Growing up, Kristin had a seemingly normal life. She had two older siblings and two loving parents who were active pastors in their Church. Yet everything isn’t always as it seems.
When Kristin was 10, the truth of her parents’ relationship came to light. Home early from school one day, the doorbell rang, and unassuming, she answered to find a man serving divorce papers meant for her mother. Kristin was devastated to realize her parents had decided to separate, and her father was planning to move a few hours away. She had always been a daddy’s girl, and to watch her father leave was overwhelming and pushed her on a path she never thought she’d walk.
Searching for Worth
Once Kristin moved away to college, she found it hard to navigate the regular hardships that come along with being a college student and with continuously managing the repercussions of the separation of her parents. She was searching for her value and worth outside of Church and academics and felt she’d found it in a friends-with-benefits relationship. After a while, Kristin eventually met her now-husband and they began dating, leaving her friends-with-benefits relationship behind. But along with Kristin’s search for worth, her boyfriend had a hard time trusting her due to his own past relationships and so after only a couple of months of dating and right before Spring break, he ended the relationship.
Once again devastated, Kristin spent her Spring break with her old friend-with-benefits trying to forget about her relationship. When she came back to school, her ex-boyfriend reached out to her and said he wanted to give their relationship another try and elated, she agreed.
Expecting the Unexpected
Not long after, Kristin found out she was pregnant. She can’t remember what led her to take a pregnancy test but she did, and it came back positive. When she went to the OBGYN with her boyfriend, it was quite obvious she was too far along for the baby to be his. Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach as she knew she would have to have one of the hardest conversations of her life. When her boyfriend asked “Is this baby someone else’s?” she answered “yes,” barely able to get the word out.
Still uncertain about what to do and feeling so hopeless a week later, her boyfriend called to tell her “I still want to marry you, but I won’t raise another man’s baby.” She knew what he was asking of her and she felt so lost, asking herself how she got there. When she went to talk with her mom, she didn’t find the comfort and support she was seeking so desperately. Instead, always having been the “fixer” in the family, her mom Googled the nearest abortion clinic and scheduled an appointment for her. The day of, her dad drove up several hours to her mom’s house to pray over her belly, asking God to take the baby back to Heaven with Him. Tears streamed down Kristin’s face as every heart-wrenching moment passed.
Most women, when heading in to have an abortion don’t know the full weight of what they’re doing or have been lied to in the name of convenience. But Kristin knew. She knew this was a child inside of her, but she had nowhere to turn. Neither her parents, her boyfriend, nor her friends offered any true relief or assistance in choosing another option.
The Unforgettable Moment
Walking into the clinic she was shocked by how packed it was. It was a standing room only and next to her was a girl who couldn’t have been older than 14 with a massive belly and her parents sitting with her. When her name was called, Kristin was led into a cold room where she was to have her abortion. No one looked at her, no one tried to console her, no one showed much of an ounce of humanity to her or gave her the option to back out if she didn’t feel as though she could follow through with it. And so her abortion began.
Once her abortion was finished, she was wheeled into another room to wait until her anesthetics wore off along with all the other girls who had finished their procedures. She vividly remembers many of them crying and one girl rushing to the bathroom as blood pooled at her feet every step of the way. It was a horrifying scene and she couldn’t help but cry silently in her grief as it washed over her.
From her parents separating, to her father moving hours away, to the friends-with-benefits relationship that left her feeling more empty than before, to her current relationship with a man who wouldn’t help her with a pregnancy that wasn’t his, to her mom trying to “fix” her problem instead of supporting her, to her dad driving hours to pray over her baby as she prepared to leave for her appointment, to the fear of churchgoers finding out she was pregnant, to still feeling worthless, hopeless, and alone, to that final breaking moment. The moment her baby was removed from her body and she was wheeled into the waiting room. The moment everything that had ever happened to her and held weight over her life finally came flooding out.
Her mom dropped her off at her house after her appointment and she sat alone all night in her grief. For 10 years, she kept the weight of her abortion to herself, never showing the truth of what happened to her not only physically but emotionally. For 10 years she grieved alone and it wasn’t until she finally told her older brother, Josh, that she had had an abortion and sought counseling at a local pregnancy center, that she began to find true hope & healing.
Fueling Our Purpose
It is stories like these and countless others that fuel us in our mission to serve women in our Greater Phoenix community. No woman should ever have to feel the burden and loneliness that Kristin did. Kristin deserved better, and so does each woman who walks through our clinic doors. Every woman who is sitting alone at home, pregnancy test in hand, wondering what to do deserves to know they have choices. And if they’ve made a choice they regret, they deserve the hope and healing that Kristin has found.
You are helping women like Kristin with every prayer said, every hour volunteered, and every dollar given. We wouldn’t be here almost 40 years later without our generous donors, volunteers, staff, and community Churches. And we wouldn’t be able to open our 4th medical clinic in North Phoenix, allowing us to remain accessible and visible to the additional estimated 2,000+ women we’ll serve at this location.
So we ask you to partner with us whether it’s through Praying, Volunteering, or Donating at our 4th medical clinic, to join us in this FIGHT FOR LIFE. We won’t sit idly by as women continue to face unplanned pregnancies and experience the emotional and physical horrors of abortion.
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
