She thought an unplanned pregnancy meant life was over. God told her it had just begun.

Vanessa and Craig, ages 19 and 18 respectively, were high school sweethearts in love. Vanessa had been doing her best to follow Jesus and Craig had just recently come to know Christ. It was the summer after Vanessa’s senior year and she had plans for college at the University of California Riverside, where she was also set to be a track and field athlete.

But as she began practices with her new team at UCR over the summer, she quickly noticed she was running more slowly and feeling inexplicably sick. She worried that her coach was concerned and maybe even disappointed by her slipping performance.

Two Blue Lines

“I felt bad” Vanessa told Live Action News. “I trained all summer... and for some reason I was getting hurt and I wasn’t running as fast as I was supposed to be. It got to the point where I had suspicions and I wanted to take a pregnancy test.” 

When Vanessa took the test, two blue lines showed up immediately — and everything changed.

“I was in the bathroom and I fell to my knees, full-on crying. I was so scared,” she said.

She gathered herself and called Craig, who was still living at home as a senior in high school. He, too, was in shock.

Vanessa recalled asking him, “How are we going to do this? I don’t have any money. My parents aren’t going to support me. I’m going to lose my scholarships.” She was drowning in her thoughts and it was one of the lowest points of her life.

She wondered how she would tell her mother, the woman she calls the most important person in her life. “My goal was to always make her happy. How was I going to tell her this news after everything she has done in my life? It was nerve-wracking,” Vanessa recalled.

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

She was rehearsing what she would say, but felt very uncertain about her mother's reaction. “Not that she would abandon me,” Vanessa said, “but I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

With sweaty palms and body shaking, she told her mother, who was upset by the news; the two cried together. A few days passed before they spoke again, and her mother asked her, “What are you going to do? What’s your plan?”

Vanessa was undecided about whether to keep the baby or have an abortion. “In my heart I knew I wanted to keep the baby. I knew it was the right thing. I just didn’t really know it at the time.”

She said that a part of her still felt that she needed to “get rid of the baby and focus on myself.” When she told her mother she was leaning towards abortion, her mother suggested that she “think about how you may feel in the future and [if] you [will] regret it.” 

But Vanessa scheduled an appointment for an abortion. The only date available was Halloween, which made her feel spiritually uncomfortable. Looking back, she sees this as the first “hint” from God that this wasn’t the right plan.

At the time, only Vanessa’s mother and Craig knew about the pregnancy and her plan to abort the baby, because she “knew it was wrong and she felt embarrassed and ashamed.”

No one knew on her college team, so it was increasingly hard to keep up and participate in practice. Vanessa told Live Action News that the day before Halloween and the scheduled abortion, she was overcome with sadness at practice.

“This is the last practice I will be at with my baby,” she thought to herself.

She was up all night crying, wondering if she would regret ending her baby's life, and spent three hours on the phone with Craig. “I was praying, too," she said, "and felt like I couldn't hear God’s voice.”

She woke up in the morning to a bright sky full of orange and pink, thinking, “This is the last time I will be in this room with my baby.”

Her mother drove her to the appointment, and asked, "Are you sure this is what you want?"

Vanessa could only mutter back, “I don’t know.” 

Praying for a Sign

Vanessa walked into the clinic alone.

“It felt super demonic," she recalled to Live Action News. "I could read the other women’s faces — such sadness, loneliness and shame. I remember thinking, 'I shouldn't be here. This is not the right thing.'”

As Vanessa filled out the paperwork, she was praying to God, “Please speak to me.” Then, she said, “I could hear people outside saying, ‘Keep your baby; return to the Lord.’ I don’t know who they were, but if they read this story, I want to say thank you. They planted a seed.” 

In an uncommon scenario, the nurse brought Vanessa back for an ultrasound, and asked her if she would like to look at the screen — and there was her baby, plain as day.

"I was amazed," she said. "You could see her fingers. It looked like she was high-fiving the camera!”

The ultrasound nurse gave Vanessa a detailed explanation of the surgical abortion procedure, and handed her a printout of her ultrasound photo, telling her she would give her a minute, as Vanessa couldn’t stop sobbing. In distress and searching for support, she texted the photo to Craig.

“Look at her. She’s so beautiful!" Craig texted back. "Let us keep our baby. Please, I’ll do everything I can to help you and support you.”

These words were reassuring, but also hard to accept in the moment, as she couldn't shake knowing that things were going to change. Heart pounding and anxiety flooding her body, Vanessa prayed again, begging God to make it clear that she should have her baby.

"This isn’t of God. God would want me to trust Him no matter what happens," she thought.

She added:

“I was thinking about the verse — do not lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will guide your path [Proverbs 3:5-6]. I was really leaning on my worldly understanding, but I knew what was right. God was telling me to keep my baby.

Something that I have learned from pastors and sermons is that the devil is really good at causing confusion. He makes it seem like it’s the right thing when it’s not.”

At that moment, she knew she had to choose life. Without saying a word, she headed out the door.

She told Live Action News that she “remembered feeling the brightest sunshine on me and I just felt completely relieved. Right then and there I knew that the decision I chose was God’s answer to prayer and what He had for me.” 

"I knew it was Him"

Vanessa went on to tell her family and friends, who were all incredibly supportive. She was concerned about telling her coach, especially since she had not been honest about the reason she was missing practice (to get an abortion).

Much to her relief, her coach and teammates were all amazing. With their support and her doctor's guidance, she was able to make the dreams she had pre-pregnancy into reality — with a few differences.

“I remember crying and thanking God; it just all fell into place and I knew it was Him," she said. 

On April 4, 2025, Vanessa and Craig welcomed their beautiful baby girl, Luna.

“The whole world just paused,” Vanessa said of their daughter's birth. “She put her hand on me and I just felt healed inside.” She added, “Craig was just in awe admiring her. We prayed over her. We couldn’t have done this without God.” 

A New Beginning

Just six weeks after giving birth, Vanessa stepped back onto the track.

“It was a hard first practice. I started training and lifting. A little here, a little there. It took time, but I made my way back. I had a lot of trials, but I kept thinking ‘I can do this’, I trusted God.” Vanessa went from being one of the slowest runners on the team to one of the fastest.

Vanessa told Live Action News what advice she would give to another young woman experiencing an unplanned pregnancy: “It’s hard, but no one said it would be easy. There will be days when you feel like giving up [and] you feel like quitting. But honestly, Luna is more of a motivation for me to want to do it more.”

Vanessa also says having Luna has helped her to value her time, and to better learn where to put her energies. "It has changed everything, but... not to where my dreams aren’t reachable.”

Vanessa and Craig are continuing their education and look forward to life with their daughter, even though they don't know exactly what the future holds. “We are fearful and don’t know what the outcomes will be, but God knows," Vanessa said. "People told me my life ended when I got pregnant, but God told me my life had just begun.”