Nicole Rhyne is back in recovery and she is starting from the very beginning.
When you ask Nicole what's different this time for her, she has a very clear answer.
"It's my decision and I'm going to do something about it," Nicole said.
She found out in June, she was expecting her third child. Nicole doesn't have custody over her two previous children, both born drug-exposed.
"I wanted to do this without any medications as possible because that to me was another addiction in itself," Nicole said.
This time, she doesn't want her new baby boy to be taken from her.
"When it comes down to it, it's accepting that it's me making the decision and now it's me making the decision to do something about it," she said. "I have to. That's what I'm doing. It's literally a do or die situation. Not just for myself but for my son."
Nicole feels guilty though, she was using when she found out she was pregnant.
"He has no control over what I'm doing to him, what I was doing to him and that's something I'll have to live with and accept," Nicole said.
This time though, she's made the choice she's always wanted to make. Nicole believes her baby boy will be born drug-free. It's not only a goal for her but for Doctor Craig Towers at UT Medical Center.
"It's the success stories that keep me going that outweigh the ones where we don't succeed," Dr. Towers said in an ultrasound room in the High Risk Obstetrics wing.
Dr. Towers points out there is a difference between drug-dependent and drug-exposed.
"If you take 100 women who are using heroin off the street all the way up to delivery you don't have 100 babies go through NAS (neonatal abstinence syndrome). About 20 of those babies will not have NAS and what makes them different than the 80 that have NAS so they were drug exposed but they weren't drug-dependent in the fact they didn't show any evidence of withdrawal," he explained.
Towers is hopeful, with constant check ups and prenatal care, Nicole will give birth to a baby who won't need detox.
Nicole is ready to be a mom.
"I got to be my 100 percent so they can be my 100 percent," Nicole said. "I just want to live. I'm completely tired of existing. I'm ready to live."
Nicole is due in February and has already named her son Braelynn.