For anyone who’s ever been adopted, it’s a common desire to seek out your biological parents. The people whose blood runs through your veins and whose DNA you’re made up of.
For Melissa Ohden, that journey was much different.
When she was born, Melissa weighed less than three pounds. She was cared for by NICU nurses before later being adopted into her forever family.
But when Melissa was just 14 years old, she learned a dark and devastating secret about herself.
She was a survivor of a failed abortion.
The toxic saline solution that was meant to kill her before she was even born had not been successful in its pursuit. And at the tender age of 14, Melissa entered a downward spiral of soul-searching.
She says like so many young people, she was ashamed to let anyone else know how much she was hurting. At a time in life when she desperately wanted to be loved, she learned that she was never wanted in the first place. That’s a difficult and tragic thing for anyone to navigate.
