Coaching women through unplanned pregnancies

Marissa Meagher, 27, has worked as a client advocate at Abria Pregnancy Resources in St. Paul for nearly two years, guiding young women through unplanned pregnancies. A member of Maternity of Mary in St. Paul, she grew up in rural New London, Wisconsin.

Q) What’s it like to be with clients when they get the results of their pregnancy tests?

A) Some really want a baby and are joyful. Others get a negative result and want to talk about how to change their lives so they’re not in that situation again. We talk about boundaries and healthy relationships. Other women see that second line and cry. Some clients have cried for five or 10 minutes. Before those appointments, I always make sure there’s a Kleenex box. But I don’t hand them the Kleenex, because I don’t want to imply they should stop crying. I just leave it within arm’s reach.

Q) What have you learned about how to respond in that moment?

A) A lot of people try to fix it, to stop them from crying. But I just sit with them. I make sure I don’t shift my body language or anything. Sometimes you just have to cry and have someone sit with you who’s OK with your crying.

Sometimes they say, “I’m so sorry I’m crying.” I say, “You don’t have to apologize for what you’re feeling. What you’re feeling is very real. You’re not the first person to cry in this room.” That hints at a sense of community, that other women have been in this situation.

After the crying subsides, we talk about their options: to keep the baby, to get an abortion or to pursue adoption.

Q) What do you bring up in that initial conversation that seems to help the most?

A) It helps to bring up options so they can feel they are still making a choice. To (keep the baby and choose to) parent is a choice, not a default. I educate them on what an open adoption could look like. They’re not quitting. They get to choose the family. “Oh yeah, this family has two older kids, because I want my baby to have older siblings, and they have a dog!” And they can decide to have an open adoption, and they have the right to close it at any point and can re-open it later. To know they can have some control when everything feels so unplanned calms them down.

When women are very undecided, looking at five years from now helps. Younger clients will say, “Well, I could still graduate. Maybe I’ll take a semester longer, and oh my gosh, I’d have a kindergartener!”

And with clients who feel alone, I tell them we have a program that goes until the baby is 2 years old. They’re struck by that: “Oh, you actually care about me, not just the fact that I kept my baby.”

Q) Tell me about your role as a life coach.

A) There’s a misconception: It’s not telling someone what to do with their life. If we’re in a canoe, I tell them, I’m not steering the boat. I’m paddling right alongside you. I’m not telling you want to do. I do not use the word “should.” You have enough people in your life giving you unwanted advice.

Life coaching is based on the belief that the client is the expert in her life. I’m sourcing the answers from her, so she’ll say, “Oh I did know the answer! I just needed those questions to help draw it out!” To have that ownership of the idea — you run with it more and you run faster than running with someone else’s idea.

One exercise we do in coaching through our Empowers Program (for clients who decide to carry the baby) is to ask the client to draw a floor plan of a house she lives in or hopes to live in, and identify the values she’d like to be exemplified in each room. For instance, one client who has two children and was pregnant with her third reflected on her happy memories as a child playing with siblings in the living room. She identified fun and play as a value, and realized that wasn’t happening in her current living room. Her first step was to rearrange the furniture. It was set up for just sitting and watching TV. Her second step was to figure out a family play night.

Q) What are the most common fears of a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy?

A) For younger clients, there’s a huge fear of telling their parents. Many feel like they’d rather get an abortion than tell their parents. With slightly older clients, there’s a fear of the father of the baby leaving them (if they keep the baby). That fear of being alone is powerful.

Q) How do you address that?

A) I’ll ask, “How do you think an abortion would affect your relationship?” And they’ll often say, “Oh! I might resent him. I don’t think that would be good for our relationship.”

Q) How much influence does the father of the baby tend to have?

A) If she knows who the father is, it’s huge. If he’s involved and wants to parent, our clients are like: “Alright, let’s do this!”

If the father wants to have the baby, it’s rare for the young woman to get an abortion. I’ve been here almost two years, and it’s only happened once.

Q) Are there times when you’re coaching and you feel stuck?

A) I feel stuck a lot. I only get stuck when I try to take over, thinking I need to say the right thing to help this woman.

When I let go, things are much better. When I’m talking to a client and she says something and I simply respond, “I’m sorry! That’s terrible!”, she responds so freely. “Yes, it is terrible!” And then she’s so open.

Q) What’s the best part of your job?

A) When a client sets a goal and she absolutely crushes it. They call me up and say, “I got an apartment!” or “I got the job!”

In one coaching session, the client set the goal of getting the father of the baby involved. We’d been meeting in the first trimester and then the second trimester, and he wanted nothing to do with it. We talked about how she’d go about discussing the pregnancy with him.

Two weeks later, she came in to the appointment, and he was with her. From then on, he was at every appointment, super involved. They came back recently to say hi and show me how big their baby boy is. They’re engaged.

Q) How do you celebrate those victories?

A) My co-worker who shares my office is a huge support. We celebrate the good days. We love musicals. We sing “Dear Evan Hansen” and the parts to “Hamilton.” We make sure to liven the mood up even on the bad days.

Q) I love how Abria makes its clients feel special with opportunities like the Abria Boutique shopping spree through your Empowers Program.

A) We have amazing donors. There’s dignity in being able to shop and pick out a new outfit with a tag on it. And they earned it. They use their points from attending appointments. They get so excited when they find the perfect thing. “Oh my gosh! I have to go to this party and I didn’t have anything for my baby to wear and now I do, so I don’t have to hear my mom say, ‘You’re not taking care of that baby!’” It’s a material aspect: I’m visibly holding support, my baby is going to be clothed. I have the formula and diapers. I’ll be OK.

Q) What’s next for you? You’re pursuing a master’s in public health and you’re training to be a certified postpartum doula?

A) Yes! I want to work on food accessibility and sustainability, and I also want to work on prenatal care, helping to reduce stress to lower the risk of pre-term labor. So, my future work will closely relate to what I’m doing at Abria.