Marin pregnancy center offers hope
In her nearly two decades working at the Pregnancy Resource Center of Marin, Robin Strom has witnessed both the unusual and the miraculous.
A woman brought in her 15-year-old daughter for a pregnancy test on a Monday. The girl had only had sex one time, eight months prior, and was not showing. The test was positive. The center gave her an appointment for a clinic visit the following Monday.
"She and her mother came in on Wednesday and she was complaining of a stomach ache," said Strom, PRC's executive director. "I asked her how often and she said, ‘Every five minutes.'"
The girl was taken to the hospital and delivered her baby, having found out she was pregnant just two days prior.
"She never even made it to her first appointment," Strom said.
Another woman came in and told the center staff that she had an abortion. She was concerned because her period had never started again. Nurses performed an ultrasound. The woman was eight months pregnant.
"The abortion didn't work," Strom said. "This baby was slated to be dead, but God had his hand on it."
Some come in off the street to the clinic, located at 1320A Grant Ave. in Novato, while others make appointments by phone or contact the center through its website, www.prcmarin.org. When it opened 21 years ago, the center had limited services, providing pregnancy tests and modest resources for expectant mothers. Strom and her fellow workers wanted to do more, so the center opened a medical clinic in 2000.
Before the clinic could open, Strom had to find a doctor to be its medical director, a task she said was the most difficult she experienced during the transition. Strom finally found the physician she sought in Dr. Vicki Duncan.
Duncan had given up a practice in Bakersfield to move to Marin because she felt God had called her to make the move. When Strom contacted her with news that a pro-life pregnancy center needed a medical director, Duncan said she knew the reason behind the move.
"I saw it as a way to pay a bit back to my Lord for all he had done for me," Duncan told Catholic San Francisco. "The center is essential. Someone needs to provide care for those who are in need."
The clinic sees patients for the first seven months of pregnancy. Because of its limited staff, the PRC is not able to see patients in the frequency required during the late stages of pregnancy, and it does not have the resources to deliver babies.
What it does provide, as a non-profit, is free care to the community it serves. That service includes free ultrasounds with pictures expectant mothers can take home, help with adoption planning, teen parenting classes, free maternity and infant clothing, Lamaze classes and post-abortion counseling.
Staff also keep track of patients' due dates, and call for counseling and encouragement as the date approaches.
And as the only free prenatal care center in Marin County that does not refer for abortions, the task is large.
"Our vision is to help the people in Marin County to have the healthiest pregnancies they can have," Strom said. "We want that for the girls who come in here."
The average age of PRC's patients is between 23 and 24, Strom said, but she has seen girls as young as 13.
Strom told of one girl in junior high school who came in with three friends. "They all thought it would be cool to be pregnant," Strom said. "In those cases, we try to talk about abstinence and sexually transmitted diseases. We ask them if they think their relationships can withstand the stresses of a pregnancy. She was not even in high school yet, and she was pregnant."
Strom said when she counsels patients, she often shares her own past. Younger and before she became a Christian, Strom had two abortions. She said when she became pregnant with her now 29-year-old, reading the development books and drawing on her new faith made her realize she had done something terrible.
This in turn led her to the PRC, where she eventually became the executive director after the previous director stepped down for health reasons.
She hopes to continue and expand the work, but resources are limited. Strom said the center is meeting expenses, but to serve the community and keep up with the increasing number of patients, more will be needed over time.
"It's not all about money," Strom said. "We need volunteers. We need nurses and doctors. It's not just our ministry, and we can't do it alone."
(By Michael Vick)
From January 23, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco
