Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
We’re the Vallottons, and we’re passionate about people! Every human was created for fulfilling connections in relationship and family, but it’s not always what comes easiest! We know this because of our wide range of personal experiences as well as years of working with people. So we’re going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
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Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
123. Beyond Statistics: A Story of Choosing Life in the Face of Crisis & Diagnosis
In this powerful episode of Dates, Mates, and Babies, Jason and Lauren Vallotton welcome two courageous women: Kirsten Lapp, Executive Director of Northstate Care Clinic, and Lauren Hodgson, a mother of four who walked through an unexpected pregnancy and found hope in the face of overwhelming pressure. This is the second part to a conversation that began in episode 122.
When Lauren discovered she was pregnant with her fourth child, it came as a complete shock. That shock deepened when she learned her baby had Down syndrome. Surrounded by doctors quoting grim statistics and suggesting termination, Lauren found herself in a vulnerable and isolating place—until she connected with Northstate Care Clinic. There, she encountered something radically different: compassion, clarity, and care. All offered freely, without pressure.
Now, 18 months later, Lauren’s daughter Millie is a joyful, thriving little girl. In this deeply honest conversation, the hosts explore the realities women face during a crisis pregnancy, the unique challenges of raising a child with special needs, and the profound impact of having a supportive community.
This episode covers:
- What defines a crisis pregnancy and the pressure many women experience from the medical system and culture
- The emotional and spiritual strength required to say yes to life when fear and uncertainty are loud
- The vital role of Northstate Care Clinic in providing non-judgmental, life-affirming support and resources
- The need for continued after-birth resources, including housing, especially for women without stable home environments
- A unique opportunity for listeners to help Northstate raise $300,000 to close escrow on a permanent home by July 14th
Jason and Lauren share that they are contributing to this campaign and invite their listeners to join them in funding a place of real hope for women in Northern California.
To learn more or to give, visit:
🌐 northstatecareclinic.org
🌱 friendsofnscc.org
"Every woman deserves more than pressure—she deserves hope, support, and a safe place to land."
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We're the valetins and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone to Dates, mates and Babies with the Valetins. It's great to be here with y'all.
Speaker 2:It sure is Happy summer, everybody. Good to be back. You may have noticed we took a tiny hiatus last week.
Speaker 1:Sorry y'all.
Speaker 2:We did not release an episode because Jason and I were actually in Washington DC. We were invited on a trip to the White House at the very last minute.
Speaker 1:It's true, donald Trump needed some help.
Speaker 2:My gosh, when you get called by the White House, you just don't say no. So we had to go. Actually, we were in this awesome meeting at the faith office in the White House last week, which maybe we'll kind of unpack in a future episode, but that is why you guys have been missing us for a week. But we're back and actually we're really excited about this week's episode because it is a part two to a conversation that we had a couple of weeks ago with Kirsten Lapp of the North State Care Clinic, and so today, in a follow-up conversation, we're actually really, really pleased to have two, three guests with us. Actually, today we've got Kirsten, who is the director of the North state care clinic. We also have the beautiful Lauren Hodgson and her daughter, millie, who is 18 months old.
Speaker 1:You might hear Millie, just a tiny bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you might hear Millie in the background. She is reading a book currently, but, uh, very interested in what's happening, so you might a book currently, but very interested in what's happening, so you might hear from her. But we're with Lauren, who has an amazing story that we're going to hear more about during our episode. But Lauren and her family actually received so much help from North state care clinic Gosh a little maybe two years ago right About two years ago, if Millie is 18 months. So we're really happy to have you girls with us today. Thanks for joining us and thanks for being willing to share your story. Lauren, yeah, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Before we jump in, I think if people haven't heard about, if they haven't listened to last week's episode, yeah, episode 122. You should probably pause this one, go back and listen to that episode last week. That way you're up to speed on what we're doing and why we're talking about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the North State Care Clinic is our local crisis pregnancy center and in the previous episode Kirsten helped us kind of wrap our minds around what services are offered, what kind of people this North State Care Clinic serves in our community. And then they're right in the middle of a really important campaign where they're raising money to purchase some property across from our local abortion clinic. So just kind of a wild ambitious project that they're in the middle of. That we are excited to get behind. But honestly, with our podcast stories of hearing how communities are actually wrapping around women and children in need and providing solutions that help women feel powerful in is something that we can get really behind. So we're excited to hear about Lauren's story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2:Lauren, how did you wind up at the North State Care Clinic? Tell us a little bit about your family story, if you would.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I have three older kids.
