You Carried Me by Melissa Ohden

You Carried Me by Melissa Ohden is a book by an abortion survivor.  Melissa grew up always knowing that she was adopted.  She was raised with her older sister, Tammy,  who also was adopted.  These girls were soon joined by the very happy addition of a brother when their mother surprised everyone by getting pregnant after all those years.  Both girls had been told that their birth mothers loved them but just couldn't raise them and so they were adopted.  Melissa grew up happy and loved and wanted.  As the girls grew up they discovered different interests and grew apart though always loved each other.  One day Tammy let it slip in an argument that Melissa's mother didn't love her.  Tammy didn't know that Melissa had never been told she was an abortion survivor.  Though Melissa's parents did the best that they could Melissa just couldn't resolve the fact that her biological mother had tried to abort her.  This story is of how Melissa learned to deal with this assumed rejection of her by her birth mother and the story of how Melissa found forgiveness for her birth parents and then the story of how she searched for them and finally found them.  She wrote each of them a letter and waited and waited and waited some more for a response. 

This book is a tough book to read.  Sometimes I needed to stop to cry and I have never had to go through any of these things.  Melissa is a strong woman who eventually went through a severe depression and with treatment came out on the other side.  Like many who go through great tribulation she wanted to help others get through the same struggles and founded  the Abortion Survivors Network to help others impacted by abortion.  She worked through her shyness enough to become a speaker on this subject.  She found that many didn't want to hear her story, many didn't believe her story and after a period of silence she found the courage to again speak out on the subject of abortion.  Melissa Ohden is a woman of courage who has found the strength to educated us all on this difficult subject.
I received this book from Handlebar for this review.