Ellie's Story

by Shayla Asselin

Between party planning, Pinterest boards, and far too many Amazon deliveries, I’m getting ready to celebrate her second birthday. In just a few weeks, she’ll be two. But in the middle of all the excitement, I find myself thinking back. Not to her first birthday, but to the months before she ever arrived. A season that quietly changed me forever.

I’ve wanted to share her testimony for a long time, but I’ve never quite found the words to fully express what God did for our family. And even now, I’m not sure I can convey just how deeply it marked me but I don’t want my inability to explain it perfectly to keep me from praising Him for it.

In the fall of 2023, I went in for the anatomy scan of our second daughter. My husband and our little girl came with me, and everything began just like the appointments before it. I noticed the ultrasound tech wasn’t her normal chatty self, but with our first daughter asking questions and randomly singing “Jesus Loves You” to her baby sister, I assumed she was just giving us space to soak in the sweetness.

When the scan ended, my husband and daughter stepped out for snack time and I went to the next room to finish the appointment. “The doctor will be in shortly,” the nurse said.

A few minutes later, my doctor walked in and the atmosphere shifted.

She paused before speaking.

“We do have some concerns,” she said gently.

“We need to send you to high risk for more scans. We can’t see all four chambers of her heart. There is a hole in her heart. And there’s swelling on her brain.”

The moment she finished speaking, it felt like the air left the room. I don’t remember much of what happened next - only that my thoughts were loud and relentless and I couldn’t quiet the questions flooding my mind. I smiled when I needed to, answered when spoken to, and somehow made it out of the building but inside, I was unraveling. Fear followed me home. Sat with me in the quiet. Kept me awake at night.

I told only a few people because saying it out loud made it feel too real. My prayers were messy, fractured, and mostly tears. Thank God tears are a language He understands.

A few days later, I sat in the high-risk waiting room trying not to fall apart. The ultrasound tech scanned for nearly forty-five minutes, silent and focused. Every second felt like a lifetime.

When she finished, she said the doctor would be in shortly.

The doctor came in, reviewed the concerns, and then looked me in the eyes and said words I will never forget:

“I don’t want you to think about this anymore. Your baby is perfectly healthy. I don’t need to see you again. Just forget this ever happened.”

But forgetting has never been possible.

Because on January 24, 2024, Eleanor Grace was born - perfectly healthy, strong, beautiful, and whole. And right on the back of her neck is the sweetest birthmark. Most people call it an angel kiss; I call it her miracle mark. Every time I see it, something in me whispers, “Look what the Lord has done.”

I will never stop thanking Him. Not because the season was easy, but because He was near. Because He met me in fear and held me steady when I couldn’t hold myself together. He didn’t just change the report; He changed me. He taught me how to trust Him when I didn’t know the ending.

And if you’re walking through your own waiting room, your own doctor’s office, your own season of unanswered questions - I want you to know this: God sees you. He hears the prayers you can’t find the words for. He catches every tear. He is working in ways you cannot see yet.

Sometimes the outcome breaks our hearts before it strengthens them. And maybe it’s the breaking that does the strengthening. Maybe it’s in the moments when we realize we can’t fix it, can’t control it, and can’t understand it that God forms something deeper in us. A faith that doesn’t depend on how the story ends, but on who He is.

Eleanor is our story of God stepping in and rewriting the report. But even before the miracle, He was covering us. I clung to the promise found in Psalm 91: “He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust; His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” In the waiting, I didn’t always feel strong, but I felt held. And whatever your story looks like, I pray you feel that same covering. Because He is the God who shelters, sustains, and never stops being faithful.