WATCH: Choosing life after rape, Emily’s story shows the impact of adoption

Emily says she was a typical college girl, enjoying her newfound freedom and trying to make new friends as she navigated freshman year. Every Friday evening, she and her friends would go out and party. On one Friday, their routine was the same — but the aftermath ended up changing her life.

Of this particular evening, Emily said she has absolutely no memory. She went to the party and was handed a drink, but does not know what happened afterward. She woke up the next morning in her dorm room feeling that something was off and noticing bruises on her body, but not understanding how they got there or what had happened.

Drugged, R*ped, & Pregnant | Emily's Pro-Life Story

It was months later that Emily’s friend and roommate asked her if she might be pregnant. Emily immediately said no, but eventually consented to taking a test. When it came back positive, she realized for the first time she was pregnant.

Emily’s friend connected her with a young woman named Sabrina, who promised to walk alongside Emily as she navigated the pregnancy and help her with anything she needed. Sabrina brought Emily to a local pro-life pregnancy clinic. When Emily received an ultrasound for the first time, she found she was 37 weeks pregnant. When she did the math, she realized her pregnancy was a result of the night she couldn’t remember.

“I always knew deep down that something awful had happened that night,” she said. “But I never knew it was sexual assault. I had been drugged and raped.”

In Colorado, where Emily lived, abortion would still have been a legal option for her, even though her child was days away from what is considered full-term and would very likely be able to survive on his own outside the womb. However, after being told all the options, Emily chose life for her son, Xavier, choosing to place him for adoption. He was adopted by a loving couple named Katie and Joe.

“Having an adopted child has brought a whole new level of love that I didn’t know I could experience,” Joe said. “I look at him and I say, ‘Xavier, your life is a gift to me.'”

“Your life is a miracle,” Katie added. “You are a gift.”

Katie and Joe say they can’t imagine a life without Xavier in it.

“Without a doubt, every adoption story is born out of brokenness,” Katie said. “Adoption is obviously not the first goal for everyone. There’s always hard stories that come from adoption, but there’s so much beauty that comes from that brokenness.”

“If Emily hadn’t chosen this, then we wouldn’t have Xavier,” Joe emphasized. “Emily is a gift to us.”