The nameless child fought for her life five days in the womb while absorbing a toxic, salt solution meant to kill her. But the unnamed child was born alive weighing 2 pounds, 16 ounces, at St. Lukes Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa. A tall, blond nurse rescued the delicate baby and brought her to the NICU. There in the NICU was a 21-year-old nurse who began to pray for the little girl.
Forty-seven years later, a woman said, “Abortions’ victims are largely nameless, faceless, voiceless.”
But she wasn’t nameless, faceless, or voiceless. She was a living miracle. Melissa Ohden is her name.
Melissa Ohden speaks at Night for Life, an event by Piedmont Women’s Center.
Ohden has told her story at high schools, colleges, conferences, and to various news outlets. Recently she spoke at Night for Life, an event held by Piedmont Women’s Center in Greenville, S.C. What is her story?
Ohden’s birth mother, Ruth, was a 19-year-old college student, engaged to be married, when her mother forced her to get an abortion. Ruth’s mom was a prominent nurse and well-known in the community. She approved the late-term abortion for her daughter at St. Luke’s Hospital.
It was a saline-infusion abortion, which Ohden said was common in the 1970s. What should have taken 24 to 72 hours lasted five days. Ohden said the toxic-salt solution was injected into the amniotic fluid that surrounded her in the womb. Ruth was then induced to labor, but the baby wouldn’t budge. When the child finally did, she was found to be alive.
Ohden said, “We’re called the dreaded complication of abortion, a child who survives the procedure.”
Although she survived, Ohden said the nurses were told to leave her to die.
“Even after I was accidentally born, people still didn’t celebrate me. They didn’t see my inherent dignity and value,” said Ohden.
But some did see Ohden’s value. One of those people was the 21-year-old nurse who continued to pray for Ohden during the years that followed, even after the nurse had her own children.
Ohden said, “And I can tell you that of all the things that make me emotional in this world, knowing that someone remembered me, in a world that would rather forget me — that is life changing.”
Ohden stayed in the NICU several weeks and was later transferred to a bigger hospital. Ohden was finally taken home by adoptive parents in October 1977. Ohden said her adoptive parents were previously foster parents before they adopted her and her sister Jessica. Ohden spoke of the unconditional love of her parents and began to tear up.
She said, “To talk about my parents brings me to tears because they are the most unconditionally loving people I have ever known in my life.”
Ohden lived a normal life, not knowing the details of her birth. But her life took a turn when her parents shared Ohden’s story with her older sister Jennifer who faced an unplanned pregnancy. However, Jennifer wasn’t the only one to hear the news.
Ohden unexpectedly heard the news, too. And the truth deeply affected her.
Ohden said, “I am not ashamed to say I didn’t want to be this person. It was a very lonely place to be.”
She said being a survivor “bumps up against” your identity.
“When we’re receiving the message from our culture that it’s a choice and a right, that is what causes such an identity crisis for us [abortion survivors],” Ohden said.
Ohden said she ran from God. During her teenage years, she struggled with an eating disorder and even alcohol abuse. But she didn’t stay there.
Beginning when she was 19, Ohden searched for her medical records till she was 30. She described those 10 years as her desert years. She said from the outside it looked like she was leading a normal life. She graduated with her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and was married. Finally, she gave up and prayed a prayer of surrender.
Her medical records eventually arrived in the mail. And she discovered she was living in the same city as her biological father. She sent him a letter, but never heard back.
Ohden said all the thoughts of her past surfaced. You are unloved. You are unworthy. I told you no one wants to hear from you. Shouldn’t you just be quiet?
But Ohden said, “I had to put that at the feet of the cross and move on.”
She set her sights on her birth mother. She was unable to find her through her own research, but she found her grandparents. This time, her grandfather responded, but said they were completely estranged from her biological mother, Ruth. Ohden said she had a moment of defeat.
Ohden reflected on the damage abortion does to families. Abortion changes families for generations unless healing occurs, she said.
Time passed, Ohden gave birth to her daughter Olivia at the same hospital where the failed abortion took place, and eventually she was in contact with her biological mother, Ruth. After several years of digital communication, it was time to meet in person.
Ohden said, “It is one of those things that you can’t ever really put into words what it’s like. I mean, it’s scary. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life, even though I had no reason to be scared of it.”
Meeting her birth mother was scary, but it brought healing.
“Meeting her radically transformed my life in every good way and helped heal parts of myself that many survivors will never have the opportunity to be healed,” Ohden said.
Ohden said that on the day of the abortion, Ruth’s mom followed the nurse to the NICU. “And she told the nurses that day, ‘Don’t you ever tell my daughter that the baby survived this abortion.’”
For 30 years, Ruth believed the abortion was successful. She didn’t know that Ohden existed.
“But God’s grace abounds. God’s grace abounds,” Ohden said. She said Ruth was blessed that the abortion failed.
Ohden said, “We are a family today because abortion didn’t go as planned.”