Susan Keeny, RN

Where did you grow up and go to school?

I grew up in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania, a small town in south central PA.  I received my LPN from Hanover Hospital, Hanover, PA and my RN from South Baltimore General Hospital, Baltimore, MD.

Share with us about your family.

My husband and I have been married 38 years and have four grown children, Jason, Amy, Lisa, and Daniel. We are empty nesters with 13 grandchildren which I love spending time with.

Tell us about what brought you to pregnancy help and the pro-life movement.

I have always been pro-life, but my journey to pregnancy help and the pro-life movement began for purely selfish reasons. I was in a deep depression and one of the ways to help with depression is to help someone else. My church supported a local pregnancy center, so I started volunteering as a client advocate. When the pregnancy center realized I was a nurse, I was asked to train as a nurse sonographer, which I gladly did. Through the work in the pregnancy center, I saw how my own painful life experience of sexual abuse and depression gave me a compassion for the women I was seeing in the Center. Helping women, especially women with unplanned pregnancies, has become my passion.

What brought you to Heartbeat International?

It was through working in the pregnancy center that I became aware of abortion pill reversal. At that time, Dr. Delgado was still running the hotline. I started reading the studies and the testimonies and realized how life changing this work could be. I started advocating to get the Abortion Pill Reversal^TM treatment into our Pregnancy Center which did eventually happen. When I saw the Abortion Pill Rescue^® Network was looking for nurses to work on the hotline, I initially didn’t think I had time. But my thoughts kept coming back to the Abortion Pill Rescue Network. God has shown me I have time to do his work.

Tell us about your experiences helping women on the Rescue Helpline.

I am humbled by the women we help on the hotline. Desperation often leads them to an abortion clinic in the first place. Then desperation to save their baby leads them to call us. We can offer these women a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, or an encouraging word to give them hope.

What has surprised you the most about the Rescue Helpline?

Even though each woman has their own circumstances that led them to start a chemical abortion, they all have a sense that something isn’t right about ending the life of their baby. I shouldn’t be surprised at this, after all God has called us to this, but the nurses and providers are so adamant/compassionate about helping these women. We weep with those that weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy working with a faith-based organization that is drawn together for the common cause of helping women. Whether the help is in listening to them, connecting them with a provider, offering pregnancy help resources, or in the case of loss, providing them with resources to help with the grief process, we offer hope to these women.

What are your favorite things to do outside of work?

I love to spend time with my family and friends, taking my camera for a walk, doing word games, and reading good books (usually mysteries or historical fiction).

What else would you like to share?

God doesn’t waste our personal pain. No one likes going through trials, but it is in the trials that our faith grows. How we respond to the trials is what makes us who we are.