Letter: First Choice Clinic changes lives for good

To the Editor:

New Beginnings Family Services — now doing business as First Choice Clinic — is a pregnancy resource center that has helped me in many great ways. I first heard about its Threads of Hope program in 2008 after having had two miscarriages.

After the second one, I slipped into depression, feeling broken as a woman and as though I had done something to make their loss happen. It was then I decided to go through their program. I wasn’t sure how much it was going to help me, but I knew I needed healing from the grief of the loss of my children.

To my surprise, Threads of Hope lifted my depression and saved my marriage. It gave me the healing I needed to move on with my life, take care of my 3-year-old son and be a wife again.

In 2009, I was blessed with another baby. That same year, I began volunteering at New Beginnings. It was while going through client peer counseling training that I realized I also needed healing from my abortion in 2005.

Surrender the Secret is the program for post-abortion healing, so I went through that too. I learned to forgive myself for my abortion and I gained freedom from the shame that came with it.

In 2010, I became a client services peer counselor and just this year became client services director. I work with women who have experienced the same losses and struggles that I have and I get to help them heal while going through our programs. Our conversion to a pregnancy help medical clinic, offering OB ultrasound and STD testing is only going to increase my opportunity to do what I do and I am excited about that. I love my job and I feel blessed to be a part of this growing organization that has a heart for life.

If you have a heart for life and would like to partner with us in it, please join us this morning, May 12, at Bay Point Park from 9 to 11 a.m. for First Choice Clinic’s annual Walk for Life. Register at the park.

Amanda Haas

Red Wing

Tags: opinion, letters