Seeing IS Believing...

Life care center dedicates new ultrasoundNorth Side Life Care Center has counseled women for more than three decades

by Scott Noble

MINNEAPOLIS — It can oftentimes be the scariest time in a woman’s life. A time she feels completely unprepared for socially, economically, physically and spiritually. It’s a time when many outside forces are competing to be heard—many of them with differing opinions.It’s a time when she finds out she is pregnant—unplanned and unexpected.

Fortunately, for her and her unborn child, there are resources to help walk her—and other women—through these difficult, uncertain and trying times.

For more than 30 years, North Side Life Care Center has been offering help and hope to women with unplanned pregnancies in north Minneapolis.

Robbie Dircks, executive director of the nonprofit organization, said many of their clients are unprepared for the news that they are pregnant.

“[Our clients are] young, she hasn’t probably finished her education, she’s low income, she is frightened, and she is realizing that having a baby is going to change her life both economically and socially,” Dircks said. “The vast majority of them are under pressure to have an abortion, either from the baby’s father, from their parents or maybe even from others. Maybe even themselves if they’ve just gotten a new job or they just registered for school. There is a lot of coercion involved.”

With all the confusion in their lives, many pregnant women seek out life care centers such as North Side to help them walk through the maze of decisions they now face.

North Side counsels women to choose life, and one of its most effective tools for helping women to choose life is the ultrasound machine.

In late September, the organization dedicated its new ultrasound machine, replacing its old machine that was seven years old and failing. The new one cost $35,000, and the money was raised by private donors and through the Knights of Columbus. North Side raised half the amount of the newultrasound machine and through a program with the national Knights of Columbus organization, North Side’s $17,000 was matched.

“I call the ultrasound ‘our secret weapon,’” Dircks said. “That’s because once a woman sees her baby and hears the heartbeat, sees it move, I think that there is some bonding that is starting. So instead of wanting to get rid of this thing, now they know that it’s just not a blob of flesh—that there really is a baby there. Once a woman has an ultrasound, over 90 percent of them choose life.”

Scheduling the ultrasound is the second step North Side offers women who seek their help. Clients need to be six to eight weeks along in order for the ultrasound to work properly. The organization schedules ultrasounds on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Prior to the ultrasound, however, clients are given a free pregnancy test. Even though most of the women already know they are pregnant, they want the confirmation, Dircks said.

“We give them a pregnancy test, and then we give them counseling,” she said. “I would say it’s a very safe situation for them; it’s very kind, not judgmental, gentle, and they feel at ease and open up about what their situation is and what their needs are.”

North Side also offers prenatal care and helps clients register for medical assistance.

“Our support services don’t stop with just saving the baby,” Dircks said. “The reason we do prenatal is because most of the women are not used to going to the doctor. They have not had health insurance, and they don’t go once a year for their physical. And neither do their parents.”

In fact, Dircks noted, more than one million babies are born each year in the United States without prenatal care, and they want to help avoid the risks associated with that.

North Side also assists its clients during pregnancy with a variety of services.

“We call these women,” she said. “We make the appointments and then we call them to make sure that they are coming in. When they come in, we have a little lunch for them. We give them rewards for making their appointments. In the last month of their pregnancy, we give them a layettewhich has everything they need to bring that baby home from the hospital. So there are diapers, wipes, sleepers, blankets, shampoo, everything they need to bring that baby home. And they know they are going to get that. It’s quite an incentive to continue their medical care.”

Through its incentive-based Small Steps Program, North Side aims to help break the cycle of poverty that many of its clients experience.

“We’re trying to break the cycle and show women that they can achieve things and they can get out of the poverty cycle that maybe they’ve been in,” Dircks said. “A lot of them set their goal to get their GED, and they achieve it. Some of them do entrance exams for college, some get their driver’s license. Things that make it so they can take care of themselves, they can be more self sufficient, more self confident.”

Through all the women North Side has helped over the years, one of the blessings of its work is knowing that the women who choose to have their babies appreciate what North Side did for them. Dircks said that nearly all the women who choose life bring in their babies after they are born, and its offices are filled with photos of mothers and their children.

Dircks believes that caring for women—and doing what she does—entails caring about children as well.

When asked why the former corporate employee now works in the nonprofit world, Dircks said: “Because I really care about women. If you really care about women, you have to care about abortion and about taking care of them if they decide to keep their baby.”

ACTIONPOINT: On Thursday, Oct. 13, North Side Life Care Center will hold its third annual Banquet for Life featuring photographer Michael Clancy. For more information about the banquet or the work of North Side Life Care Center, visit www.northsidelifecare.org.