Speaker 3:I have a 14, 11, eight-year-old and a couple of years ago now we were going through a really hard time so we had lost two students that we were walking with within a six-month period had passed away unexpectedly and two weeks later we found out we were pregnant with an unexpected baby.
Speaker 3:So we were sort of reeling like and we have had three miscarriages over the years between our kids, and so I had friends that had talked about North State Care Clinic that they offered free pregnancy tests and free sonograms and sort of we were just trying to get connected to this baby. As we're in the middle of swirls of grief still of losing these students and um and so, and we needed to get insurance and I knew that in order to get on partnership we had to have a positive pregnancy test, and so that was how I got to north state to begin with, was just going. We just want to get connected to this baby. That we're sort of having to wrap our heads around starting over. At that point you know we've given everything away. You know like we've moved out of the baby stage. Our youngest was six at that point, and so that was how we started out at North State was just trying to get connected to our baby.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and with your entry point being like, maybe help us understand kind of what's your entry point at North state. And then what was it like, kind of walking through some of those services, Did you find the support you were looking for and more or what?
Speaker 3:what actually did you find once you Well, I mean first of all, I mean they were super welcoming and super excited to have me there, which was really fun Um again, and I think they were like, let's you know, again celebrating this little baby that's growing, showed me the positive pregnancy test, showed me little pictures of how big baby was at that point, um, and then they offered again.
Speaker 3:They said, you know, we have this whole um like store, basically that you can earn points and then earn stuff and and you can meet with one of our advocates who just will sit with you and um, just talk through whatever pregnancy or anything that you want to talk through. And so, again, at that point we were starting over. We weren't planning on having another baby at that point, and so even just that was helpful to go. Oh, we could actually get some of the stuff we need clothes, you know, blankets, bassinet, that kind of stuff and so we started on that path, um, and you know sort of what ended up being such a gift for us is that at 13 weeks we had done um genetic testing for our baby, mostly to find out gender, again to be attached to who she was, yeah and um.
Speaker 3:I don't think I'll ever forget like where I was standing when I got the call from our midwife saying that there was more that came back on that test and that she had Down syndrome. And so again, we're already reeling with the fact that we have this pregnancy that we weren't expecting, but then, on top of it, being like our life is going to be different forever and, at that point, not knowing what that was going to entail. One of the things that I was sharing with Kirsten was that they really give you all of the worst case scenarios, like all of the stuff that is really the hardest of the hard. 50% of babies with Down syndrome have heart issues. 50% have intestines that aren't connected and need surgery within the first couple of days. The one in five has leukemia before they're five years old.
Speaker 3:I mean just these hard statistics. And at that point again, we're only 13 weeks along and the phone calls we started getting from the geneticists and the high-risk doctors, the first question, not the first questions, but every time we talked to them they said do you feel capable of parenting this? And I really can't count the number of times that we were offered abortion, that we were offered termination and in some ways almost pressured because the quality of life for your child is not going to be that great and it's just, it's a lot to. It's honestly a lot to take in when you're already kind of like yeah whoa like um, it's, it's.
Speaker 3:You know any child is going to be a lot of work.
Speaker 3:You know, even if you're excited, it's still a lot, but you go oh, we might not be able to live in reading like we might need to be in sacramento with more resources available. We might have a medically complex child. You just don't know all those things at that point. So it was such a gift to have already kind of entered into North State's care, because the advocate where I'm getting one side of the story is that your child's, like you, should terminate. This is going to be really hard. Do you think you can do this?
Speaker 3:I have an advocate from North State going're so excited about your baby. You can do this. We're like, and let's pray, like, let's care for let's, let's celebrate this life, and so we got. It was a. In a lot of ways it was just this safe space to go to hold hope for our coming child, where we were getting from the from the other side, from the medical community, all of the really hard statistics and so, yeah, it was such a gift to have North State, you know, walking alongside us in that way and really celebrating Millie's coming life at that point.
Speaker 2:My goodness.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean, that's so much. It's so overwhelming, just already having kids after you know, after already having kids, you have this baby that is a surprise, essentially. And we know a bit of what that's like we do On both ends.
Speaker 2:We planned for it, but it's still a lot, even when you plan for it, right?
Speaker 1:But we didn't plan for Liam.
Speaker 2:Liam was a surprise, that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then to find out that your baby has Down syndrome. And how was that for your husband. What was he going through?
