The Mother She Almost Wasn't
There is no Mother's Day without the moment a woman chose to become a mother. For Eva, that moment came in a text message she almost didn't get.
Eva was in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood when she first met our LIFEHOUSE team. She had come for the abortion pill. She had questions. They talked. They exchanged numbers.
She was still planning to go in. But before she did, she got back in her car. And then she drove away.
Our team followed up with a text. What happened?
She had changed her mind. She hadn't gone in.
That weekend, a few more messages went out. Encouragement. A reminder that someone was still on the other end of the phone. Eva didn't write back.
In this work, silence usually means one of two things. Either the woman has chosen life and moved forward with it, or she has changed her mind and gone back to the clinic. Our team has learned, painfully, that silence often means the second.
There's a moment in every follow-up when the easier thing is to stop. To give the silence its weight. To assume the worst has happened and let it be.
One message. One reply. One mother.
Our team didn't stop. One more message went out.
This time, Eva wrote back.
I'm so glad you kept texting me. I had another appointment. I was going to go. Your message is the reason I didn't.
This Mother's Day, somewhere in the Central Valley, Eva is preparing to become a mother. She will be one because someone, on a quiet weekend not long ago, refused to stop reaching out.
You may never meet Eva. You may never see her face when that text came in. You may never see her face on Mother's Day.
But make no mistake. Your support is exactly what kept our coordinator's phone in her hand that weekend, when sending one more message felt like sending a message into the void.
This Mother's Day, will you be the reason another woman gets to become a mother?
Make the next first Mother's Day possible →