No news is good news, they say. I neglected to write a summary last weekend, partly because we have been so busy in following up with the turn-aways from Summit. I will describe just one, whom we visited last night. Actually, the “one” who was turned away translated into eleven–eleven, that is, for whom she is responsible, eleven whom she mothers. Her name is Ursula. She had taken her daughter to Summit for an abortion. The appointment was for Friday, today. Even though she had been contacted earlier in the week, yesterday during the day I suddenly became anxious about her. I asked Alicia to call, and we found out that Ursula was still considering abortion for her daughter–a two day procedure, since her daughter is 19 weeks. Ursula cried on the phone, said it was too much, that she was stressed out. We arrived at her house at about 7:30, with several bags of groceries. She showed us her latest DTE bill, which we pocketed. In the early part of the visit, she seemed very stressed. The shadows under her eyes were obvious. But then we started to talk about chickens and goats and Alabama, where she’s from, and she started to smile. Her teenage children, especially her pregnant daughter, were very friendly and welcoming. Her daughter seemed happy, said she did not want to kill her baby. This family will be a big job, a long-term job, but one that will give us a great deal of satisfaction, I think.