Speaker 3:Honestly, he was such a gift because he was like you know what, ever since I was a kid, I always told God that I'd be ready to parent someone with special needs and I was like, wow. So he was honestly kind of like we can do this, We've got this, which is such a gift. And God even reminded me that there was a prayer I had as a little kid because my parents' best friends, had a daughter with cerebral palsy, and I said if you ever need to trust someone with a special child, I would be willing.
Speaker 2:But again it's different when you're in your 40s and you're like oh, I'm overwhelmed, like the fact that God would have, even in the quiet nudges of your heart. I bet that God would have, even in the quiet nudges of your heart, given you a sense of mission and purpose and connection to your story. Yeah, that's really powerful.
Speaker 3:Yes, and it feels like such a gift that he again he could remind me that at 10, I had that yes in my heart to a child that was coming 30 years later Wow, and it helped to have my husband Jason go. Oh no, this like we, you know this is going to be fine, we're going to figure it out, but it's still again. It's still really overwhelming to just go. How do you plan for that, you? I mean?
Speaker 3:yes you know stories of other families in Reading that they had to be in Sacramento and they had surgeries right after birth and you know there is a lot of medical complexity to Down syndrome. There's such a wide variety of you know things that can kind of layer into development because they're just wired differently.
Speaker 1:How was Millie when she was born?
Speaker 3:She was awesome. So, again, she's always been on her own timeframe so she took longer to get her temperature up and she took longer for her blood sugar to stabilize, so we had a little longer stay in the hospital. Um, and you could tell the doctors were scared. You know they just don't have that a ton of times in reading, and so that you could feel their, their fear, that they didn't want to miss anything, um which, again that's, that's hard as a parent to be like oh, I you're being hyper vigilant.
Speaker 3:At one point they had poked her so many times. Her little ankles were were so bloody.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I was like I'm done, yeah, that's enough. You know what? We'll just, we'll stay an extra day. You got to give her a break. This is too much. She's doing fine, we're doing fine, like there's nothing. Just give her a break. Um, because again, it is there, there's they're, they're. They don't want to miss anything. I get that and that is on them. But she did awesome and so she's again. She's been in her own time frame. She's still mostly crawled. She's 18 months. She's not really talking. She's doing some baby sign, but she's on her own time frame. But for the most part she's super sweet and joyful. And adds Again with older kids too, I go, I can't, I can't.
Speaker 1:It brings out a side of my 14 year old boy that I would never have seen if we didn't have a little baby who blows and kisses across the table.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, like it's like, oh, like that. That brings out a different side of my 14 year old that I never would have had access to if not for a baby. Um, so she's such a gift you know, yes, oh gosh, she's so beautiful.
Speaker 1:She is so beautiful.
Speaker 2:So, lauren, in your I want to go back for a moment to a statement that you made about what doctors were saying to you when you first found out about Millie's diagnosis, when I just feel like you kind of want to punch somebody in the teeth when they say do you feel like you can do this? Because that is the haunting question of any mother, right At almost every stage.
Speaker 2:And actually the question do you think you can do this is typically no, Like if you ask any mom who's coming up on a new season of either development of their child's life or a new phase or a surprise pregnancy, or you know you ask a mom that after night, five of no sleep when you bring a baby home from the hospital. Do you think you can do this? No, I super don't Right and so actually like rude question, Wrong question. Doc, no-transcript. You and people who are encouraging you to use their resources, as you've now considered, having been someone to receive support from North State services, how has that helped you shape your mind about what others in the community, maybe with less resources, would be facing? Like has it helped you kind of connect dots? I'm just wondering if your firsthand experience has helped you connect dots that you wouldn't have otherwise known to think about, as other women have faced similar challenges with less.
Speaker 3:No, and I again, I I think of. I have a friend whose daughter just chose to terminate her baby because they had a Down syndrome diagnosis and and I was talking to the mom is my friend and she was saying you know what are we up against? And I said you know, the all they give you is the hardest information. And so she? All she's hearing is the quality of life for her. It's selfish to choose life for your child it's selfish to decide to keep this baby.
Speaker 3:You guys are going to have such a hard life because you're choosing this. And so I just go, I and again I, walking with the mom of just it's. I know that there's so many people that don't have the experience that I had, as in the sense of my husband was supportive. Our friends were like we love this baby, we don't care. You know like it's not about you know what they are going to produce in the world we're happy that they exist. They're a gift because they're your child.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you know they exist.
