In North Dakota, one maternity-care center shows the world what it means to be pro-life.

NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE I n 1962, while facing serious pregnancy complications, Italian pediatrician St. Gianna Molla chose to give up her life to save that of her unborn baby. “If you must decide between me and the child, do not hesitate,” she is credited with saying, “choose the child. . . . Save the baby.”

Inspired by St. Gianna’s heroic love and defense of the unborn, I started a maternity home — now called the St. Gianna and Pietro Molla Maternity Home — in Warsaw, N.D., in 2004. From the beginning, it was evident that we were meeting a dire need.

Prior to starting St. Gianna’s, I’d often been sad when, as a high-school teacher, I watched numerous young girls forced into abortions — many driven to their abortion appointments by their own parents.

Troubled and unsure of how to address this tragic problem, I spent a summer volunteering at a Missionaries of Charity maternity home in Los Angeles, Calif. I assisted the holy nuns as they happily spent long, sometimes grueling hours tending to their patients’ needs, treating each poor soul like royalty. Their effervescent joy in selflessly serving the forgotten mirrored the love I admired in St. Gianna, and it solidified the deep longing in my heart to do the same for the women facing crisis pregnancies within my own community back home.

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After returning to North Dakota and beginning a teaching job on an Indian reservation, a conversation with the local parish priest, Father Hils, helped me to realize my calling. What if I turned an abandoned former convent in the tiny, 66-person town of Warsaw into a maternity home for women facing difficult pregnancies?

Through the help of many generous friends, we transformed the dusty, rodent-ridden property into a beautiful and cozy home. St. Giana’s was up to code and approved in 2004.

Today, the once-forsaken building now has many warm, inviting, and spacious rooms that offer comfort and shelter to countless women fleeing difficult circumstances. Our beautiful library is an ideal spot for studying and community bonding as residents pursue their education and work towards career goals. Bubbly, laughing children can be heard at all hours of the day in our play areas, and our kitchen is a hub of activity from dawn till dusk as residents cook, clean, and enjoy meals together like a family.

Through community activities, chores, and even house vacations, we help to draw all our residents together, creating a tight-knit family atmosphere that many of them previously lacked. We celebrate feast days and birthdays, and bond through movie nights, study sessions, and weekly Sunday Mass. We drive moms to medical appointments, teach classes for them, and, just like family, babysit for them or do anything we can to help. We never turn any woman in need away, and to this day, we allow moms to stay as long as they need — most stay an average of nine months, while some have stayed as long as three years.

Our close proximity to multiple reservations has brought a number of women from dysfunctional and troubled circumstances to our doors. Around 60 percent to 70 percent of the women we care for come to us as minors from difficult backgrounds, many without a high-school GED. We help them finish their schooling and sometimes even achieve higher educational levels. Through professional counseling and spiritual formation, we also help them to overcome trauma and addictions while discovering their true purpose. Just a year ago, one of our current residents was addicted to drugs and living out of her car. Now, she has successfully graduated treatment, remains sober, and welcomed a child into the world in August.

Most of the women we care for who have faced intense pressure to abort either choose to keep their babies or allow their children a chance at life through adoption — a beautiful path chosen by many of our residents. We assist them with counseling and unwavering love and support as they navigate this heroic and selfless process. As an adoptive mom to my own beautiful daughters Aubrey Rose Joy, Geianna, and Kassity, I have experienced the greatest joys of my life.

The surrounding community has been incredibly supportive over the years, offering donations, volunteering hours, and sometimes even sacrificing a year or more of their lives to live in the home and help care for our young moms. Thanks to such powerful support, we’ve been able to love and house over 300 beautiful women and children, forming lifelong bonds — between the young mothers, their children, and adoptive parents — that can only be described as familial.

As I reflect on 18 years of our home, I am filled with gratitude to see the role God has allowed us to play in radically transforming so many lives and saving countless women from being forced into abortions and suffering the trauma that it inflicts. We empower each mother to see that, like St. Gianna, they are strong enough not only to “choose the child,” but also that through our help, they can build happy, stable lives for their new families.

Even after they leave us and begin their new lives, they always know they have a loving family here at St. Gianna’s.