Chris was 17 years old and pregnant. At the time she felt helpless and all alone - so much so that she let others decide that she needed to abort her baby. 
“I allowed other people to make the decision for me,” Chris said in recalling her decision to abort the child she conceived when she was 17. “I woke up screaming” after her child was aborted, she said, and her regrets and remorse only deepened – and darkened – in the years she kept her secret in silence.
“People would say to me, ‘Oh, Chris, you’re such a good person.’ And I’d think, ‘If you knew, you wouldn’t say that.’”
Chris says she spent half her lifetime running away from that decision - trying hard not to face the reality of her abortion. Then she found attended a Rachel's Vineyard retreat where loving, caring, non-judgmental people helped her walk through the pain and anguish that she felt for so many years.
“As the retreat came closer, you get scared. I could come up with all kinds of reasons and excuses” not to confront the fact that, 17 years ago, Chris had an abortion, and it was not until she completed the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat that she finally felt at peace.
Women who have had abortions need time to heal and help from those who will walk that journey with them. The kind of pain that aborting your baby will bring can be avoided by making a choice for life.
You are not alone. We can help. You and your baby deserve better!
Abortion is painful to more than just you the mother and the baby. Bill, Chris' husband, is a witness to his wife’s pain from something that happened before the couple ever met. Bill recommended the retreat to Chris because he knew she needed healing in her life. Chris was skeptical of the process – “I was like, ‘Yeah, right, how is that gonna help me?’” – but by the time the weekend ended, she had escaped from the prison of guilt that had ensnared her for half her life.
“There were quite a few tears, and I told stuff that I haven’t told people I’ve known for years. Finally, someone knows this about me, and they can still look at me and smile. It was pretty much a ‘wow’ moment.’” Chris said she has become close friends with the two women with whom she made the retreat. “We didn’t think we would go to this retreat and laugh, but we did,” she said, comparing the two nights the women spent together, sleeping separately from the men, to a slumber party. “We’re very much like sisters now. There’s a shared honesty,” she said. “I could finally let go.”
Chris shares her story of pain and healing so that you might not make the same decision she made.
You are not alone. We can help. You and your baby deserve better!
Call us at 918-949-HOPE (4673) ext. 116 or send us an email at adoption@catholiccharitiestulsa.org.
To learn more about the option of adoption - click here.
