Tessa sat in her boyfriend’s living room, feeling completely overwhelmed.

Just a few months earlier, her life had looked completely different.

Her father had recently passed away, and with no job and very little money of her own, she’d moved in with her boyfriend to save money.

And now, her life was taking a sudden and unexpected turn.

She was pregnant, and felt completely “lost and scared.”

At 20 years old and with no current job, she “had no idea” how she would manage to support a baby.

She began looking online for an abortion facility.

Thanks to your support of Heroic Media’s OAASYS (On-demand Alternatives to Abortion SYStem) Emergency Response ads, she was connected with OAASYS’s Pregnancy Help Center partner in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma instead, and made an appointment to be seen.

When Tessa arrived at the pregnancy center, she asked about her options.

She’d read online about the abortion pill and seemed most interested in pursuing that option.

When her client advocate offered a free ultrasound, Tessa agreed.

Within minutes, they discovered that she was seven weeks pregnant.

When she saw her baby’s heart beating, she began to waver on her plan to get an abortion.

But by the time she left the appointment, she was still undecided.

She agreed to return in three weeks for a follow-up appointment.

Later that same week, her client advocate texted her to check in and to offer support and encouragement.

The two further discussed all the pregnancy help center had to offer in terms of support: free prenatal care, counseling services, material resources, connections to parenting classes, and spiritual support.

Tessa was moved by the conversation – but by the end of the call, through tears, she stated, “I think the easiest thing for me to do is to just move forward with the abortion.”

To everyone’s surprise, Tessa still returned three weeks later for her scheduled follow-up ultrasound.

At this point, she was 10 weeks pregnant, and could clearly see the outline of her baby’s body on the black-and-white screen.

She couldn’t believe how much her baby had grown in three short weeks!

In that moment, Tessa had a change of mind and heart and knew that she wanted to keep her baby.

 She was determined to make it work and to provide a safe and loving home for her child.

She still felt a little scared, but with the support of the center, she was also excited for the future.

She had a long road ahead, but knew she had taken the first next step – and in doing so, she was emboldened with confidence that she “could handle anything that came her way.”

Praise God!

And thank you for your continued support that makes life-affirming transformations like Tessa’s possible!

Psalm 68:5-6: A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing.