As a cross country athlete, Linda Teliha trained to run in different environments, from rugged terrains to steep hills, striving to do her best to not let anything disrupt her stride.

So when those two red lines popped up on a pregnancy test, 19-year-old Linda decided to schedule an abortion appointment at Planned Parenthood.

Linda’s unplanned pregnancy was a disruption, and abortion would have been the convenient option. She had invested years training as an athlete and had just received scholarship offers to join Boise State University’s cross country team. She didn’t want to simply throw those opportunities away.

‘God will shine a light’

Everything was happening all too suddenly for Linda. 

Even though her boyfriend and now husband wanted to keep the baby and marry her, Linda didn’t feel ready for marriage or motherhood yet.

“There’s two different things going on,” Linda says. “There was a pregnancy, baby thing going, and there was a relationship going on. And I don’t think at 19 I was mature enough to be able to navigate a relationship in that capacity.”

Thanks to her dad’s advice, Linda sought counseling first before going back to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. She went to a pregnancy care center with her boyfriend and watched a short video on abortion before their counseling appointment.

Seeing the video was overwhelming for Linda. She didn’t realize what an abortion entailed until that moment.

“I was kind of like, well, I can’t do that because I had so much control over my body from having been an athlete, and I can’t imagine being in a situation where they were doing this to me,” Linda says.

As she and her boyfriend continued their appointment, they both shared their concerns and worries to the counselor. 

“When you think all the walls are closing in, God will shine a light,” the counselor told Linda.

“I believed in God,” Linda says, “but I wasn’t a Bible thumper, or I didn’t have a deep faithful life. But I got up and changed my mind.”

Embracing Motherhood

Linda with her four daughters.

Choosing life was no easy feat. Linda took a semester off from Fresno State University to focus on her pregnancy. Her daughter, Christine, was born two months early.

Linda went back to college to continue her education. She found babysitters so she could attend cross country practices and meets. But even then, Linda had to work her way from the ground up.

“I went back as a failure. That’s how I felt,” she says. “I went from being like the best in the area and scholarship-worthy to the lowest on the team … I just kind of stumbled through it and did what I could.”

Throughout college, Linda struggled to balance life as a mother, student and athlete. Her freedom and time were limited, and she missed the life she once had before motherhood.

“I just missed my identity as just me, but I embraced my identity as my daughter’s mother,” Linda says. “I am my daughter’s mother because I was supposed to be. There’s nobody who could have done a better job taking care of her and advocating for her with her health and stuff. I was born to do that.”

God continued to shine a light in Linda’s life, and she was able to graduate with her bachelor’s in health sciences. She then obtained a master’s in special education with a teaching credential. And most importantly, God blessed her with three more daughters.

Through motherhood, Linda’s faith grew and she found strength in the Lord. She remembers the exact “fork in the road” moment of her faith when her eldest daughter was getting surgery at 14 after years of health complications. Linda stood on a cliff in San Francisco and prayed for herself for the first time.

“That’s really when I think that I surrendered to the strength of God rather than my strength,” she says.

‘There is always hope’

In 2019, Linda started her pro-life advocacy as a sidewalk counselor for Right to Life of Central California.

Linda says, “When I first came out here just to pray on the sidewalk, I asked the person who was working for Right to Life at the time, ‘Where are the women who didn’t have an abortion?’ He said, ‘We don’t know any.’ And I said, ‘Well, now you do.’”

It’s sometimes discouraging for Linda to see the women go into Planned Parenthood, even after talking with them. But knowing that her story could change their mind drives Linda to continue her advocacy work.

“My encouragement is to talk to someone who can give you perspective because whenever you have trauma or a tragedy or whatever, you only look at what’s right in front of you,” she says. “There is always hope, and there is always help. There are so many more resources than anybody knows.”

Linda says society is growing a generation of people who latch onto slogans like “my body, my choice.” Women and men will grab onto a slogan when they find themselves in a crisis without actually considering what that means or what the impact is on them. 

One of the best ways to promote life is to empower women, Linda says.

“I think we do a terrible job as women supporting each other. If we were more supportive and less competitive, there would be fewer abortions and there would be less need to have to rely on a man,” she says.

As Linda continues her work as a sidewalk counselor, she gets to share her unplanned pregnancy story with other women who are going through similar circumstances. By sharing her story, Linda hopes to empower women to choose life.

“I don’t think as many people who have had crises or an unplanned pregnancy speak out. They just move on,” she says.