|
Sandra's Story
While I love my son dearly, I can’t pretend the way he came
into the world was anything close to ideal. I was eighteen years old, a first-semester student at Grand Valley State
University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I
became pregnant by my fiancé (now my husband) sometime in August of that year
and found out just before Halloween. Once my pregnancy test from the pharmacy turned blue, I remembered
seeing a place called Pregnancy Resource Center in town and figured that would
be a good place to start. I called the
number in the phone book to make an appointment. I noticed some strange things about the
receptionist’s language, but figured that must have been typical of all family
planning clinics for security purposes. I made an appointment for the following day.
I don’t know what I was planning to do once I walked through
the doors of the Resource Center. I
hadn’t considered abortion explicitly, but wanted to know more. Like so many confused young women who get
pregnant by accident, I just wanted to hear what my options were. That’s what the Resource Center
promised. What I got was entirely
different. While awaiting my results of the
same EPT test I’d already taken (the kind that takes like 2 minutes), I was
forced to watch these videos about “fetal pain” and saw a sensationalized
ultrasound that featured a fetus “retreating” from the abortion tools. The video also showed a lot of pictures of “aborted
fetuses” which I thought was weird because I’d seen my older sister’s 20 week
ultrasound and it hadn’t looked like this video at all.
The staff member eventually walked in and told me the test
was positive. I said, “Does that mean I’m
pregnant?” She said, “Your test was
positive.” She handed me a pamphlet
about adoption. I didn’t know what to
think. I asked her about abortion and
she told me that if I murdered my baby I would go to hell. She said I would probably get breast cancer
or commit suicide, or be infertile. It
didn’t seem right. I started to
leave. The woman told me that if I left, she’d call my parents and tell
them I was going to murder their grandbaby. I started to get sick. She
threatened to call me at home, to come to my house, and to tell all my friends
I was pregnant if I didn’t sign up. I
finally ran for it. Unfortunately they
had my phone number and address. They
called my dorm roommate and somehow got her to give them my parent’s phone
number. Fortunately, I had gotten to my
parents first and told them everything. They
hired a lawyer and got the Resource Center to stop harassing me.
I eventually did go to a Planned Parenthood and, through
talking to staff there, learned all about abortion, adoption, and
parenting. With the support of my
parents and my fiancé, as well as the wonderful people at the Planned Parenthood,
I decided to keep the baby. I think
maybe I was going to anyway, not that I have anything against abortion. It just wasn’t for me at that time. And I got amazing pre-natal care with a midwife
that the Planned Parenthood referred me to.
Sandra
Grand Rapids, MI |
