Abortion attempt survivor. Voice for the voiceless.

I am wrapping up a whirlwind 3-week tour of Australia with my husband and daughter, which was organized by Life Network Australia, in combination with pro-life organizations and individuals across Australia, including the Australian Family Association, Save the Unborn, Right to Life Australia, and Real Choices Australia, among many others.  For anyone who has not had the chance to visit Australia, it is every bit as beautiful as we are told it is (although kangaroos are certainly much more difficult to come across than I had been told-just ask my sweet daughter who had been talking about going to visit them for months).

Our tour of Australia has certainly been a great success.  Not only has our message about the true reality of abortion and how it affects EVERYONE’S lives across generations, been positively received, but we’ve had the opportunity to bring hope and healing to thousands of people through events in New South Wales, South Australia, the ACT, Queensland, and Victoria.  Events that I spoke at ranged from local church events in small communities to events with the Australian Family Association in Melbourne, New South Wales’ Right to Life convention in Sydney, Parliament in South Australia, and everywhere in between.  For more information about the places that I spoke at, please visit my website:  http://www.melissaohden.com or Life Network Australia’s website: http://www.lifenetwork.org.au.  Media coverage of my tour can also be found on these sites.

Although our message has already reached out to thousands here in Australia, we will continue to share our message from afar after we are gone.  My daughter, Olivia, and I will be featured in pro-life television ads through Emily’s Voice http://www.notbornyet.com, and I will be featured in an upcoming YouTube video.

Although I have so many beautiful memories from our time here, and have received significant positive feedback about my personal testimony of surviving a failed saline infusion abortion attempt in 1977, of how I struggled for so many years with the truth of my survival and how society often views children like me as unwanted, unloved, unworthy of life, somehow un-human, or simply a choice, of how I ultimately healed from my past and proceeded to reach out to my biological parents to offer them forgiveness and love, and how I now use my life to highlight the pain and suffering that abortion causes for the world, there was one particular piece of feedback that I continued to hear over and over again that caught even me by surprise.

“A billion children like me around the world have lost their lives to abortion,” “Sadly, children like me are aborted and born alive each and every day but left for dead,” “the 90,000 children like me who are aborted in Australia each year deserve the same opportunities in life like I was given,” no matter what the exact context in which I said it, the phrase ‘children like me’ left an indelible mark on the individuals who heard my message.

One staff member of the Australian Christian Lobby was so moved by the phrase that she heard from me when I spoke in Canberra, ACT, that she shared the impact that it had with her on a fellow staff member who then came to hear me speak in Melbourne, Victoria.

Each and every time I finished speaking, there was at least one person who spoke with me after the event, echoing these same sentiments.  “You kept saying ‘children like me’ and you are so right.  All of the children that have been aborted were children who had the right to life just like you.” “Everyone needs to see you and realize that you are the face of all of the children who we have aborted,” the statements came out each and every night.

It’s interesting…..I never intended to come out with that exact statement and use it over and over again when I speak, it happened on a very subconscious level.  Now that I’ve reviewed speeches that I give, I realize that I’ve been using it time and time again without ever noticing it.  Maybe that’s because to me it’s always been clear that as a child who was aborted but born alive that I am very much one of the billion children around the world who has been aborted.  The difference between those other children and me is simply that I was gratefully born alive and provided with the medical care that sustained my life and has allowed me to go on and give them a voice.  Maybe it’s because as a child who was aborted but born alive I realize that I was just mere seconds away from being merely a statistic, or maybe it’s because I sadly understand that my fate rested in the hands of who the medical staff were that working at the time that I was born alive.

Whatever the reason, I am everything that I say that I am, and the unborn children who have lost their lives to abortion are everything that I say that they are.  They are children just like me who should be respected as human beings and recognized for their inherent worth no matter what the circumstances that have surrounded their arrival into this world.

And me? I am a child who was aborted but born alive who has overcome the statistics, overcome the poor prognosis for my life after my survival and prevailed.  At the heart of who I am, I will always be an aborted child.  And after many years of healing, I can now say that with pride.

