Have you ever been on a roller coaster and felt as if your stomach was falling out of your body? That’s the closest Gina can get to describing what it was like to see her unborn, developing son, Jeremiah, on a sonogram for the first time. She was 17 and living with her grandmother, having been ditching high-school classes and making all kinds of “bad decisions.” Jeremiah’s father was facing criminal charges because of her age. Deciding not to have an abortion was “scary” — because it was choosing not to make it all “go away,” she says.
Gina gives her witness testimony in a video for Aid for Women, a Chicago organization that ultimately helped her on her journey to stability, the kind of journey that it is for anyone, never mind a single mom. She begins the video by talking about how helpful she finds cleaning her home — the simple things that keep one steady amid the chaos of motherhood and life. She is amazed at where she is today, given where she’s been. “I thought I was either going to prison or I was going to be dead, in all honesty.”
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