Custody dad

RYAN AND SCOTTIE

Baby girl saves father’s life (really)

By Gaye Bunderson

Ryan Meier is a 36-year-old man who grew up without knowing the love of a parent. Both his biological mother and father deserted him when he was a child; and as a fourth grader, he ended up staying with a stepfather after his mother abdicated all her maternal responsibilities.

And yet, despite all that, the story of Ryan becoming a father himself is filled with a sweet paternal tenderness that restores one’s faith in the ability of a human being to overcome a painful past. But Ryan traveled a long, difficult road before his hardened heart became a fountain of fatherly love.

Deep in his mind, Ryan carried an unspoken thought: “If my biological parents don’t want anything to do with me, nobody else is going to want me.” He endured that hollow feeling, and starting at the age of 15, he regularly abused methamphetamines. At age 20, he got his first felony charge for possession of a controlled substance and was placed in an Ada County court program to help him get off drugs. “It was unsuccessful,” he said. “I couldn’t figure life out; I couldn’t connect the dots.”

His story after that is one of being in and out of incarceration, until in 2015, at age 30, he realized the hamster wheel of drugs and prison wasn’t amounting to much of a life. He got a job and said he was becoming “somewhat successful.”

But he made compromises with the lure of drugs.

“I thought if I had full-time employment and structure, I could use drugs like I wanted,” he said.

He also formed a relationship with a woman who in 2016 discovered she was pregnant with his child. At one point, the couple argued over something and Ryan’s temper got the better of him. He ended up with a felony domestic charge. He went to jail for 30 days, and after pleading guilty to aggravated assault, he was later sentenced to probation.

“I knew I couldn’t continue using drugs – and our baby was almost here. I decided ‘no more highs’. I was just focusing on work,” he said.

Scottie Marie Meier was born January 28, 2017, and Ryan realized, “I didn’t want my daughter to ever think, ‘My father doesn’t want anything to do with me’.”

He was able to be at the hospital when his daughter was