What a wonderful blessing it is to have life! And what a wonderful blessing it has been to be in Australia with my husband and daughter for the past eleven days. We will be in Australia for nearly another two weeks, and it is incredible how we have been positively impacting people’s lives even thus far in our trip.

I have spoken at 13 events already, including events for the Australian Family Association, Genesis Pregnancy Support, and Zoe Pregnancy Support, among so many others! The events have all been well attended and so very well received! In attendance numbers only, over 900 people have been brought hope and healing. Still hundreds more have listened into radio interviews I have done, and read about our ministry in the newspaper.

This week we will be heading to Brisbane and Toowoomba, where we will be speaking at an event for Emily’s Voice and doing a national television ad for them, in addition to doing many more events again. We will later be heading back to Melbourne after speaking in Sydney and Albury, to again speak at events there, including another event with the Australian Family Association. I hope to also participate in 40 Days for Life at the Royal Women’s Clinic. We are so busy down here, but we have lots of great feedback, media coverage and interviews that we will share as time allows. Please visit Life Network Australia (http://www.lifenetwork.org.au) for more details about our tour of Australia and to learn more about abortion in Australia, the resources and supports available to those affected by abortion, and how you can help make a difference in your community and our world.

Tomorrow, August 24th, is 33 years to the day that the saline infusion for abortion that was intended to take my life was initiated by my biological mother. My “birth” day, literally, my survival day, is actually August 29th, the day that I was delivered in bed by a nurse and initially left for dead, but soon thereafter provided medical care that sustained my fragile life.  Although I struggled for many years with the fact that I was aborted and survived, I would not change a thing about who I am or the circumstances that led to my arrival into this world.

What I would change, however, is the amount of pain and suffering that my biological parents and their families, and all of the men, women, families and communities out there suffer everyday as the result of abortion.  No man or woman should feel like abortion is the only “choice” out there for them.  They need to be supported and loved, they need to know that there is financial, emotional, social, and spiritual help available, and that there is always another option than abortion.

With my birthday fast approaching, what better way is there to honor my unborn brothers and sisters, their parents, and my own biological and adoptive parents than by donating to Care Net.  If you have the means to donate, I sincerely appreciate you honoring me, my family, and the fellow unborn.  God Bless!

To donate to my birthday wish, please visit:  http://birthdays.causes.com/wishes/19028

I was so blessed this weekend to attend the Wisconsin Right to Life Convention in Stevens Point.  It was certainly one of my favorite speaking experiences thus far for many reasons.  First off, the convention was fantastic and focused on issues on the forefront of the pro-life movement:  the use of social media and technology in the pro-life movement and politics, euthanasia and assisted suicide, the eugenic legacy of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, and the importance of voting in the 2010 elections.  The speakers included Alex Schadenberg, from the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition; Angela Franks, author of Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy; and Karen Cross, Political Director of the National Right to Life Committee. Mike Spielman, from Abort73.com (great ministry, website and pro-life materials on their site by the way: http:/www.abort73.com), was also present, and led the group in prayer.

Executive Director of Wisconsin Right to Life, Barbara Lyons, and Chapter Director, Doreen Shirek, along with Joleigh Little, Director of Wisconsin Teens for Life and former NRLC staff member, and many others helped to make the day truly special for both the young people present and the adults.  If you don’t yet follow the work that Wisconsin Right to Life does, including amazing pro-life camps for young people, please check out their website at:  http://www.wrtl.org.  You can even subscribe to their updates.  Make no bones about it, Wisconsin Right to Life is a true leader in the pro-life movement–don’t miss out on keeping up with what they’re doing!

