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Checkout![Iowa farmland](/-/media/images/plough/article/2017/winter/ohden/ohdenhero.jpg?la=en)
The Terrible Truth
The survivor of a botched abortion searches for her mother.
By Melissa Ohden
August 29, 2024
Available languages: español
From You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir, this week's featured ebook (free for subscribers).
A thick manila envelope arrived at my home in Sioux City with the afternoon mail one sunny day in May 2007. I knew without even looking at the return address that it came from the University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City and contained the medical records that would answer some of the questions I had been agonizing over most of my life.
Who am I? Where did I come from? Whose blood runs through my veins? And why was I given away? These are questions that most people who, like me, were adopted as infants want answered. But what I needed to know was more fundamental, and less innocent: Why did you try to kill me? And how is it possible that I survived?
I felt a clutch of panic in the pit of my stomach. Now that I had the information I had sought for so many years, my body, and spirit, rebelled. But as the Irish poet James Stephens – another adoptee – once wrote, “Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.” So with trembling fingers, I peeled back the sealed flap of the envelope and faced the facts of my improbable life.
As I read through my tears the blandly rendered details of my narrow escape from death – “On August 24, saline infusion for abortion was done but was unsuccessful” – I discovered something I hadn’t expected: the full names of my biological parents.
Their names were clearly written in the record of my birth, but I was left unnamed.
![a newborn baby](/-/media/images/plough/article/2017/winter/ohden/ohdenembed1.jpg?h=361&w=600&la=en)
Melissa at twenty-five days old. Photograph courtesy of the author.
As I fought for my life in St. Luke’s neonatal intensive care unit, it became clear to the doctors and nurses on hand that my birth mother had been pregnant for far longer than the eighteen to twenty weeks reported at the time of the abortion. The pediatrician who examined me a couple of days after I was delivered estimated that my gestational age at birth was about thirty-one weeks – well into the third trimester. The discrepancy hinted at something still unknown: How could any abortionist, much less one affiliated with one of the most prestigious hospitals in the region, have made such a mistake? What doctor or nurse would believe that a woman more than seven months pregnant was less than five months along?
Like other babies born prematurely, I had a host of serious medical problems including low birth weight (I weighed 2 pounds 14.5 ounces), jaundice, and respiratory distress. But my troubles were complicated by the aftereffects of the poisonous saline solution I had endured in my mother’s womb. No one knew the long-term consequences of surviving an abortion. Developmental delays are routine for preterm babies, but I also had seizures; and the list of potential complications grew to include mental retardation, blindness, and chronic poor health.
Three weeks after my birth I was transferred three hundred miles east, to the university hospital in Iowa City. The nurses who cared for me, a nameless baby, made me tiny clothes and colorful booties. One nurse, Mary, decided I needed a name and dubbed me Katie Rose. For years after I left the NICU, my adoptive parents and Mary kept in touch, exchanging Christmas cards and letters with pictures of me and updates on my progress. When I got older, I wrote the letters myself; Mary and I began a friendship that would endure for decades. It made me feel so special that this nurse who had cared for me when no one else did still cared about me.
Meanwhile, the social services agency that had taken custody of me searched for a family willing to adopt a fragile newborn. This was no easy task because of my grim medical prognosis. The search led to a small town, Curlew, Iowa, just one hundred miles from where I had been born. There a young couple who had adopted one child waited for another.
![two girls sitting in an armchair](/-/media/images/plough/article/2017/winter/ohden/ohdenembed2.jpg?h=470&w=600&la=en)
Melissa (2 years old) and her sister. Photograph courtesy of the author.
They were told that the baby would have needs that went far beyond food and shelter. Love they had in abundance; money for specialized medical care and services they did not. They drove five hours east to meet the tiny baby who needed a home. Unintimidated by the IV lines and the monitors attached to the skull of the baby whose head had been shaved from temple to temple, they made their choice. That’s the day I first experienced a mother’s love, in the arms of the woman who looked into my eyes and said, “You are mine.”
As a small child I knew a few things for sure: My name was Missy Cross; I lived on a farm in Curlew, Iowa; I belonged to a family that included a mom, a dad, a big sister, and dozens of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. And at some point before I can even remember I learned that I was doubly loved – by the parents who had chosen me as their own, and by a mother who had given birth to me and entrusted me to their care. That I was adopted was something I don’t remember being told; it just was – a fact of life as ordinary as the sunshine in the morning, the starlight in the evenings, and the cozy walls around me.
But the terrible truth about my origins could not be kept secret forever.
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Maria Anderson
Thank you for sharing this most personal and beautiful story.
Robert Dippong
I bought this book "You carried me " by Melissa Ohden and I would like to say this. This book is amazing. I hate abortion. It is the worst crime against mankind. Not only has it killed 61 million in our country but it has killed over a billion and a half in the world since 1980. It destroys human life and generations with the people they are associated with. It causes massive problems like alcohol, drug, eating disorders and sexual problems just to name a few problems that exist with this horrible abortion. These are problems that are caused by abortion with the lady having the abortion. Also many of her friends and relatives have similar problems alike. It is emotionally and spiritually devastating. But the great thing is that it is forgiving by our all loving God. We can become whole as Melissa Ohden writes and proves in her book. This book is inspiration to me and others who have had very tough struggles in their life to know that with prayer and forgiveness we too can become whole in whatever problem or issues we have in our lives. Thank you Melissa for your help and I wish one day I could meet you and give you a great big loving hug. I am sorry you went through all of this but the great thing is that God is using you to help combat this awful and biggest crime against mankind and help the innocent survive and prosper. I hope and pray that with you and others in the Pro Life Movement we will bring an end to this horrible crime and bring a lot more love to this country. I am very glad and filled with joy you are finally having a loving relationship with your biological mother. You, Melissa and your mother have been through a lot and I am so happy that you and your mother can finally find joy together after more than 30 years.
Curt Locklear
beautiful. Keep the mercy and forgiveness flowing.
metin erdem
what happens when an abortion survivor meets ner mother.? It must be very hard statement. We should not forget that all that we face on world comes from God. This situation is also the miracle of God. Survivor may have the hate and will try to forgive her mother. Because she is her mother. On the other hand the mother will have a guilty conscience. Both feelings , the hate and to have a guilty conscience are also feelings that created by the God. Lets not forget we have life and destiny . All human feelings are also created by God.
metin erdem
The most intersting questions were ; why did you try to kill me ? And how is it possible that I survived.? We humankind may sometimes be selfish and forget the aim of the life. We forget the God. And his orders. The gift of God , the sex and the child. Unfortunately we forget these statements. Each child even not born yet has the right to live a life. This is God 's order. And we should not resist these orders. We marry with someone we love . It is our destiny and God's order. We should obey what God wants us to do. God wants us to marrry and have children. Otherwise the abortion is against God's order and more than that it is a murder.