Kim
Schams, R.N.
Founder
/ Executive Director
Kim@pregnancyoutreach.org
To know how Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach,
inc. came into existence, it is helpful to know a little about me. I have
been married since 1983. My husband, Scott, and I have two darling little
boys and have lived in College Station since 1995. I am a registered nurse
and I worked primarily with adult heart patients before my children were
born.
When we got married, I was in the middle of nursing school and Scott was beginning medical school. Being a young, married couple with no income, we did not want to start a family for a while, so we were very careful about using birth control. (Okay...too much information...but it is important to the story!) Once we were through with our education we were ready to begin a family, but no babies came. We chose not to seek medical treatment for infertility. We decided we would rather adopt a baby.
At the time
we lived in a small town in Southwest Texas. We had some friends from
our church call us one night in great distress to say that their daughter
was pregnant. She was a freshman in college. They did not know we were
thinking of adopting a baby; they were just calling for advice. Scott
discussed the medical needs Erin (pseudonym) would have and then we talked
about the options Erin was considering.
She
was trying to sort through the options of parenting versus adoption. We
referred her familiy to a social worker at an adoption agency to guide
them. We told them we had spent time with this agency because we were
thinking of adopting a baby. We knew they would not pressure Erin one
way or the other, but they would just help her think it all out. You can
probably guess where this story is going….she decided on adoption.
When we heard her decision, I said to her mother, “If you would
like that baby to go to someone you know, we would love to adopt him!”
Well, she started crying and said, “That’s what we’ve
been praying for, but we didn’t want to say anything!” We
adopted that sweet little baby boy born October of 1992.
Our second child, Benjamin, came along in a similar set of circumstances. His birthmother used to baby sit for my brother’s children in San Antonio. When she told my brother she was pregnant, my brother told her about us and asked if she was interested in meeting us. He grilled hamburgers in his backyard a few weeks later and we met with her and her family for the afternoon. She called us several days later and said she wanted to place her baby for adoption with us. Benjamin was born August of 1995. We maintain contact with both birthmothers and their families. We send pictures and get together as often as we can.
The boys know that they grew in their birthmother's tummy and when they came out, we adopted them and they became our little boys. The type of relationships we have with our son’s birthmothers is known as open adoption. It all sounds so simple when you put it down on paper, but what is difficult to convey is the extreme emotions that surround the whole process. As joyous and happy as it is to adopt a child through open adoption, there is an equal amount of pain experienced by the birthfamilies as this child will be raised outside of their family.
In the Fall
of 1997, Scott and I were wanting to adopt third baby. A friend of a friend
suggested we call an agency in Oklahoma that she knew about. We made that
call and found it to be a most unusual and interesting agency. Actually
it was a Christian ministry to pregnant girls. Adoption services were
added as a benefit to the girls they were serving. A few days after that
phone call, there was a story in the local newspaper stating that Planned
Parenthood was planning to build an abortion clinic in Bryan. That bit
of information, coupled with the previous phone call stirred me up like
few things have stirred me before. I knew that I wanted to form an organization
like the one in Oklahoma to help girls choose life for their babies and
give them a true helping hand during their pregnancies.
You see, when I think of abortion, I think
of my boys, J.T. and Ben. If their birthmothers had chosen abortion, I
would have never had the chance to hold, feed, rock, sing, chase, tickle,
or tackle my two wild ones. My heart aches at that thought. I know there
are hundreds of other couples with empty arms who would give anything
to adopt a baby.
My husband and I have both been Christians since we were teenagers and it is clear to us that we are all valued by God from the time we were conceived. The Bible says in Psalms 139, “My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them. How precious are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!”
So in the Fall
of 1997, the idea was conceived to begin a ministry or outreach program
to pregnant girls. I know that pregnant girls face hundreds of issues
that cannot be solved by only advising them against abortion. Aggieland
Pregnancy Outreach (APO) was formed to help girls choose life for their
babies. Some will choose to parent their babies, some will choose adoption.
(To learn more about our services go to the Services
page of the APO web site.) We know that many have had previous abortions
and many will choose abortion in the future. It is not our desire to condemn
those girls, rather we want to show them how to get help and healing from
the problems of past abortions and show them how they can have a great
relationship with Jesus Christ. (Visit the Hope
for my Future page of the APO web site.) As part of our service
to pregnant women, we have added adoption services for those who feel
adoption is the best choice for their baby. We feel that Open 
Adoption
serves the children well and has proven to be a wonderful experience for
the Schams’ household.
As for me, I have a great time getting to know the girls through this organization. Our family attends Grace Bible Church in College Station and we have been active in working with college students there. When Scott and I were in college at Baylor University (Sic ‘em Bears) some families from our church in Waco took us under their wings and made a huge impact upon our lives. We have always enjoyed helping college kids the way that we were helped. We all make mistakes along the way and those of us at Aggieland Pregnancy Outreach want to be available to help young girls and their boyfriends overcome those mistakes.
When I am not working with young women, you can probably find me wrestling with my boys or working on some new project around the house. I love working in the yard. I have built brick sidewalks and new flower beds and a pond. I am also an animal lover. Many people who enter our house feel they are coming to the Schams’ zoo…so beware!
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