childhood.3 The probability, should my husband not receive a bail reduction, of his complete absence during the first months of our child’s life is very high. How are these effects to be weighed? The justice system which is meant to protect us with its determinations about bail and pretrial detention is capable of error. In cases like mine, how are the health consequences for our family, and especially for our unborn child, to be considered?
My difficulties are compounded by the limitations placed on our communication. My husband and I speak on the phone for short, 15 minute intervals once or twice a day, and are permitted two, 30 minute visits on the weekends. Discussing the personal trials we are facing, planning for the arrival of our child within the present restrictions, and connecting to share the emotional burden, is nearly impossible within these short intervals. This forces us to come to terms with the future in isolation from one another. We correspond extensively through letters, but the jail’s mail system is so delayed that some of my letters take two months to reach him. Of over 50 letters I have sent, only 20 have been received.
My Hopes and Prayers
I am not arguing for or against pre-trial detention. I am searching for answers to these questions: If bail has been offered, should it, in practice, be an insurmountable barrier, especially when the outcomes are so intimate, so immediate, and so irreparable? If bail has been offered, should the only factor separating my husband from his child at birth be our economic status? How should the impact (present and future) on our family be weighed in, when my husband has not yet been convicted of a crime?
We fight an uphill battle, and our only recourse at the moment is hope and prayer. I am praying for resilience for myself and my husband, and the best outcome for our unborn child.
You can also follow my story on Substack https://substack.com/@deliveringhopeblog or Patreon https://www.patreon.com/c/DeliveringHope
