About the Book

Winner: Christianity Today 2018 Book Award, CT Women

Silver Medal, 2018 Illumination Awards

Melissa Ohden is fourteen when she learns that she is the survivor of a botched abortion. In You Carried Me, she details for the first time her search for her biological parents and her own journey from anger and shame to faith and forgiveness.

After a decade-long search Melissa finally locates her birth father and writes to extend forgiveness, only to learn that he has died without answering her burning questions. Melissa becomes a mother herself in the very hospital where she was aborted. This experience transforms her attitude toward women who have had abortions, as does the miscarriage of her only son and the birth of a second daughter with complex health issues. But could anything prepare her for the day she finally meets her birth mother and hears her side of their story? 

This intensely personal story of love and redemption illumines the powerful bond between mother and child that can overcome all odds.

Book Trailer

Praise

Melissa Ohden’s book is many things: a testament to human resilience, a message of healing and forgiveness, an insight into the extraordinary journey of a pro-life campaigner, but perhaps even more than that, it is a loving tribute to Melissa’s heroic adoptive parents and to the thousands of adoptive couples who welcome children into their lives every year.

Catholic World Report

Ohden speaks with authority, merited by many courageous battles described in the book. She is a voice for those wounded by abortion. She is a voice for abortion survivors attacked or silenced by abortion advocates unable to reconcile their support for the murderous procedure with the existence of living survivors. She is a voice of forgiveness for the sorrowful who regret their abortions or their complicity in abortions. And she is a voice for the unborn who have no voice.”

National Catholic Register

A memoir of mothers, daughters, adoption, and abortion. . . . Ohden's story is complicated, and she has impressively overcome significant emotional challenges. . . . [Her] perseverance is inspiring.

Kirkus Reviews

Melissa Ohden had me at page one. In her absorbing memoir, she wastes no time getting to the questions that drove her through darkness, and ultimately, to faith and forgiveness. She asks questions about her identity and why she was given up for adoption, as any adoptee might. But she also asks questions much graver: Why would anyone try to abort her, and how had she survived? It’s a journey that both breaks hearts and heals them.

Angie Mimms, St. Anthony Messenger

Melissa makes a compelling statement against abortion as she shapes the inner pain she dealt with trying to cope with the idea that her biological family did not want her and attempted to end her life. Her story highlights God’s grace and mercy, which carried her through this trial to become an effective speaker in the pro-life movement.

Celebrate Life Magazine

Very personal and compelling.

LA Review of Books

A heartrendingly personal memoir.… No matter how one may feel about the controversial issue of abortion,You Carried Me is a compelling, soul-felt, and honest testimony.

Midwest Book Review

Ohden’s straightforward and courageous memoir revolves around her efforts to find her birth parents and understand her identity after discovering at age 14 that she survived a late-term abortion…. Readers of all stripes will feel compassion for the circumstances of her birth.

Publishers Weekly

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