Secondly, I was richly blessed with meeting s0 many amazing people there in Wisconsin.  With the assistance of social media technology, I was already Facebook friends with a number of great people from Wisconsin, too numerous to count, but including Joleigh Little.  Since this weekend, I’ve been doubly blessed with now becoming Facebook friends with many more wonderful people, young and old, who had the opportunity to listen as I shared my message of hope and healing at the banquet following the convention.   Although I greatly appreciate my opportunity to share God’s message with the world, having the opportunity to meet other people and hear their own personal stories about how abortion has touched their lives is another great gift I receive each time I speak some where.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I will mention it again…I never cease to be amazed by the number of men who are in attendance when I speak, and by the courage of these men in meeting with me afterwards to share their own deeply personal, deeply painful life stories with me.  There were three men, in particular, who left an indelible print on me Saturday night.  The first man to come speak with me after my speech was, in the words of his own teenage daughter, responsible for having her and her friends from church come to hear me speak.  “It was his idea,” she said pointing to him.  We had a wonderful time taking pictures of this amazing pro-life father, his daughter and her friends, and he was absolutely beaming after hearing me share my message with the audience.  God bless him and his daughter…may he serve as an example and support to his daughter in all of the years to come.

The second man who came to speak with me shared that he has 10 children, which I greatly admire.  In our discussion, this wonderful man shared that although he has 10 children and he is pro-life, hearing me speak gave him a new perspective on abortion and on his family that he hadn’t had before.  His gratitude and his love for his family was evident, and I am so grateful that he was able to be positively impacted by our time together.

The third man who truly touched my heart Saturday night did so in a BIG way.  He was teary-eyed as he approached me and we shook hands briefly before I embraced him.  He shared his difficult story of having a child aborted in the past, and although he has been fortunate enough not to keep this secret and his shame hidden from everyone (he has told his wife), he is still in pain, he still grieves the loss of his children and regrets his role in their life ending.

He was, understandably, affected by my testimony about my own biological father passing away, carrying the secrecy, shame and guilt of me being aborted, along with him.  He was, understandably, affected by message that as a result of over 50 million children’s lives being ended by abortion, that hundreds of millions of women, men, family members and communities now suffer as a result.  He understood my painful reality that if I had not survived that abortion attempt, my own daughter, Olivia, would never have lived.  More importantly, he heard from me that men are hurt by abortion, too, and that he had the right to grieve for his lost children, that he had the right to heal from the effects of abortion.  He is so courageous for not only sharing his story with me, but for also feeling the need to make amends with the woman who he fathered a child with, whom he supported in having the abortion.  I will pray that this courageous, caring man finds the hope and healing that he so desperately needs and he deserves.

As I state on my website, “One decision, one single moment, can have such a detrimental impact on so many people, living and dead, born and yet to be conceived.”  Abortion doesn’t just hurt women and children, as these men can attest to.  Abortion hurts men, it hurts families, it hurts communities.  And as my soon to be 2-year-old daughter, Olivia, gives testament to, abortion ends the lives of not just those that are already conceived, but those that would never then be conceived in the future.

Over two years now after the passing of my biological father, I still grieve the loss of his death, and the chance of ever having a chance to get to know him or learn about his role in my mother aborting me, but I know this was the Lord’s plan.  For in my father’s death, has come great healing for other men.  My father’s parting gift to this world was to pass along to me the message of his life, and his pain, to share it with others, in the hopes that they could learn from it and not suffer in the ways that my father obviously must have, carrying the secret of my mother’s abortion, and even my survival, to his own grave.

Bless you, my dear father in Heaven—we WILL meet again someday.  Bless you to the amazing men, young and old alike, who shared in my time in Wisconsin this weekend.  May the Lord continue to bring everyone who is touched by abortion in this world, including men, the healing, love, and hope that they need and deserve.

March 26, 2010

My Dearest Olivia,

I can’t believe that I am writing you another birthday letter already….this past year has just flown by, mostly because we’ve been having so much fun with you! We are celebrating your birthday early this year (April 3^rd) because your Grandpa Norman will be here from Texas, and you will be busy traveling to pro-life events with me and Grandma Terry over your birthday, so I am writing this letter to you a little early this year, too.  As of today, it is one month till your 2^nd birthday!

Last year, on the night before your first birthday, I rocked you to sleep and cried and cried as I held you in my arms (Heck, I’ll probably do that every year until you finally tell me that I can’t anymore J).  Certainly, a little part of me was sad that your first year of life went SO FAST, and you were no longer my little baby, but even more so, I was crying tears of gratitude and love.  I have always wanted to be a mother, and I thought that I knew what motherhood was all about, but nothing prepared me for just how intensely I would love you.

