She faced pressure to choose abortion from the people closest to her but instead chose life for her son. Her faith helped her endure during a tumultuous season in her life and gave her the strength to finish her college education.

“You can do hard things” has been Kaitlyn’s life motto over the past decade. She held onto those words when she faced an unplanned pregnancy in her early 20s, which motivated her to persevere as she balanced her life as a mother and as a college student.

Pressured to get an abortion

Kaitlyn became pregnant during her junior year at Auburn University. She was dating her then-boyfriend for over two years, who already had a child from a previous relationship.

“When I found out I was pregnant my junior year, that is when everything hit the fan. Although I didn’t mind stepping into a temporary, motherly role for him and his child, I was not expecting that for my life. I knew I wanted to graduate college, and I had so much more that I wanted to do,” Kaitlyn recalls.

Terrified, Kaitlyn showed her then-boyfriend the positive pregnancy test and felt pressured to get an abortion.

“When I showed him the pregnancy test, his first words were, ‘We have to get an abortion.’ And that shocked me. I didn’t know how he was going to react, but I just didn’t think it was going to be that intense of a reaction,” Kaitlyn says.

Kaitlyn’s ultrasound photo.

After sharing the news to her then-boyfriend, Kaitlyn went to a local pregnancy resource center to confirm her pregnancy. Kaitlyn was leaning toward abortion because she was scared about how her pregnancy would impact her future and her relationships with friends and family.

But that changed once Kaitlyn saw her 10-week-old baby on the ultrasound screen.

“I could see this tiny little heartbeat going, and tears started to stream down my face. I was just like, this is life. There’s just no way that I can have an abortion at this point, not after seeing that ultrasound. The statistics show that nine out of 10 women change their minds and choose life once they see that ultrasound, once they really see what’s going on inside them. I was one of those statistics, for sure,” Kaitlyn says.

On her own

Kaitlyn during her pregnancy in college.

Kaitlyn was afraid of how her family would react to her pregnancy. She didn’t want to tell them the news directly, so she left a note with her ultrasound photo at her parent’s house and waited for them to find it. Her family didn’t think she would be able to finish college while being a mom, and told her they would stop financially supporting her if she decided to parent. 

“I can see that my family took that stance out of fear — fear that their daughter wasn’t going to finish something that she started, fear that her life was going to be hindered by an unplanned pregnancy, fear that they didn’t know how she was going to do this, and fear of the stigma and shame. I come from a well-known, nice family, and you just don’t get pregnant out of wedlock. That’s just not something that happens, and that it would bring a lot of shame to my family as well. I knew better, and they wanted what they thought was best for me at the time,” Kaitlyn says.

Without any support from her family or her baby’s father, whom she had broken up with already, Kaitlyn was left scrambling to figure everything out by herself.

Despite being pregnant, Kaitlyn tried to continue her sorority lifestyle and lived a double life as she attended church on Wednesday nights and visited the bars with her friends multiple times per week. 

Kaitlyn didn’t feel ready to let go of her lifestyle until she got invited by some church friends to attend the Passion Conference in Atlanta. At the conference, well-renowned Pastor Louie Giglio opened his prayer by talking about a college student who just found out she was pregnant.

To this day, Kaitlyn remembers the words Pastor Louie spoke that night — “God’s got you. You’re going to be OK.”

“Right then and there, I had peace in my heart that I was going to do this, that I was going to be OK, and that God was going to provide everything that I needed. And He did. I could write books on how He showed up in my life,” Kaitlyn says.

Closed doors

Kaitlyn during her pregnancy in college.

News of Kaitlyn’s pregnancy circulated among her sorority sisters, and eventually her sorority adviser told her she was going to be released from the organization.

“You made the decisions that you made. That’s why you’re in the position you’re in right now, and we can’t be a part of that,” the sorority adviser told Kaitlyn.

After getting kicked out of her sorority, Kaitlyn was then asked to step down from her position as president of Best Buddies, which was a student organization that provided support to people with intellectual disabilities. Kaitlyn held the position for two years, but one of the club advisers thought she was no longer a good representative of the club.

“I was just dumbfounded again that people were completely writing me off because I had made a decision — a poor decision — and that decision resulted in me getting pregnant out of wedlock,” Kaitlyn says. “It felt like society now looked at me as less-than.”

Held down by fear, living in faith

Kaitlyn got baptized when she was nine months pregnant.

On top of feeling ostracized on campus, Kaitlyn had to balance multiple responsibilities at once to provide for herself and her soon-to-be newborn baby. She continued to attend college full time while working as a waitress in the evenings to pay for her rent. She worked until the week before she gave birth.

