As November once again peeks its golden head over the horizon of the year, one thing is on everyone's mind: Thanksgiving. While this holiday of gathering isn't until the end of the month, the amount of planning that goes into preparing the massive meal, cleaning the tiniest corner of the house, and wrangling every last relative's work schedule has most people thinking about the task almost as soon as the Halloween decorations come down. But Thanksgiving isn't just about gathering the family together in abject chaos in the name of tradition; it is and historically has been a holiday focused around remembering how the Lord has blessed us over the course of the year and expressing gratitude for what he has done. Many families, my own included, have a tradition of declaring what we're each thankful for. Most answers are fairly predictable; the family is thankful for health, each other's company, and the food (the last one usually voiced by a small child or that one goofy uncle who is impatient to dig in). But, if you were to ask Melissa Ohden what she is thankful for every year, her answer might sound a bit strange and leave everyone a little surprised. She would say, "I'm thankful that I was given the chance to live."
Melissa's story began years before any Thanksgiving in a small, sterile hospital where a young woman had just gone through with an abortion. It was a procedure she wasn't sure she wanted but went through anyway because of the demands of her mother, a well known and domineering nurse in the community who wouldn't allow her daughter to besmirch their good family name. Over the course of several hours, the young woman had been subjected to a chemical that scalded her baby and emptied her womb and eventually left her feeling hollow and wracked with guilt over what she had just done. She had had an abortion. One stupid mistake had turned into something she knew she would regret for the rest of her life, and, worst of all, she had killed her baby...or so she thought.
Miraculously, the baby, Melissa, hadn't died. She was severely burned and several months premature, but she was fighting for her life with every ounce of her small being. The nurses wanted to give Melissa the care she needed, but her grandmother wouldn't hear of it. This baby, this supposed disgrace on the family and a black mark on her "good parenting," wasn't suppose to be here. The baby was supposed to be an after thought that no one ever spoke of; she wasn't supposed to have a life. Wielding her respected position in the town, Melissa's grandmother demanded that the baby be left to die, tossed in a bin like so much trash. But one courageous nurse stood up and said no. Amid a flurry of threats, Melissa was finally whisked off to the NICU where, in only a short time, she overcame her injuries and began to thrive like any other baby.
Melissa was eventually adopted by a Christian family and grew up never knowing the circumstances of her birth. It wasn't until she was 14 that she first heard the story and had to work through all the emotions that came with it. She was angry with her birth mother for trying to kill her, she felt guilty for surviving when millions of other children hadn't been so lucky, and most of all she was lonely. At the time, the mainstream media and the greater Pro-Abortion cabal said that "fetuses" never survived abortions. According to them, Melissa's life was a paradox and she shouldn't exist. That lie was Melissa's call to action.
In 2008, she turned to public speaking and told her story over and over again, not only to show everyone that babies do indeed survive abortions but also to draw out the other survivors she knew were out there. In 2012, Melissa founded The Abortion Survivors Network and, true to her guess, she found hundreds of people just like her. People of all ages (ranging from newborns to adults in their 80s) and from all walks of life finally came forward, knowing they weren't alone. The ASN now provides all its members with counseling and speaker training and empowers them to raise their voices in defiance of a world that denies their existence.
In 2016, Melissa met her birth mother for the very first time and it was then that she learned that her mother never knew that her baby had survived that abortion. The love they feel for each other is overwhelming and they have enjoyed catching up on decades of lost time. They are overcoming the horrific way they were torn apart and both of them are now thankful for the lives they have been given.
Facts Courtesy of: Dr. James Dobson Family Institute (Melissa Ohden) and Wikipedia (Melissa Ohden)
Photo Credit: Baptist Messenger
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