Please feel free to share my story.

My name is Danielle and this is my story. I have two little boys ages 6 and 9. I had my first little boy at age 17. Believe me I have never worked so hard in my life. However I decided to keep my baby and I graduated college and now have a Bachelors degree. Yes it can be done. I am now 27 and have been married for 9 years.

January of 2007, I discovered that I was pregnant. I was horrified, my husband and I had two boys and never wanted another child. We had just bought a home and could not afford daycare, diapers and everything else that comes with having a baby. We were already living paycheck to paycheck. I remember huddled in the corner of a local grocery store crying hysterically holding a positive pregnancy test. I called my husband on my cell phone and he said don’t worry we will take care of it.

When I finally built up enough strength to go home. I immediately began to find an abortion clinic and that is when I came across the "Hope Clinic for Women" in Granite City Illinois . When I visited their website it looked so nice, as if they cared so much and would take excellent care of me. I live in Missouri and would have to cross over into Illinois . I called and made an appointment for the following Wednesday. I was sick, just sick about the whole thing.

That morning I kissed my two boys goodbye, dropped then off at school and my husband and I started off to the Hope Clinic, the place that would change my core foundation and who I was forever.

We arrived early around 8:00AM, the clinic told me there would be picketers but there was no one there yet…… There was a guard at the front door; it looked like they had hired him straight out of a back alley. As I went into the building I noticed the carpets had several stains and were disgusting. I spoke to someone through the glass and they had me slide my driver’s license underneath. Everyone was cold and hateful, where was this wonderful comforting environment that their website spoke of? I guess when you kill babies all day, nice goes out the window.

I was taken to a waiting room to fill out the paperwork and was told my husband could not come with me.  The lights were dim and there was soft music playing with nature like sound. They made it look like you are getting ready to go into a spa, not to kill your baby. I was sick, sick, sick, sick. Sick. As I read over the paperwork it asked me questions like "Is someone forcing you to do this?" I thought that they should be focusing more on questions like "Are you sure you what to kill your baby?" I stopped doing my paperwork and looked at the people around me. They were all young girls, 16 years old, maybe a little older, maybe a little younger. They all just stared down at their papers.

Then I heard my name called and I looked up to see a lady dressed in blue scrubs. She took me to a tiny room and as cold and emotionless as she could be, she asked me to lie down. She performed an ultrasound and the monitor was faced away from me. Maybe if it was faced towards the women then they could see the life they were about to kill and they would have a chance to run away from the Hope House and never look back. I heard her say you are 19 weeks. 19 weeks!! How did this happen? I had been on the depo-vera shot and not had any periods. How did I let this go so long without knowing? Maybe I did know, but I wanted to pretend like it did not happen, maybe I did not want to face what I knew was inevitable.

She continued, "You need a second term abortion and it will take two visits", she shoved the paperwork in my hand and told me to head upstairs. When I got to the top of the stairs I could not believe my eyes there were several girls all waiting to kill their babies. There must have been at 20 other women all waiting and it was only 8:30AM. I began asking questions to the person at the desk, she treated me as if I was a kindergartner. I started yelling I am not 16 years old I am a grown woman with a career. And at that moment I began to feel lightheaded, she shoved a book at me and told me to go in a nearby room and read it. It was if she did not want to answer my hideous questions about how they were going to kill my child, they’d rather have me read about it from a book.

I sat down in the tiny room and opened the book. Again the book started off about how I was in a wonderful place with safe doctors. What a joke I thought, not only were the employees cold and cruel but the place was disgusting and far from clean. If they call the Hope House "state of the art" I wonder what a normal abortion clinic looks like.

The procedure was a two day process. The first day doctor death kills the baby and opens the uterus, it said that I would bleed heavily until I came back the second day when he would suck the babies dead body out. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they give you a Valium, if you want, before the abortion to calm you down (I believe they give you it so you are not conscious of what you are doing).

Everything started to become hazy. I set the book down walked past the desk and down the stairs. It was there I began to faint and was caught by my husband coming in from having a cigarette. "I am 19 weeks" I said "19 weeks!!!" "Don’t go outside," he said. "Why?" I stated. "Because you do not want to see what is out there." "Yes I most certainly do!!"

I ran past him and there in the parking lot were several picketers. There was a huge poster of a 20 week baby that had been torn to shreds by the killing machine. It was then I began to cry and a man walked over and gave me a piece of paper, it said "small victories" and he said gently you don’t have to do this, we will help you. Small Victories? As I looked at the piece of paper I knew that I didn’t belong here and that is exactly what this was going to be, a small victory for the picketers, but it was a HUGE victory to me.

You see that huge victories name is Lilly and she is now 1 month old. I will always be eternally grateful to those outside that abortion clinic that gave me the strength to save my babies life.

You see I was pro-choice, I truly believed that abortion was alright and that it should be up to the woman to decide, but I also did not belief in God. But as I pulled away from the death mill AKA "the hope clinic" my beliefs changed forever. I never looked back and I now know what is awaiting these poor women at the abortion clinics. There are soooo many days that I look into Lilly’s blue eyes and I think to myself, "I almost killed this wonderful gift God has given me," and I begin to cry as I hold her tightly in my arms. I just hope God has forgiven me.

Please use my story in your fight to stop abortions. I do not believe that I could have gone on living if I had made the decision to kill my baby. You will suffer greatly!! You will go into a deep dark depression and wish you could take it all back!! If you are not ready to have a baby, please consider adoption. Did you know that they pay for everything medical bills, rent, clothes, utility bills, groceries and you get to see the baby and be a part of its life still!!! (if you want to).

I did much research on adoption before I decided to keep my baby and it is such a good thing. Adoption centers promise the same thing as abortion clinics to be caring, warm and a safe place for you. The difference is adoption centers are!!! They were willing to help me financially, mentally, and physically. They also take good care of you after you give the baby up for adoption.

This is definitely not the case with the baby killing mill, they kick you out the door and hope you don’t bleed to death and show up as another "abortion gone wrong" story in the local paper.

If you do decide to keep the baby and need help, look around your local town for pregnancy crisis centers such as "Small Victories" in Illinois or "Open Arms" (in Missouri, were I went). They provided me with free counseling, and helped me find a doctor, medical insurance and provided me with a lot of items for the baby. I could talk to them at any time and they never judged me, not once. If it wasn’t for that center I do not know what I would have done.

Oh and my husband, he loves the baby more than anything in the world, but don’t get me wrong you don’t need a man in your life to raise a healthy, happy baby. Please take it from someone who has been there and please do not have an abortion. The Hope Clinic for woman, how ironic.

Thank you Small Victories

 Danielle