NATURAL MOM: Genavieve Diggs came close to backing out.
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TV’s newest crop of unwed mothers could make childless couples think twice about the adoption process.
“The Baby Wait” — a new Logo series from the producers of “16 & Pregnant” — goes inside the sometimes heart-wrenching window of time when birth mothers can legally change their minds and take their babies back.
In New York, as in many states, that period is 30 days after birth.
“I think we are showing what true life is,” says Paul Siebold, a former publicist for WOR radio, who goes through the open adoption process on tonight’s “sneak preview” episode.
Siebold and his domestic partner, Mark Krieger, who share an apartment in Hell’s Kitchen, had already struck a deal with 18 year-old Genavieve Diggs of Plainfield, Conn., when they were asked to participate in the show.
“We thought, ‘What a wonderful way to chronicle what we are going through,” Krieger, a technology and project manager, told The Post.
“And what a wonderful thing to have for later to show our daughter how loved she is and how selfless her mom is.”
But the months-long process of filming also exposed the couple’s growing anxiety as they waited each day to see if Diggs would back out of the deal.
At the hospital, “when Morgan was put in our arms, all these hopes and dreams started bubbling up for us,” Siebold said. “But while you [still] have those 30 days, it’s always in the back of your mind: ‘What if Gen calls?’”
She nearly did.
Diggs, who is still working toward her GED, admits that she often considered reneging on the arrangement and raising Morgan on welfare and food stamps.
“I honestly did obsess about it,” she told The Post. “Especially that first day coming home. I came very close.
“There would be times I would be in my room by myself looking at pictures or watching videos and I would start crying thinking, ‘Why do I hurt so much? I miss her. I need her back in my life.’
“But at the same time, another little voice snapped in the back of my head and said, ‘You can’t take care of a baby.’
“And I wanted her to have the best life she could possibly have.”
Less than two weeks before the birth, the teen placed a desperate posting on an Internet message board for expectant mothers, confessing that her own mom was dying of cancer.
Her father, she said, was “an alcoholic, and is already raising my sister’s son because she was on drugs.
“I just don’t know how to deal with this. I did a bunch of horrible stuff to deal with my stress and I’m scared I’m going to go back to it,” she said.
Youngsters like Diggs, producer Liz Gateley says, need to be treated “with kid gloves.”
“There are moments that you have to turn the cameras off and you have to comfort them,” Gately told The Post.
She says the show was originally pitched to focus on same-sex couples adopting, but has since widened its focus.
“I don’t think we’re going to scare people out of the [adoption] process,” said Brent Zacky, senior vice president of programming for Logo.
“The desire to have a child and create a family is deeply rooted in many people. And I think if you have that desire, you’re going to pursue it, knowing that there’s some uncertainty in the process.”