Nurse practitioner: Ultrasound helps women make right decision

It wasn’t what she was expecting. Angelina Giles had just graduated from high school and, with a scholarship to Creighton University in Omaha, was preparing for dorm life and to study nursing.

 

“My husband Sean, then boyfriend, and I realized I was pregnant in June (2009). We told our friends, who acted as if abortion was a natural option,” said Giles, who was mourning the death of her mother at about the same time. “It wasn’t an option for me, but I needed to figure out what to do. I still had plans to go to school.”

 

She visited A Women’s Touch in Bellevue, which now is part of Omaha-based Essential Pregnancy Services, where she had her first ultrasound and heard her baby’s heartbeat around her eighth week of pregnancy. 

 

“When I heard that heartbeat, I understood my number one job in life was to protect that baby,” she said. “It helped me realize I had made the right decision. It cemented in my mind this was a human life … it drove all my choices. I knew I had to be the best version of myself for that child.”

 

Angelina went to college. It wasn’t easy, but she said she knew it would pay off. 

 

She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing in May 2013 and a master’s degree, becoming a nurse practitioner in April last year. She hopes to begin her doctoral program next year.

 

She and Sean were married in 2011. They have four children, ranging from 2 years old to 8 years old. She works as a nurse practitioner at Sancta Familia Medical Apostolate in Omaha. The clinic recently received an ultrasound machine from the Knights of Columbus Ultrasound Initiative, which strives to provide women’s resource centers with ultrasound equipment. 

 

“I feel like it has come full circle. I was in a situation where I could have chosen abortion and am in a position now to help others in the same situation,” she said. “I just wish I could tell every mom (in that situation) that abortion is not your only option.”