Chaunie Brusie has a wonderful story about Walk for Life West Coast keynote speaker and abortion survivor Melissa Ohden meeting the nurse who cared for her as an infant after Melissa had survived a failed abortion. Excerpt
Melissa “travels around the world telling her story and working with her non-profit, the Abortion Survivors Network, which connects individuals like her, who often feel ashamed and embarrassed about their past. It was at one of her speeches that Ohden got a special surprise from one dinner attendee, Michelle Lehr, 59, who was actually one of the volunteers who had cared for her while she was a baby in the NICU.
Lehr had looked up Ohden when she was in town and was overjoyed to have the chance to see her again. “I recognized her immediately and without question,” Lehr says. “I had gazed at her so hard that day 35 years prior, that I could not forget her face.”
Ohden and Lehr quickly picked up the bond they had forged all those years ago and Ohden found some peace and healing in knowing that her beginning had made a difference in someone’s life. “It meant the world to me to know that I was not forgotten,” explains Ohden. Lehr has once again become a source of support in Ohden’s life, helping her through her daughter’s health challenges. “It’s amazing to see how our lives connected not only 39 years ago, but now remain interconnected for life,” she says.