Trisha (not her real name) became one of more than 20,000 women helped by Pregnancy Aid during the past 30 years, and she is now six months into her pregnancy.

Describing the volunteers at the crisis pregnancy center as "really caring and concerned," she said she received not only good advice, but also help with maternity clothes and pre-natal support, as well as promises of help with baby needs once her child is born.

Pregnancy Aid was one of eight crisis pregnancy centers in metro Detroit founded in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that effectively legalized abortion on demand.

"I really appreciate it, because I was praying to God, and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to have an abortion, but I didn't know what to do," she says, explaining how complications with the pregnancy on top of financial setbacks and caring for her 4-year-old son as a single parent had left her unsure how she could cope with everything.

On a recent visit to Pregnancy Aid, a technician performed an ultrasound and Trisha was able to see her unborn child moving in her womb. "I loved it; it was beautiful," she says.

Seeing an ultrasound at Pregnancy Aid also persuaded Kenyota Hicks to keep her baby. The teen had already decided against abortion before visiting Pregnancy Aid, but the ultrasound image even dissuaded her from giving her baby up for adoption.

"She was sucking her thumb and seemed to be waving at the screen. After that, I thought: Why would you want to give her up? She's too beautiful," Hicks says.

And since giving birth, Pregnancy Aid has been a source of needed baby supplies as she has raised her daughter, Armani, now 3 months old. "They did a lot for me, a whole lot," Hicks says.

The ultrasound machine has proved to be "a very powerful tool," says Madeleine Scranton, a member of St. Paul on the Lake Parish, Grosse Pointe Farms, who has been involved with Pregnancy Aid since 1977.

"It lets the mother see the baby living and moving as early as two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half months, whereas they don't feel it moving until they're four-and-a-half to five months along," she says.

Scranton notes that there are others, such as Ann Garska, another St. Paul parishioner, who have been involved with Pregnancy Aid right since the very beginning in 1974. The organization marked its 30th anniversary Jan. 17, and will celebrate it and recognize longtime volunteers at an anniversary dinner on April 3 with Michigan Attorney Gen. Mike Cox as speaker.

There was a time, during the 1980s, when Pregnancy Aid's financial situation looked pretty bleak. "We were down to $300, and we sent a letter to Cardinal (Edmund) Szoka," Scranton recalls. The cardinal lent the organization some archdiocesan employees to help get fund-raising efforts going.

Although she acknowledges she had hoped the victory over abortion would have been long won by now, Scranton says she is not discouraged. "I'm a grandmother now, but as long as I can do it, I'm going to do what I can," she says.

The ultrasound program has been made possible by Dr. Tom Forbes, a pediatrician with Children's Hospital of Michigan and St. Paul's parishioner who donates his time, says Julie Hage, president of Pregnancy Aid.

Hage says it was a former president of the group, Lisa Peters (now vice president), who enlisted her eight years ago. "I always had a heart for pro-life, but I didn't know how to get involved," says Hage, a member of St. Joan of Arc Parish, St. Clair Shores.

She says the counseling and pregnancy support provided by Pregnancy Aid is made possible by dedicated volunteers and generous donors. Besides those who work there, the organization benefits from people such as St. Paul parishoner Betty Nienstedt, mother of Bishop John Nienstedt of New Ulm, Minn., a former auxiliary bishop of Detroit.

"She's the head of our quilters, seniors from the altar society at St. Paul's who make so many things for our clients," Hage says.

When Pregnancy Aid moved to its new and much larger space last November, plenty of donated supplies and services helped ease the financial cost, but Hage says she was worried about how to raise the additional $1,000 a month in rent until Art and Mary Ann Van Elslander (of Art Van Furniture) offered to cover the differential for the entire five years of the lease.

"We're always amazed at the kindness and generosity of people. It's really encouraging, and it shows you that God is in charge – we're just His instruments," she says.

Peters says her involvement with Pregnancy Aid since 1995 has taught her "that abortion not only kills innocent children, but it also hurts women."

"That becomes so obvious from what we hear in our counseling – the pain they suffer and the shame they feel," says Peters, a member of St. Patrick Parish in Grand Haven, where she lives on weekends.

"I've heard heartbreaking stories from women who've said how, after their abortions, they never stopped thinking about the baby," she says.