Melissa Ohden was supposed to be aborted, but she survived the procedure without her mother knowing. Meanwhile Melissa has grown up – and found her mother.
Melissa Ohden has known since she was a child that her parents adopted her. "Ron and Linda never hid it from me," she quotes the "Sun". "But I didn't care. I had a very happy childhood with my sister Tammy." At first, the American didn't know why she was adopted. Only when she was 14 and her sister said to her in an argument: "At least my parents wanted me", did her adoptive mother tell her the whole truth: That Melissa's birth mother had tried to abort her and her survival was an accident.
Failed abortion in the 8th month
At that time, the 42-year-old learned what her adoptive parents knew about the adoption site: Melissa's mother had an abortion carried out in the 31st week of pregnancy, in the eighth month. At that time, the doctors had injected the pregnant woman with an agent that was to result in stillbirth. After the delivery, Melissa's mother apparently left the clinic believing that the procedure was "successful". But he wasn't: Melissa was alive. A sister noticed and saved the barely survivable baby from the "biological waste" and brought it to the premature ward. Melissa was spiced up there and then transferred to another hospital – from where she came into the care of her adoptive parents a few weeks later.
In search of your own roots
After she found out about her past, she was initially distraught and completely exhausted, Melissa reports to "Sun". But a few years later, at 19, she decided to look for her birth parents. Her first lead led her to her father, according to the American. In 2007, 30 years of her birth, she tried to contact him, but shortly afterwards she found out about his death. There was never an exchange or meeting. There was still no trace of Melissa's mother.
It didn't change until 2013, but this time it was Melissa who was contacted: she received a call from a woman who introduced herself as the cousin of Melissa's birth mother. She knew about the attempt at abortion and had become aware of her through Melissa's efforts to find her parents. She put Melissa in touch with her mother, Ruth, who then told her daughter the whole truth.
Forced to have an abortion by the mother
Ruth was 19 when she was pregnant with Melissa. She wanted to deliver the child, but her mother urged her to have an abortion in the clinic where she herself worked as a nurse. In contrast to Ruth, her mother knew that Melissa would survive the procedure – but apparently she had deliberately tried to cover it up and get the baby "disposed of". Ruth found out about all of this in 2007, but did not dare to contact Melissa herself. Therefore, the first contact was made in 2013, on the initiative of Ruth's cousin.
Initially, the mother and daughter only made phone calls and wrote e-mails to get to know each other better. The first personal meeting took place in 2016. "When we saw each other, we fell straight into each other's arms and just hugged each other for what felt like an eternity," says Melissa. "I couldn't even hold you," her mother said at the time.
To this day, the two keep in touch and are now really close. "There are still some open questions, but what I do know is that even though I should be the actual victim of this abortion, Ruth was also a victim. And we both decided against staying in the victim role. We have each other decided to fight. To live. To love. To forgive. And to give something back to the world. "