“Figuring out how to finish school while being pregnant was really hard,” Kaitlyn recalls. “The relationship with the father of my baby was over. My relationship with my family was strained, and to add insult to injury, I was kicked out of my sorority and asked to step down from serving a nonprofit I loved. It was like my entire life had been turned upside down. I was forced to navigate this new reality where I felt very judged and alone. How was I ever going to be able to provide for my child while I was barely surviving myself?”

Out of shame, Kaitlyn stopped attending classes as her pregnancy progressed and retreated to her apartment. Her grades dropped drastically. She felt hopeless and didn’t know if she would be able to get her degree.

“I didn’t come out for a long time out of fear of facing the world. Everyone makes mistakes in life but this was one that, as my belly grew, I could no longer hide,” Kaitlyn says.

Kaitlyn and baby Hudson.

Things started to turn around for the better when Kaitlyn met with the dean of her college. Dr. Sarah Hubbard was the first person to ask Kaitlyn how she was doing and gave her the encouragement she needed to not give up on herself. She also helped Kaitlyn medically withdraw from her classes so she could start fresh during the next semester.

“I just cried because I needed somebody in my corner on campus to tell me I could do this and that they were going to help me do this … I would not have graduated had it not been for Dr. Hubbard. There’s just no way I would have seen a way out of what I was going through,” Kaitlyn says.

Kaitlyn started to believe in herself, but most importantly, she learned to trust in God and surrender her life to the Lord. She got baptized when she was nine months pregnant.

“I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I could either do it the world’s way, or I could do it God’s way,” Kaitlyn says.

Love and support in unexpected places

Despite facing an unplanned pregnancy, Kaitlyn was able to graduate from Auburn University with a degree in human development and family studies.

As Kaitlyn prepared for labor, she found support from a co-worker, Holly, who attended birthing classes with her and drove her to the hospital when her water broke. Kaitlyn labored for 32 hours and gave birth to her son, Hudson, via c-section. Holly and a sorority sister tag-teamed to care for Kaitlyn at the hospital until her family could arrive.

Kaitlyn learned to care for her son by herself and resumed her classes shortly after birth. She worked the early shift at a daycare so she could pay a cheaper rate for Hudson to stay there while she attended her classes. All of Kaitlyn’s hard work came to fruition when she graduated from college with her degree in human development and family studies.

Kaitlyn posted these photos on her Facebook, which sparked a conversation between her and her now-husband, Will.

After graduation, Kaitlyn received more support from a guy she met during an internship, who she eventually would marry. She met Will when she was about six months along. They were volunteering for the pregnancy resource center where Kaitlyn got her initial ultrasound. They were both interested in each other, but they remained friends because Kaitlyn was pregnant and Will assumed she was married.

But after seeing a Facebook photo of Kaitlyn and her son in front of the Auburn University sign, Will realized that Kaitlyn was a single mom and asked if he could bring her a meal.

“Every night he would bring me a meal, and within three months, we were married,” Kaitlyn says.

Will and Kaitlyn have now been married for over 12 years and went on to have four more children together. Hudson got adopted the day after Will and Kaitlyn celebrated their first wedding anniversary.

“We celebrate Hudson’s ‘Gotcha Day’ every year. He knows he’s adopted. He knows Will chose him. It’s kind of like an extra birthday for him, and we look forward to celebrating it every year. It’s just part of our family’s story, and I couldn’t imagine it any other way,” Kaitlyn says.

Hudson not only brought joy into Kaitlyn’s life, but he helped bring her family together. Kaitlyn and her family reconciled shortly after Hudson’s birth.

“Our family was brought even closer because all of a sudden there was something we all had in common — love for my newborn son. Hudson provided my family with the opportunity to heal from past wounds. There is just no denying a precious, innocent baby that shares your DNA,” Kaitlyn says.

Kaitlyn with her husband, Will, and their five children. 

Kaitlyn’s experience facing an unplanned pregnancy inspired her to help build a nonprofit that empowers student-moms experiencing an unplanned pregnancy in college to have both their education and their baby. 

“Being a student-mom was one of the hardest chapters in my life. My journey continues to fuel me to see this nonprofit that I have helped build expand nationwide so that no woman in college has to struggle alone with being both a student and a mother as I did,” Kaitlyn says.

Kaitlyn’s encouragement to those who are facing an unplanned pregnancy:

“You can do hard things — that has been my slogan for a long time. When you find out you are unexpectedly pregnant so young, the world is going to try to sell you a temporary counterfeit idea of what your life is going to look like. They’re going to tell you that you can’t do it. They’re going to tell you that you need to pick between your degree and your baby. But that is not the truth because you can have both. You CAN have your education AND your baby.”

Written by Loren Ward.