For the staff members at Vicksburg’s Center for Pregnancy Choices, helping women deal with unplanned pregnancies and supporting them through the nine months they carry a child and beyond is more than a service — it’s a calling.

And their dedication to providing education, counseling and medical services at no charge to single women going through a pregnancy is worthy enough to qualify them as heroes in the truest sense of the word.

But CPC director Priscilla Black quickly dismisses that characterization.

“We’re not heroes by any means,” she said. “What we are is a catalyst to empower women and help them see what they can do.”

The real heroes, she said, are the women who decide to carry their child and either give it up for adoption or keep the child as their own.

“Basically, they came to a place where pregnancy wasn’t convenient in their life. Instead of taking a convenient way out the pregnancy (through abortion), they decided to become a parent (or give the child for adoption).”

One of those heroes, Black said, is Jasmine Bride.

Bride, 20, has a 7-month-old daughter, Aubrielle. In late May 2015, she learned she was expecting.

“I had all kinds of emotions,” she said. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I took a home pregnancy test and when it turned positive, I went to the Center for Pregnancy Choices and they did an ultrasound.”

When she told the child’s father she was expecting, she said, he wanted her to have an abortion, “And I knew it was something I couldn’t do.”

“We went to the center and looked at the options; at that time he still wanted me to have an abortion, (and) I knew I couldn’t,” she said, adding adoption was also discussed because she and the father were still in school and she believed she wouldn’t be able to meet Aubrielle’s wants and needs.

In the end, Brides said, she couldn’t give Aubrielle up for adoption “because I didn’t know how I’d feel; knowing my child was out there and not being part of her life.”

“I decided to carry my child because she is my child. I knew it was going to be huge. I felt like abortion wasn’t an option because she had a right to life, and to be and do things.”

“For Jasmine, this was a big deal, because she considered all three options — actually two — abortion, parenting through adoption or having the child herself,” Black said. “She ended up parenting herself. She seriously considered both choices, and the reason she and every other woman who’s ever chosen parenting is a hero, is because it is not a convenient choice, but it’s a rewarding choice.

“Everybody around them is saying, ‘If you view your pregnancy as a problem, get rid of it quickly. Don’t worry about it.’”

Black said CPC works to support women like Bride through education and information, by fully explaining their choices.

“It’s called informed choice education; we provide a woman all the information about the choices so she can truly make an informed choice and not be blindsided afterward,” she said.

Black said parenting classes are provided to help women who wish to keep their child, and all mothers are provided prenatal vitamins. There is also a point system that allows mothers to earn the ability to get clothing, diapers and items like cribs and child car seats by attending classes.

Bride, Black said, really took her time to weigh options, and for her that choice was parenting. “Now, she’s so happy with her daughter.”

“You don’t know how happy you’re going to be until you get through with those nine months, and where you get to meet your child,” Black said. “You couldn’t know the joys of motherhood until you experience it. That’s why she’s a hero. She endured so she could know a greater joy of the nine months.

Despite being a single parent, Bride said, “Everything is good; I work part-time, I’m in school full-time, I take care of her. I see her smile and see her laugh and that makes it all worth it.”

She lives with family members who help care for Aubrielle while Bride is in school.

Bride attends Hinds Community College with the goal of entering Hinds’ nursing program.

“I want to be a neonatal nurse or work in delivery,” she said. “I eventually want to go back to school and get my master’s and become a nurse practitioner.

“The big reason I want to be a nurse is because she was born at 28 weeks, and she spent seven weeks in (an) incubator.

“She is my purpose and my reason for doing everything,” Bride said. “My motivation. I’m not going to say that it’s all easy because it’s not; it’s hard. Keeping her and parenting her was the right choice.”