Speaker 3:But I think I'm really grateful for places like North State because I think like again all the other voices in my life. I think like again all the other voices in my life, and if you had anybody else in your support system, that wasn't on your team for those things, that wasn't worth. I even just think, like again, if I was in a different situation, if I didn't have a husband that could mostly support our family. You know it to go.
Speaker 3:I can't take all this time off of work to to like support, a medically complex child and and just to go, I'm I. There's a need for it, there's a need for those, that positive voice, that hope and the and the celebration of her life. It was again. Even for me it was such a safe space to be able to be like someone else is holding out hope for my kid. You know, in ways that I'm not getting from my doctor. I mean, at that point I had high-risk doctors, I had extra sonograms, I had a cardiologist, I had a geneticist. I mean we had all these people. They want you to meet with and for the most part, all of their voices are saying you have a hard road ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know and not like no, you can do this.
Speaker 1:This child's a gift. I think it's so important to have a place of hope that is speaking into your life, that is allowing you to not think from a place of fear but really get a place where you feel supported and loved and cared for, and I do. I think so much about just a woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock, doesn't have a husband in her life, who, again, the world is going like. This might be hard for you. You may, this child may suffer, you may not want to, and there's, if there's no other voice that says hey, kids are a blessing, yeah, period, kids are a blessing. Life is challenging and the most the best life in the world isn't a life where everything goes perfect.
Speaker 1:It's a life where we sacrifice and we make hard choices and we build community and we rally the people around us, you know, and build the life that we're really proud of. And our world is really struggling and suffering today around this idea that life should be easy, life should be simple, life should be quick, you know, and that isn't life.
Speaker 2:She's singing, millie's singing.
Speaker 1:Good job, millie. That's not life, so true. And so to have any place where we can know that our community can come and have a place of hope is so important.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah, kirsten, I would love for you to speak into. Yeah, chime in. What have your thoughts been while we've been talking?
Speaker 4:So right before I came to meet you guys for this podcast, I went to a coffee shop and I ran into lauren's husband, so we walked into evergreen at the exact same time and I said, okay, tell me your side of it, that's awesome and it was perfect timing. Yeah, um, and he just said what we got like from the medical community was that this, this was an inconvenience and are, are you?
Speaker 4:sure that you don't want to choose another option. This is going to be inconvenient for your life. And he said he like it just wasn't an option in his mind because this is my child. But I think when we can even have those conversations of okay, this is not an inconvenience. Children are always a gift from the Lord. They're always a blessing, even if it's hard and it's not that it's not hard, but it doesn't mean that we take life into our own hands.
Speaker 4:And that's our choice as humans. So I think it was. It was really interesting to hear his side too. Is that we, um? That was constantly ask him okay are you sure you guys want. This is going to be hard, this is going to be inconvenient are you sure you want to do this?
Speaker 2:yes, wow, fascinating.
Speaker 2:You know, our community is, um, I don't know how unique this is, I would have to like run the national statistics but we have really high ACEs scores in Shasta County, meaning we have a lot of children that are born into families who physically, emotionally, really actually don't care for them.
Speaker 2:Well, we have a lot of children that end up in foster care and so, different to your story where you have a supportive husband and a loving family and a connected family, there's a lot of families that receive care at North State or other services in our county who they don't have that to go home to after their baby is born. And so I'm wondering, kirsten, we talked a little bit in the previous episode about some of one whole realm of service that somebody like Lauren has taken advantage of, which is let's see that baby, let's hear the heartbeat, let's get connected emotionally to the fact that you're having another baby and let's help you build a narrative of hope around having another baby. Then there's a lot of people that would need help after birth to even wrap their head around. How do I do this and how do I raise a child in a community that's actually. You know, statistics are against me. What, what does North state have to offer for those moms?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we continue to walk with our moms as long as they want to walk with us, we offer one-on-one advocacy. We offer parenting classes, virtual or in-person. We have relationship curriculum that we walk with them through, and then we have material resources, so we have diapers and wipes, but that is a huge part of our hearts is to continue to walk with the mom, because it's not just about valuing the baby's life. It's about valuing motherhood and what mothers bring like it's.
Speaker 4:It's an integral part of society we bring nurture, and we bring care, and we bring the ability to support life, and so we're not just here for the baby, we're here for the mom, we're here for the whole family, um, so that really is our heart. So we offer material resources, parenting classes, um, and like just even support through our advocates.