You will see from the pictures of your first birthday that it was a very blessed, beautiful day! Your Grandma Terry, Grandpa Don, Great-Grandpa Don, Grandma Linda, Aunt Nadine, Great-Great Aunt Vicki, Grandpa Ron and April all attended.  We had cake and ice cream, grilled out, had lots of salads and special foods that were your favorites.  Our theme was “Birthday Princess.”  All in all, you had a great time, and even enjoyed opening your gifts! This was the first time ever that Great-Grandpa Don and Great –Great Aunt Vicki met all of our family.  It was a special day, indeed.  The day capped off with you having to be thrown in the tub to get all of the ooey-gooey frosting from cake and cookies off of you, but it was sure worth it!

This year, the theme for your party is Dora the Explorer.  You will grow up and grow out of it, but for about the past year now, you’ve had an obsession with Dora J.  You have two Dora plush blankets that you drag and carry everywhere with you, and you now have a Dora bedspread, sheets, and pillowcase in your room.  You sing the song to the show, and know all of the characters.  You can even speak Spanish like her.  Mommy got a small cake for the rest of us this year, but you get your very own individual Dora cake covered in purple frosting.  I can’t wait to decorate for your party….I know that you are going to be crazy about it!

I don’t know just where to begin this year…..very rarely am I without words, but when it comes to you, you move me beyond words.  Ah, here I am crying already as I write this….I love you, I love you, I love you! I love you more and more every day!  You continue to amaze your father and me, and certainly everyone around you.  We still get the same response any time we go somewhere with you-“Oh, look at her, she’s so beautiful!” But now people are also just as awe-struck by how smart you are.  Whether you are putting 4 and 5 year old boys in their place at the mall food court by counting to ten in Spanish when they only could count to three or you are singing your ABC’s in a stall in the church bathroom, you really impress people!

At this time last year, you babbled a lot, and you said momma and dada, made lots of gestures, did the motions to songs like itsy-bitsy spider and the wheels on the bus, and followed directions quite well for your age.  You weren’t yet walking, but just a few days after your first birthday, you started to.

Flash forward to now, and you are no longer our little baby, but our very big girl! You don’t just walk, you run, jump, kick, throw, climb, you name it.  You have the most extensive vocabulary of any 23 month old I’ve ever known.  There doesn’t seem to be a word that you don’t know or can’t repeat (and you’ve repeated a couple of interesting words, sweetheart, thanks to your parents who haven’t always watched their mouths!).  You are great at reading books and making up the stories to them, or filling in the story accurately as I ask you to tell me what happens next in them.   You are a whiz at flashcards, and you are also one heck of a good singer! Whether you are just singing the tune of a song, making up words to your own creative work, or singing your favorite songs (The Barney song, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Baa-Baa Black Sheep and the theme songs to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora and Superwhy are just a few), you usually wake up singing in the morning and go to be singing at night!

You still are not the best sleeper, but you’ve made a lot of progress this past year.  We changed your bed to a toddler bed in August this past year, and it really made a world of difference.  You started to sleep more soundly, and for the most part, stay sleeping in your room all night.  You do love to come creeping into our room around 3 or 4 in the morning to snuggle, but we don’t mind! You still get up pretty darn early (most of the year has been between 4:30 and 5:30, never past 7:00, and often you like to throw “parties” in the middle of the night for a few hours that I wish that you wouldn’t invite me to so often J).

You’ve had an amazing year, learning and growing SO MUCH! At the same time, though, it was a rough year in other areas.  In June of 2009, you contracted MRSA, had quick surgery on it (we’ll talk about those scars on your hind-end some day), and was hospitalized for five days.  It was a very tough time, but you were such a trooper! (Your favorite part of your hospital stay, besides having Grandma Terry and Mommy at your beck and call, had to be jumping on your enclosed hospital bed J).

You stayed home to recuperate for a couple more weeks at home, but not long after you started back at daycare, you contracted hand, foot and mouth disease.  UGH! This was even harder on you than the MRSA, and Mommy was ready to quit her job to keep you home and safe from the hazards of daycare! Once again, though, you were a wonderful girl, healed well, and loved going back to daycare.

