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How Birthmothers® Came to Be
By Jim Wright, Founder and President
People often ask me what Birthmother Ministries (Birthmothers®) offers that existing services for pregnant women don't. I find that explaining Birthmothers®' distinctives always comes back to my own personal experience with adoption.
A personal passion
My passion to help women facing crisis pregnancies stems from what my wife and I experienced when we began the adoption process in 1990. We chose private adoption instead of agency adoption. Our son, A.J. Wright, was born on July 30, 1991 to a fourteen-year-old high school freshman.
Her journey to becoming a birth mom was not easy. At first, she was so overwhelmed that she sought an abortion. Fortunately, her pregnancy was too advanced. Since she knew that neither she nor her family had the resources to parent her baby properly, she approached a pregnancy care center about placing her child for adoption.
The counselor's response was gruff and abrupt. The center could not help her with the adoption process. "You've made your bed," the counselor told A.J.'s birth mom. "Now, lie in it."
Personal connections brought my wife and me together with A.J.'s birth mom, and she selected us to be his adoptive parents. But her encounter with the counselor left scars of betrayal, anger, frustration and helplessness.
I realized then that there was the desperate need to provide women in crisis pregnancies with life-affirming resources and adoption information — delivered in a loving, non-judgmental manner.
A special burden
The experience gave me a special burden. Women in crisis pregnancies are often left with few, if any, viable options for choosing life. They can feel alone and afraid. Often, the church is nowhere in sight.
In conversations over the next three years, many people affirmed the need to support women in unwanted pregnancies. Even A.J.'s birth mom wrote us a letter, sharing her joy in helping a close friend who faced an unplanned pregnancy choose adoption. Click here to read Letters Between Parents.
Then, my call to action was confirmed in late 1994, when I shared my story with Tom Starnes, a friend in my businessmen's Bible study. He and his wife were considering adoption.
I told Tom how special A.J. was to my wife and me. For the first time, I articulated my specific vision for providing a program of constructive, positive help to pregnant women, and offering adoption as an option, when appropriate.
Tom looked at me directly, and said with great conviction, "You've got to do it! You've just got to do it!"
I felt I had just heard a message directly from the Lord.
At that point, I surrendered my will to God, and focused my energies on doing what I knew He had unmistakably called me to do.
A defining moment
My initial idea was that pregnant women need someone to call with whom they could discuss their predicament.
To understand the telephone resources that are available to women, I consulted with Focus on the Family Crisis Pregnancy Center Resource staff (Colorado Springs, CO) and visited a major crisis pregnancy phone center in Dallas, TX. Women can call the Texas-based Crisis Pregnancy Help Line's nationwide, toll-free number, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They talk with a counselor who shares referrals to pregnancy care centers in the woman's geographic area and information about pregnancy symptoms, medical care, abortion, adoption, STD's, housing and counseling.
Telephone services like these are invaluable. But as I watched the phone lines at the center light up and recalled A.J.'s birth mom's experience, I realized that a woman in a crisis pregnancy needs much more than a long-distance counselor. She needs someone to give her focused, individual love and attention — an advocate who will show compassion and connect her to whatever life-affirming resources she needs.
The idea of the "Friend" mentoring program was born.
A para-church organization
In early 1995, I received some startling statistics from Pat Fagan at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Abortion rates had increased in the U.S. for twenty years, while barriers to adoption had multiplied. Yet a key component of welfare reform was increasing the numbers of adoptions.
The need for our "Friends" ministry was confirmed. It was Pat who pointed out the merits of recruiting an army of volunteers from America's 400,000 churches.
We began by building relationships with local churches to recruit Friends. Since then, Birthmothers® has continued to work hand-in-hand with congregations to grow Church Teams that minister to pregnant women in their communities. Birthmothers® provides information, resources and training. Churches recruit volunteer "Friends" and support personnel, who are the heart of Birthmothers®' ministry.
How Birthmothers® is different
Birthmother Ministries was incorporated in 1996. Since then, we have trained more than 300 Friends and supported countless women in their pregnancies. Our services complement those that already exist for pregnant women, but they're different in two ways.
Our support for birth moms is specific and very personal:
- We train a Friend to be effective in a one-on-one support relationship with a birth mom
- We promote and facilitate adoption if the woman concludes it's in the best interest of her child
- We build a network of life-affirming resources to support the mother in choosing life
- We have toll-free, 24/7, nationwide telephone access for birth moms and family members
Our organizational structure and philosophy is specific and unique:
- We are church-based
- We cultivate a network of strong, collaborative relationships with crisis pregnancy centers, adoption agencies, family and government service organizations and other life-affirming resources
- We cut across lines that divide Christian denominations to serve Christ alone
- We are not a protest organization
- We seek to demonstrate Christ's love and compassion to each woman, regardless of race, age, religion, marital status or social class
Birthmothers® Building hope through adoption.™
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Why We Exist |
Birthmothers® provides confidential, nonjudgmental assistance to any woman facing an unplanned pregnancy.
Birthmothers® is currently focused in the northern Virginia area and Metro DC, with plans to expand to other U.S. cities in the future.
The Birthmothers® logo is a registered trademark of Birthmother Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.