Speaker 2:Great, we're just there for them and we want to be there for them.
Speaker 1:That's so important, you know um, I was just looking up some statistics because, um, the, the, the pregnancy clinic, really is serving a population of people that are unsupported or in in crisis, I mean, and there's so many women, just people in general, that are in crisis, yeah, and so to be able to step up and really sow in and help people who are in crisis is like such a special gift. I was looking at how many children, how many moms who are pregnant with a special needs child Down syndrome, actually have that child and, according to chat, 75% of those babies are terminated.
Speaker 2:Wow, is that right yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it said studies ranging between 61% and 93%, depending upon age and testing, and then I started to look at how many single women who are pregnant. So, basically, in 2021, 87.3% of women obtaining abortions were unmarried, while only 12.7% were married. And so, again, like what I love about what you guys are doing is you're taking care of a population of people that are very much in a crisis, and we all know what it's like to be in a crisis. Oh yeah, I mean, whether you're married or not, the feeling of being overwhelmed, of having this massive life change come at you and not to know what to do. And when we get into a crisis, our first reaction is get out of it.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Do whatever I have to do to get my life back to whatever it was, or normal. Yeah, and so we make these really rash decisions of like getting an abortion or whatever, getting married, or I mean there's all different ways that we try to escape this.
Speaker 2:The feeling of crisis?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and feeling of being overwhelmed and so being able to have into so, into this place of hope, of peace, of care, is so massive, and I think that's really what we're asking our, our audience, to do. Um, last week or two weeks ago, lauren and I talked about the campaign that's going on. We'll share just a little bit about it, but we really felt like we wanted to sew in a thousand dollars into the campaign and ask our audience to just match that to help that Babe.
Speaker 1:do you want to talk about their due dates or their deadlines for the campaign?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then what they've raised so far, which is awesome because every single week it's growing. So, we've had an increase since the last time that we were on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so awesome. So just to recap, the North State Care Clinic is in escrow on a building that sits directly across the street from our local abortion clinic which is just wild.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That's making quite a statement they're going to attract simply because of proximity. I'm just it's so wild. But their escrow closes on July 14th, and so between now and July 14th we are looking for another $60,000 in no no, no, so we're hoping to raise a million dollars. Yeah.
Speaker 1:They've raised $6 hundred and ninety seven thousand uh-huh which is okay, three hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2:So we have just about, yeah, we have just about three hundred thousand listen folks lift your, lift your gaze. We're going higher, three hundred thousand, which is absolutely not impossible. We know that.
Speaker 2:Um, we're actually believing for this project to absolutely come to fruition but, we would love to invite our listeners to actually engage with it, and I shared this a couple of weeks ago, but I really believe that this is true In the kingdom of God, when there's opportunities to sow into what is good and what is God, whether it's in our local communities or in other communities sowing into it is sowing into the kingdom, which means you give to a community called Redding California and the North State Care Clinic and you're sowing in there actually will impact what's happening locally in your community, even if there isn't such a giving option available. So I just want to encourage you, whether you live here in town or not, your giving is going to be exponentially blessed, as all of ours is, when we give into what God is doing, and so we really want to challenge and invite our listeners to join and engage with this project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, whether you save a baby in Redding, california or Kansas City, you know, a life is a life, and so part of what Lauren and I wanted to do was we have $300,000 to go. If there's 300 people, that would match our thousand, or if there's 600 people, that would match, you know, $500. Yeah, so I think you know, taking a bit of time, we have thousands of listeners that that every single week listen to our podcast and again, no pressure if you can't make it happen. But this is one of those where it's super easy If you would just think through like man, what is something that I'm willing to give up?
Speaker 1:for the month, or what is something that I'm willing to sell, or what is something that I'm willing to contribute. Talking to your husband, or talking to your wife and asking like, is there something the Lord's asking me to step up and to help with. We want to be a blessing. Oh my gosh, little baby is crawling his walk crawling around the office right now, oh my, gosh, you know, just stepping up and and giving and sewing in in such an important time to, to such a critical mission yes um is what a beautiful opportunity that we have.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes. Well, ladies Lauren and Kirsten, thank you so much for being on our podcast today. Lauren, thank you for sharing your story with us. It's such an intimate story to share, but we're so grateful and, folks, we are looking forward to seeing what comes in for this project. You guys, we're going to put in the show notes links where you can go to give and find out more information, but until next time, that is all for now.
Speaker 1:Have a great week.