Speaking of daycare, this past year you progressed developmentally through two different rooms—Brandi and Lauren’s, and then Bailey and Jenny’s, before being moved to Hailey and Ranae’s room, which is where you still are now.  Overall, I know that you really like daycare, especially learning lots of new things and playing with your friends (you even have a boyfriend, Brett—it’s so cute how you say his name and giggle about him!), but you’ve had your moments there J.  You went through a couple of stages where you were biting other kids pretty regularly (your favorite places to bite were their heads and ears J), but it was usually because you were teething and your teeth hurt.  You also liked to bite when you were “too” anything—too tired, too thirsty, too hungry, too overstimulated, etc.

Right now, you are still working on cutting your two year molars, but you’ve been coping pretty well with it.  And all things considering, you’ve been pretty darn healthy since the whole MRSA/Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease episode.  You just recently lost one of the tubes that was put in your ear, and just got a slight infection in it, but all in all, you’ve had a much healthier year than your first.

This year was also a big year for you and our entire family in terms of our involvement in the pro-life movement and our presence on both the national and international fronts.  By the time you are old enough to start reading these letters that I write you each year, you will already know our whole story about why we are active in the life movement, and how abortion affected all of our lives.  I hope that you can look back on your childhood and see that you are a very important person in this work, and that this was our calling from the Lord.  Just as it was my calling to be saved from it, you were called to be my daughter, to help bear witness, and ultimately change the hearts and minds of millions of people.

During this past year, you had the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. with Mommy, Grandma Linda and Aunt Gladys for a few days while I spoke at a large event there.  We all had a wonderful time, and the attendees of the event were awed by your presence.  Lots of people from around the world, including Poland, China, Greece and South Africa took your picture! (Yes, you’ve been famous almost since birth J).

You then got to travel to Indiana and Texas with Mommy and Grandma Linda for another couple of pro-life events that I spoke at. (The one in Indiana was at this really beautiful mansion…I spoke in front of a baby grand piano….that will probably never happen again!).  Overall, you were a really good girl, and getting to have you with me when I am out traveling and speaking makes it all worthwhile.  (Plus I can’t stand being away from you!)

At the end of this April, over your birthday, in fact, you will once again be traveling with Mommy and this time Grandma Terry, to pro-life events in Indiana and Tennessee, and we will even be spending some time with Uncle Troy in Kentucky !  Later this year, you will be going to Australia with Mommy and Daddy to meet some amazing pro-lifers down there and speak at events across the continent (I can’t wait for you to see kangaroos and koala bears!!)

The 700 Club (a Christian tv program) will be coming up to our house sometime this year, too, to film us and share our story on their television program.  We are all so excited about this and feel so blessed about this huge opportunity to share our message with the world (yep, once again, you are famous as a very young girl!).

There are so many things that I want to say to you, but this letter just won’t do it justice.  You are still, and will always be, the light of my life.  You are still a mommy’s girl, but over the past year, your relationship with your daddy has really blossomed.  You love to goof around with him “downstairs” (that’s what you call the family room downstairs at our current house).  The two of you listen to music and watch music videos for what seems like hours, and you like to watch him play video games, and dig through all of the computer related stuff that he keeps down there.  You are also crazy about all of your “Meemaws” and “Bampas”  (Grandmas and Grandpas).  There have been quite a few times that you’ve sat and cried because you missed them, and you always seem to spot “Bampas” out in public…..it’s cute but sad to me at the same time, because I know that you would love to see them even more often than you do now (which is usually every couple of weeks).  One of your favorite things to do at bedtime is to look at the pictures of family that we have hanging on your bed, name who it is, and then tell them goodnight J.

As much as you are a mommy’s girl, when there is a Meemaw or a Bampa around, Mommy suddenly becomes invisible! That’s okay, though.  I am more than willing to share you with them, because I know that you will always be my girl, and I will always be your mommy! You really are the greatest blessing that I have ever received, Olivia, and I hope that I will always reflect that to you in my love and care for you.

Happy 2^nd birthday, sweetpea! Daddy, Patches and I love you immensely!

Love,

Mommy