She chose life for her son, even though she was navigating trauma from rape and an abusive relationship. She now works as an artist and is a pro-life advocate through Bird Flip, an Australian group of women who are flipping the narrative on abortion.

24-year-old Elspeth was committed to creating stability in her life while investing in her future as an artist. She had just left a years-long abusive relationship with her ex-boyfriend and felt she had a second chance to turn her life around. 

So with her newfound freedom, Elspeth moved in with several housemates in Sydney, Australia, received a scholarship to study classical painting, and taught art as a part-time job.

But Elspeth’s sense of control was shattered when a man sexually assaulted her on a date.

“I walked away just quite stunned and really disconnected and not knowing how to feel. I had a strong sense of emptiness and didn’t know how to process what had just happened at all,” Elspeth recalls.

Feeling numb and wanting to regain a sense of control, Elspeth met with her ex-boyfriend, Adam*, several hours after the assault.

“I had some kind of sense that I needed to erase this experience somehow. So I went back to him, and I then chose to sleep with him as a way of trying to get rid of that experience out of my body,” Elspeth explains.

Choosing life in the midst of trauma and abuse

Afraid that she would get pregnant, Elspeth took the morning-after pill, hoping that it would prevent ovulation from happening. But little did she know she had already conceived her child the night before.

Elspeth soon found out she was unexpectedly pregnant, which left her feeling hopeless. The ground shifted beneath her feet, and her life seemed like it was spiraling out of control. 

“I was 24, had no money. I was just a painting student. I didn’t have any meaningful connections, and so I was utterly dissatisfied when I found out I was pregnant. I was pretty distraught, and I think I did get hit with a wave of PTSD,” Elspeth recalls.

On top of dealing with the trauma from rape and abusive relationship, Elspeth felt devastated not knowing who her child’s father was. There were people around her who told her that abortion was her best option. But still, Elspeth held on to her deep convictions that abortion was wrong. She didn’t want to end the life of her unborn child.

“I definitely did not want to have a baby at all. This seems like the worst possible thing that could happen. It felt like it was the end of my life. But I couldn’t shake the conviction that, well, I am already a mom. This is a child that I already have in my body,” Elspeth says.

Elspeth felt lonely as she grappled with her new reality as a single expectant mom. Her loneliness only worsened when she went to her ultrasounds alone. She was afraid to look at her baby on the ultrasound screen. It reminded her that she didn’t have anybody to lean on as she navigated her pregnancy.

“I didn’t realize that my life had actually begun at that moment,” Elspeth says. “My life didn’t end when I got pregnant. It just got harder, but more meaningful and more beautiful. I like to think of that idea that the pain and the struggle dig out those wells that are there to be filled with the equal opposite – joy and meaning.”

After undergoing DNA testing, Elspeth found out that her ex-boyfriend, Adam*, was the father of her child. The result gave her some relief. However, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her child would connect her to a man who had abused her. 

“It’s a child whom I was resentful of. It was a child I was wishing wasn’t there with me and belonged to somebody who had abused me, so it felt like a continuation of the abuse, like my body did feel invaded by something that wasn’t mine. I experienced all of that, but I still just couldn’t contemplate an abortion,” Elspeth explains.

Elspeth faced a tumultuous season in her life. She felt like her dreams to study classical painting and work as an artist were put on hold as she prioritized her baby. She forfeited her college scholarship and left Sydney to live with her family for about a year and a half. With her family’s love and support, Elspeth was able to slowly rebuild her life together.

“It’s important to have somebody who can support you when you’re in those situations. They do make a big difference. It’s hard to imagine how much harder it would have been if I didn’t have my family,” Elspeth says.

‘I’ve had the role and the gift of being his mom’

One of Elspeth’s proudest moments is going through childbirth and meeting her son several days before Mother’s Day. Going through labor was a beautiful and empowering experience for her, healing the trauma that she had wrestled with.

“There’s something about the electricity that goes through your body with the surges that really shook away a lot of the trauma that was still held in my body, and so I actually found that birth healed me from some of that experience. I got to reown my body and get back in touch with my body for probably the first time in a long time,” Elspeth recalls.

After living with her family, Elspeth tried to live with Adam*, hoping they could be a family. The abuse continued, so she chose to stay as a single mom. Elspeth calls her son the biggest blessing in her life.

“Something that stuck with me from the day that he was born to today is that I’ve always felt profoundly honored that I’ve had the role and the gift of being his mom – that I, who is so broken and full of all of humanity’s mess, was honored to be the one who got to look after this little baby and to be the one human in the whole world who gets to see his whole life,” Elspeth says.

Being a single mom in her 20s was extremely difficult for Elspeth. She depended on government support, with barely enough money to support herself and her son. Elspeth struggled with affordable housing for a while and found a dilapidated rental with black mold that she and her son could live in. She also remembers moments when she received free food and supplies from charities.

Elspeth felt depressed and wasn’t proud of the life she was living. But she was motivated to change her life and give her son the best future possible.

“Yes, I’m poor. Yes, I’m in these circumstances. But, you know, I have a lot of opportunity to fight for myself and for my son,” Elspeth says.

Six years later

Elspeth’s hard work has come to fruition as she lives a life with more stability, structure, money and resources. Her son is now 6 years old and attending school, while she works as an artist in an art studio in Adelaide.

“I have a flow in my life. I’m more established. I’m more mentally and spiritually healthy because of those six years of hardship and deep internal work that you’re forced to go through. It’s when you’re in the underworld, when you’ve got your baby and you’re sleepless and you’re constantly coming up against life’s hardships, you are forced to do this deep internal work and to really meet yourself and to find what is truly of value. It strips away a lot of vanity and a lot of things that are unimportant,” Elspeth explains.

Outside of her career as an artist, Elspeth works as a pro-life advocate through Bird Flip, an Australian group of women who are flipping the narrative on abortion. The group was started by Elspeth’s long-time friend, Dr. Joanna Howe, a law professor and prominent anti-abortion activist in Australia. 

Elspeth’s encouragement to those facing an unplanned pregnancy:

“This is not the end. What you see now is only a small, little peek into where your life is actually gonna go. This is the blessing that will take your life into something more than you could ever have imagined. And even though it doesn’t feel like that right now, just catch on to that little bit of hope that this will actually propel your life to be more than you could ever imagine, to meet more love than you could ever could have imagined, to meet more depth and more meaning and more connection than you had ever imagined.”

Writer’s Note: A pseudonym was used for Elspeth’s boyfriend, Adam*.

Written by Loren Ward.