It was spring 1964. I was a freshman at Newark State (now called Kean) College in Union, N.J., majoring in elementary education. But my main goal was to get married to Prince Charming, live in a cute little house with a white picket fence, and be a stay-at-home mom with at least three adorable children, all girls. That was my dream, but it didn’t turn out that way.

I always assumed I would be a virgin when I got married. Any boys I dated were always respectful. Then in my senior year of high school, I met Allen. He was good looking, a track star, and he wanted to go out with me! But he was not like other boys. He began pressuring me to have sex. If I loved him… Everyone else is doing it… And as the saying goes: Boys give love to get sex. Girls give sex to get love.

And that’s how I ended up pregnant in the spring of my freshmen year of college. When my period was late, I just ignored it. We didn’t have pregnancy tests at the drug store back then. But my mother became suspicious. 

 

“So, when was your last period?” she wanted to know. We went to the doctor; I had a positive pregnancy test, and my world came crashing down.

When I told Allen, his response was, “I’m not marrying you. I don’t want to be poor.” And he didn’t tell his mother.

My mother didn’t like Allen, and she was happy for me to go with Plan B, which was what most unwed mothers did back then. I would go to a home for unwed mothers until the baby was born. I would put the baby up for adoption, and then I’d come home and resume my life as if nothing happened.

Because my pregnancy didn’t show for several months, I was able to work two jobs during the summer and save money to pay hospital bills, which didn’t amount to much back then. The thought of giving my baby up for adoption was hard. My baby! I would go for walks at night in my neighborhood and, because I didn’t think God was available, I would say to myself over and over: Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, wish this wish I wish tonight. I wish I could keep my baby.

My story to friends and most relatives was that I was taking a semester of college off to help my sister-in-law who had four children under age 6.

Sometime before Thanksgiving, I moved into the Door of Hope Home and Hospital run by the Salvation Army in Jersey City, New Jersey. There were maybe 10 of us living in a dormitory type of room on the third floor of a big old house. Two rows of single beds with dressers lined the walls, and we all shared a bathroom. The youngest girl was 14 years old, and the oldest woman was close to 40, a teacher. All of us would give birth and have our babies adopted. We all had chores to do – taking out the garbage, cleaning the bathroom, helping in the kitchen. We ate our meals together in a small dining room with meals prepared by a cook in the kitchen. Because the Salvation Army was in charge, we had devotions every morning, said grace at meals, church service on Sunday. Someone played the piano, and we sang hymns every day. “Abide With Me” and “In the Garden” were favorites. I know all the words by heart.

To keep busy, we’d go for walks. I would always head out to a bakery for a treat. I learned to knit while I was there, and I still have the first sweater I ever made. Of course, we didn’t knit baby things. 

For Christmas, we had a silver tree set up in the living room, the first artificial Christmas tree I had ever seen. We all got gifts on Christmas morning, and what I remember most is the yellow cardigan I had asked for. It made me feel very special. Part of the celebration was the telling of the birth of Jesus, and I remember thinking that I didn’t know if that was true or just a story. 

On New Year’s Eve Day, December 31, 1964, a group of us decided to go bowling. We could walk to the bowling alley. With big bellies, we all helped each other tie on our bowling shoes. My delivery date was getting close. I wasn’t worried about the delivery because I had read “Childbirth Without Fear,” and I believed that if I wasn’t afraid, it wouldn’t hurt.

In the early morning hours of January 3, 1965, I woke up and realized that my water had broken! I visited the bathroom, and then went down to see the nurse who looked after the newborns on the second floor. She told me to let her know when I started having contractions. By around 5 in the morning, Major Marsh was clearing snow off the car and driving me to Margaret Hague Maternity Hospital. I shared a labor room with another woman who screamed and hollered and carried on. I was having some pain of my own and wondering when I would be screaming and hollering and carrying on, too. But I didn’t. I just kept breathing and telling myself to relax. Finally, I was taken to the delivery room where a mask was placed over my face, I was told to push, and then I blacked out.

