The O’Mailles: pictured (from left) at a recent Life Care Pregnancy Center
event are Alanna, Lori, Audrey (holding her son, Grayson) and Patrick. (Photo contributed)
Lori O’Maille of Pinehurst, N.C., spoke at two recent gatherings in Owens Auditorium at Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, telling about help she and her older teenage daughter, Audrey, received from Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, N.C.
O’Maille, a coloratura soprano who teaches voice lessons, served as publicity chair for Life Care Pregnancy Center’s gatherings at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 20, 2012, at SCC. The programs featured O’Maille’s testimonial and showings of “October Baby,” a movie about a young woman who survives a failed abortion and learns, as a teenager, about the circumstances of her birth and adoption.
“‘Life Care’ needs to become
a household name in Moore County,” said O’Maille, as she told her story to
about 100 people gathered at the 2:00 p.m. meeting.
Her daughters, Audrey and
Alanna, and her husband and she returned home in 2010 from their first visit to
Florida’s Disney World.
“It was the first Sunday of
January 2010,” O’Maille said. “Audrey was acting a wee bit strange.”
Audrey, then a sophomore at
Pinecrest High School, sat down in the room where her mother was taking down
Christmas decorations.
“I have something to tell
you,” Audrey said.
O’Maille, who said “time
stood still” and that she knew somehow what was coming next, said, “You’re
pregnant, aren’t you?”
Audrey said, “Yes! And I’m
keeping the baby!”
The O’Mailles, ardent
Catholics, attend St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Southern Pines, N.C.
“Abortion was not an option
for our family,” O’Maille said.
Her husband, Patrick, a
doctor of psychology who serves as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, was nearby.
He was soon involved in the conversation.
“I was in shock,” said
O’Maille, whose father was a “love child.” Also, she, as a teenager, had some
friends who became teenage mothers. “I knew from all aspects what Audrey was
going to go through.”
O’Maille “sat three weeks in
a room,” going through emotional turmoil. A parent of one of her music students
told her about Life Care Pregnancy Center (LCPC).
Suzanne Clendenin, LCPC’s executive
director, helped advise Audrey and her family during the pregnancy.
O’Maille said about
Clendenin: “I would look at Suzanne and see the face of Jesus in her.”
Audrey wanted to go right
back to school after having her baby, but Clendenin advised her to stay home
for a semester after delivery and take online classes. She told Audrey, “I see
a bright future for you.”
During her senior year, Audrey
became Pinecrest High’s 2011 homecoming queen. Her son, Grayson, and her family
were present at that crowning. She finished Pinecrest in June 2012 as a “N.C.
Scholar” with a 4.2 GPA and is using a $50,000 scholarship (spread over 4
years) to study pre-nursing at UNC at Pembroke. She is active in the school’s
Health Careers Club and is an “initiated sister” in Kappa Delta Sorority. She
also works part-time.
Grayson was two years and two
months old at the time of the recent LCPC meeting. His mother held him onstage
as that meeting concluded.
O’Maille said about her
grandson, “He’s the sun, moon and stars to me, and I would do anything for
him.”
Life Care
Pregnancy Center of Carthage, “a Christ-centered ministry that promotes the
sanctity of human life,” may be reached at 910-947-6199 or by e-mail at lcpc01@embarqmail.com. Donations may be sent to LCPC, P.O.
Box 519, Carthage, N.C. 28327.
Suzanne Clendenin, executive
director of Life Care Pregnancy Center in Carthage, N.C.
