San Joaquín Valley College
I would have ordered more rubber babies if I had known!
Last week, I was joined by Stanton volunteers Jessica and Jo at San Joaquín Valley College in Hesperia. We had brought the Stanton Mobile and our ultrasound machine to give a presentation to several classes of students in the medical assistant program, our first community presentation in a school setting.
When asked to give a prenatal ultrasound demonstration, we usually ask one of our pregnant friends to be the “model” during a presentation. In this case, we had the wonderful opportunity to perform the demonstrations with two of the students as models.
One of the pregnant students, Bonnie, is carrying a 32-week-old baby boy and anything but a stranger. She was the model at our February visit to St. Junipero Serra Church, and just “happened” to be a student in the class at SJVC this week!
The other mother, Blanca, is 30 weeks pregnant with a boy and was delighted to offer her baby bump for the class presentation.
As our sonographer Jo set up the ultrasound machine and prepped the models, I introduced the work of Stanton Healthcare and our vision for free, life-affirming pregnancy medical services in the High Desert. I discussed our goal of reaching women who may otherwise not receive quality healthcare in the early stages of pregnancy, our philosophy of whole woman care (physical, emotional, spiritual), and our commitment to providing StantonCare in a confidential, professional, and compassionate environment.
After answering questions about Stanton’s ministry and distributing drop cards with our hotline number, it was time to get down to the business of seeing babies.
It never gets old. The oohs and aahs of women and men as they watch a somersaulting baby waving and kicking on the ultrasound screen - that just makes my day.
Bonnie’s little one, Damien Alexander, was a busy guy. He was rolling around so much the entire class could see his mama’s belly moving under the ultrasound wand!
Blanca’s baby Sebastian preferred to make faces as several students called out “Hi, Baby Bash!” It was a party-like atmosphere as most of the students in both classes embraced the opportunity to learn more about life-affirming healthcare through the use of ultrasound.
We know future audiences will not all respond so positively to Stanton presentations, but it was an incredible encouragement to see the great impact those babies and the ultrasound made at SJVC on Monday.
To top it all off, we marched both classes out to the parking lot for a quick tour of the Mobile. The ladies especially remarked on the cozy atmosphere, with a couple girls saying, “It looks like a little home!”
During the first class’ tour of the Mobile, I pulled out one of our small rubber fetal models designed to be the same size and stage of development as an 11-12 week embryo in the womb. In seconds, I was mobbed by students in blue medical scrubs clamoring for their own model and the accompanying info card. By the second tour, I didn’t have any of the rubber versions left and resorted to distributing the (in my opinion, uglier) plastic models. The students were in awe as they cradled the tiny baby, thanking me for the small gift. Little did they know, those tiny babies are seeds being planted in the hearts of the rising generation. Seeds of truth.
As we packed up, Jessica (Stanton’s school presentation coordinator) shared that she received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the teachers and students during and after the presentations. Jessica, Jo and I were so thankful to have had the opportunity to finally bring the Stanton Mobile and ultrasound to a school, and we are excited to continue this wonderful program!
For more information about our presentations take a look at the website, or contact us to learn how you can bring Stanton Mobile (and our seeds of truth!) to a school, youth group or church near you.
-- Danielle Versluys