When I woke up, my belly no longer held my baby. What did I have? A girl. Born at 10:22 a.m. I wasn’t going to see her or hold her. Those were the rules. January 3, 1965, was a sunny, cold day, and I was empty. 

The very next day, I was taken back to the Home. Now I’d be on the second floor, near the nursery. My mother came to visit me there, and she asked if we could see the baby. I had named her Rosemary. We were allowed to look at Rosemary through the nursery window. I was amazed at how much dark hair she had. She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. 

Even though Allen didn’t want to be a father or a husband, he did come to visit me one time and we did write letters back and forth (unbeknownst to my mother, of course). After Rosemary was born, I wrote to tell him the news. 

Before the week was up, I went home, and Rosemary went to a foster home where she would stay until I came to the adoption agency’s office to sign the final papers. But that was not God’s plan. The phone rang, I answered. It was Allen. He had told his mother about the baby. Her reaction: “You don’t give away your babies. You are getting married.”

We got married by a justice of the peace on January 23, and the following week we went to the adoption agency to pick up our baby. My mother-in-law didn’t like the name Rosemary, so I had to change it to Lisa. No problem. Unfortunately, we didn’t live happily ever after. Allen really didn’t want to settle down and be married to me. I won’t go into detail about what it’s like to be married to someone who doesn’t want to be married to you. But when Lisa was 2, I packed up our things and walked across town to move back in with my parents. Allen and I were divorced in 1969. 

When Lisa was 4, I started going back to church because I wanted Lisa to go to Sunday School like I did when I was a little girl. In March 1971 my mother died. Three weeks later, on April 17, I married for the second time, and on December 14, 1971, I went to a Jesus Festival at my church. That’s the day the Lord spoke to me. I was tired. I was miserable. I had cried until I had no more tears. And as I stood in the fellowship hall listening to a group of teenagers singing and playing guitars (“Jesus is the answer for the world today. Above him there’s no other. Jesus is the way!”), and giving testimonies and explaining the simple gospel message, I got it. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11-28-30). “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). 

It was like a light bulb lit up in my head, and I understood that Jesus loves me, forgives me and wants me to follow him. Yes, he is real, I need him in my life. 

Life did not become easy, but now I had Jesus to walk with me, to carry me, to get me through. Eventually, I had two more children. In December 1990, at age 45, I graduated from East Stroudsburg University and went on to work in the newspaper field. I really wasn’t cut out to teach elementary school children after all. There’s a lot more to the story, but my life experiences made me aware of what it feels like to be in a crisis pregnancy. It gave me a desire to help others who are pregnant and feel like life is over. That desire led me to volunteer at the Pregnancy Resource Center of the Poconos as a peer counselor for close to 10 years. Giving parenting lessons and seeing clients learn things that I wish I had known when I was starting out has brought me so much joy and satisfaction. Making sure they have the car seats and the diapers, and all the other things babies require has been a great blessing to me.

I’ve also come to realize how my unplanned baby changed my world just by being in it. My life would have been totally different without Lisa. She hosts our Thanksgiving dinners every year and has planned so many adventures for us to go on, including hiking the Grand Canyon. I probably wouldn’t have met and married by second husband and given birth to my daughter Amanda and son Rob. Lisa’s husband Kurt's life would have been totally different, and my granddaughters Corinne and Alison would never have been born. Lisa and Kurt’s neighbor’s daughters Ashley and Melanie would have grown up without best friends next door. We are all so interconnected. 

When faced with an unplanned, crisis pregnancy, I had no idea how my story would evolve. But I wouldn’t change a thing. On January 3, 2021, my daughter Lisa became a grandmother on her 56th birthday, and I became a great-grandmother. God has been so good to me!!

Cover photo: Baby Lisa

Below: Lisa holding her granddaughter who was born on Lisa’s 56th birthday in 2021. With Lisa are her mother, Carol, and Carol’s husband, Jim.