Sierra felt as though her life was like a tornado, a whirlwind spinning out of control. Her husband had walked out on her and their four children. She wasn’t sure how she was going to care for her young family. Add to these stresses the unexpected loss of her sister.
“I was almost in survival mode,” Sierra said.
Sierra sought comfort with a man and became pregnant. Fear overtook the Ohio woman, and she made an appointment at a Planned Parenthood two hours away from her home.
“I felt like this was my only option,” she said.
However, she said she prayed for a sign, for something that would tell her to turn around and not go through with the abortion. But she felt and saw nothing.
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When she walked into the abortion facility, she saw 20 or more women waiting.
“It was quiet,” she said of the atmosphere. “Nobody’s speaking, no one is on their phones. It was just a very, very heavy feeling.”
Sierra was told the first pill she took would stop her unborn child’s heartbeat, and when she asked if “it would look like a baby” when she “passed it,” the person at the abortion center said, ‘No.’ Sierra believed she was about 10 weeks along.
After taking the first pill, grief and regret overwhelmed her.
“I wanted to cut it out of my throat,” she recalled. “I felt like I really messed up.”
Sierra said she contacted her OB-GYN and asked if there was something that could be done to stop the abortion pill from taking effect, and her doctor told her there was nothing she could do.
Sierra felt remorse for making the decision to abort her child. As she left the Planned Parenthood parking lot, she noticed a sign on the ground. She stopped to read it.
“It said, ‘If you’ve taken the first pill, it’s not too late,’” Sierra said. “There was the sign I was looking for.”
She went online and searched the internet using the exact wording she read, and the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) captured her attention. She called the hotline number and asked for information, explaining she was “in a bad place.”
“And the sweetest voice on the phone said, ‘We can help you,’” Sierra said.
Tweet This: "The sweetest voice on the phone said, ‘We can help you,’” - APR mom Sierra on her first interaction with the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network.
Finding hope
She was connected to Pregnancy Decision Health Centers (PDHC) in Columbus, Ohio, one of hundreds of pregnancy medical clinics around the country that offers Abortion Pill Reversal (APR) services and the closest to where she lived. One of the nurses spoke with her on the phone and offered to pray with her, noting “it’s a critical and beautiful time” to interact with women learning about APR. That prayer made an impact on Sierra.
“There was no shame, no condemnation,” Sierra said in a video message for PDHC. “It was just, ‘Are you okay?’ And that’s huge.”
An appointment was made for Sierra to visit PDHC the next day for an ultrasound and to determine if the baby still had a heartbeat. She was told the staff would be praying for her and her baby, and that night, Sierra also prayed for her child to live.
“There is hope and help available, and we are here to answer any questions, provide support and connect any woman seeking reversal with the care she needs to attempt to continue her pregnancy,” said Christa Brown, BSN, RN, senior director of Medical Impact for Heartbeat International.
Heartbeat manages the APRN, a network of more than 1,400 healthcare professionals, pregnancy centers, hospitals, and pharmacists that administer the APR protocol.
APR works by countering the effects of the first abortion pill mifepristone with progesterone, the hormone in a pregnant woman’s system necessary for pregnancy to thrive. It is an updated application of a decades-old treatment used to combat miscarriage.
“Our network has assisted women in 93 different countries and all states in the U.S.,” she said. “Our data shows more than 5,000 women have successfully reversed mifepristone and had healthy children.”
In addition to the efficacy, Brown remarked on the safety of APR treatment.
“Since the progesterone counteracts the harmful effects of the mifepristone, we do not see ill effects on the mothers and no increased birth defects for the babies born after successful reversal,” she said,
Sierra’s little girl is one of those thousands of babies saved from abortion by APR.
The little one in the womb did have a heartbeat when Sierra went to PDHC the day after calling the APRN hotline number.
“God’s goodness,” Sierra pondered … “He didn’t have to let me keep her.”
APR and answered prayer
PDHC staff put her on progesterone per the APR protocol and checked on her for several weeks through phone calls and text messages. The center covered Sierra and her unborn baby in prayer. That support and care also positively impacted Sierra, and her doctor, who didn’t know about APR at the time, was happy at the outcome as well.
“She couldn’t wait to deliver her,” Sierra recalled. “She was astounded.”
Sierra named her little girl Sawyer, who was born weighing over five pounds.
“We are thankful for the bravery of this mom who overcame her fears and chose life for her precious girl,” Brown said. “Her testimony will inspire others who have made that choice and soon after have regret.”
APR gives women another option and gives them hope for saving their pregnancy. In this year’s Life Trends Report, Heartbeat International shows a 43 percent increase in the number of APR starts during the past four years and 1,200 lives saved in 2023 thanks to APR. Yet, many states, including California and Colorado, are attempting to suppress the life-saving measure and the physicians, nurses, and pregnancy centers offering APR services.
Sierra and Sawyer, however, are among the many who are ‘living proof’ of APR and God’s hand in the protocol.
“The fact that I have a healthy baby is just a testament that God is good, and there is nothing we can do to escape His love for us,” Sierra said.
She urged other women who might feel as she did when first learning she was unexpectedly pregnant to consider remembering they are not alone.
“You are not alone,” she said. “God makes a way.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) and Pregnancy Help News. Heartbeat is currrently the subject of two lawsuits briyght by state attorney's general concerning sharing information about Abortion Pill Reversal.
