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Valerie Schultz: Daughter's unplanned pregnancy initiates mother to world of abandoned girls
| Friday, May 16 2008 11:15 AM
Last Updated: Monday, May 19 2008 10:44 AM
Once upon a time, I took one of my daughters to the hospital for an X-ray after a car accident. She was 17. I sat in the waiting room when she was called back, not guessing that everything was about to change.
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My daughter, meanwhile, was discovering that she could not have an X-ray, because she was pregnant. The nurse who presented her test result told my daughter she need not let me in on this news: Once a girl is pregnant, she can make medical decisions without parental consent or knowledge. But my daughter asked the nurse to bring me back, so that she could tell me. The nurse asked my daughter if she wanted her to remain in the room. My daughter said no. The nurse stayed.
As I absorbed my daughter’s words, the nurse watched me, her body tensed, ready to spring into action in case I suddenly attacked my daughter. Did she think I was going to take her by the throat and choke her until the test result changed?
The nurse commented that I was awfully calm, possibly mistaking "calm" for "utter shock." I commented that she seemed ready to restrain me. Sadly, she said, some girls needed protection from their violently angry parents. Some pregnant girls are physically harmed or cut off financially or thrown out of the house. I looked at my terribly young, glassy-eyed daughter/mother-to-be, and couldn’t imagine hurting her. She needed her parents to help her through this crisis of two lives, to help her decide what to do.
I am grateful that abortion was never an option my daughter considered. The 17-year-old father-to-be had deferred to her decision-making, and so we visited the local crisis pregnancy center for information about adoption. My daughter was two months pregnant. At three months, we had all decided that our family could handle a new baby. A grandchild. A niece or nephew. Then a visit to the obstetrician revealed that the baby over whom we had prayed and philosophized and argued and agonized had stopped growing. The baby was dead. The miscarriage came three days later.
Our daughter’s crisis pregnancy ended there. But I was reminded of those difficult days when I was invited to a fundraiser for St. Gianna’s Maternity Home, and asked to write about the purpose and mission of the home. Remembering that emergency room nurse’s face when she described the pregnant girls who had been abandoned or abused by their families, I am glad to report that those girls have a safe place to go in Bakersfield.
St. Gianna’s was started last year by Amanda Fimbres-Baeza. A maximum of 10 single mothers and their babies can live there at a time. The home provides “safe shelter, food, clothing, education, and counseling for women in need.”
With faith-based commitment, St. Gianna’s founder, staff, and volunteers seek to save lives and improve futures. Their motto is “One mother, one baby, one family at a time.” The project runs entirely on donations, and the home itself, which is located across the street from Bakersfield College, was spruced up by volunteers.
The staff works with available community services to educate new mothers in breast-feeding, nutrition and general child care, to provide job training, to offer spiritual guidance, and to counsel women and families in the areas they need most, from individual development to the possibility of adoption to family reconciliation. A woman can stay in the home for up to three months after the birth of her baby.
The work of dedicated believers in a small maternity home in Bakersfield can show us what is right with the world. While there are surely more women with crisis pregnancies than one home can accommodate, St. Gianna’s lights a candle in dark and desperate situations. It is a mission of love, worthy of our support.
Opinions expressed are those of Valerie Schultz, not The Californian. E-mail her at spring22@bak.rr.com.