After saving 661 babies, foster mom finds herself subject of a movie

Published online on Monday, Nov. 09, 2009

COSTA MESA, Calif. -- Debbe Magnusen was convinced she was going to die. She weighed 360 pounds and she was having trouble breathing.

The medication she was taking for a damaged heart valve had slowed her metabolism to a snail's pace. She needed gastric bypass surgery to get rid of the fat, shrink her stomach and save her life.

Only one problem: Debbe was terrified she would die in surgery.

It was a Catch 22, she thought. Surgery or no surgery, I'm going to die.

But she couldn't die. There were still babies to save.

Then a light bulb went off.

Debbe called a TV producer she knew and told him she wanted to have gastric surgery and let a camera crew follow her into the operating room. "I figured if I had a camera crew with me, they're not gonna kill me," she said.

As a backup, she had "I (heart) Dr. Leport" painted on her toenail so the surgeon could see it while he carved away, in hopes that he would be more careful.

It apparently worked. Debbe lived. Her surgery wound up on a TV show on the Lifetime network. And she is now 180 pounds thinner and breathing easy.

I tell you that story because it is vintage Debbe.

What sort of person comes up with a plan to bring a TV camera crew into the operating room with them for protection?

Someone who thinks way outside the box, that's who.

Someone who sees a newspaper article about a baby found dead in a file cabinet in Yorba Linda and, instead of just shaking her head in sorrow, or ranting about the sick mother, starts a hotline to save future babies from such a fate.

Someone who then goes on TV to invite pregnant women who are desperate or in trouble to drop their newborn off in a whicker laundry basket on her Costa Mesa porch, ring the doorbell and run away. No questions asked.

Debbe tells me she has a survivor mentality.

And because of that, 661 babies have survived.

It was a TV movie waiting to happen. And now there will be one.

Debbe flew last week to Manhattan to meet with the woman writing the script. She can't give out details yet on when it will air or what channel it will be on or what actress will play her. But actor John Stamos, otherwise known as Uncle Jesse on the TV sitcom "Full House," is producing it.

Besides picking Debbe's brain, the writer has interviewed many of the people who are part of Debbe's journey. That includes the countless couples that have adopted babies Debbe saved since starting the Project Cuddle hotline in 1996.

It includes Stamos, who, as Project Cuddle's national spokesman, once "kidnapped" Debbe, taking her to Disneyland where Oprah was waiting along with 171 of the kids who have been rescued by Project Cuddle.

And it includes some of the 1,500 volunteers Project Cuddle has nationwide. Volunteers field 1-5 calls a day, unless Debbe is on CNN or "Geraldo" or "48 Hours;" then they can take up to 50 a day. (Debbe says she was "Oprah-fied" after her visit with the daytime talk doyenne, getting thousands of calls).

The average age of the caller is 22. A "fair amount" of them got pregnant by date rape or in an abusive relationship. About half of the women already have children and feel like they are not in a position to keep another one.

"And then there are a lot of good girls. It happens to the good girls too. The college students," Debbe says.

Baby No. 660 was born to a 13-year-old girl in Orange County, Calif., just a few weeks ago. It's just one of countless stories that are hard to wrap your mind around; like the young woman who called Project Cuddle from a pay phone with a newborn she smuggled out of her parents' house in a laundry basket.