Life is a Miracle: Shirley's Story

My husband and I got married in June 2019, and a year later, I was pregnant with Elijah. When I was 19 weeks pregnant, Elijah was diagnosed with a complex congenital heart defect. The diagnosis later became pulmonary atresia, transposition of the great arteries, and a ventricular septal defect.

Because of his condition, we had to deliver in Edmonton so he could be transferred immediately to the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton. At just 2 weeks old, Elijah had his first open-heart surgery. It went smoothly, and he was airlifted back to Calgary for recovery. He finally came home at 5 weeks old.

When Elijah was almost 8 weeks old, I noticed something wasn’t right. That night, he was airlifted back to Edmonton because a massive aneurysm had developed on his heart. An ICU doctor had to accompany him on the flight. We were told that if he experienced distress mid-air, his heart could rupture and there would be nothing they could do.

My initial thoughts were genuine heartbreak. I was terrified of what it all meant, whether he would be okay, and what this journey would mean for our family. There is a deep sense of grief when you have to set aside the dreams you had for motherhood and the life you envisioned for your child.

I remember fervently praying for God to heal him and asking for the diagnosis to somehow be wrong. I listened to worship music and cried out to God every day. At the appointment where they confirmed the diagnosis, I was pacing the ultrasound room, listening to worship music and praying the entire time.

By God’s grace, Elijah made it safely to the hospital. The next morning, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery to remove the aneurysm. Though the surgery itself went well, Elijah suffered two cardiac arrests while being moved from recovery to his room. Doctors performed 26 minutes of CPR and reopened his chest to manually massage his heart.

We were told he had a 50% chance of survival. If he survived, there was also a 50% chance of significant brain damage.

He was placed on life support for two days. After he was taken off, he suffered a stroke that led to seizures. We later learned he was the most critical child in the PCICU and was not expected to survive.

During that time, a friend who worked at the hospital would meet us in the chapel to pray. After several days of crying out to God, she asked me something that shook me deeply, “What if God wants to call him home? Would you let him go?” She referenced Abraham and his willingness to surrender his son in faith.

At first, I was overwhelmed and honestly offended. But after spending time in prayer, I told God that if He wanted to take Elijah, then His will for Elijah’s life was better than anything I could offer him.

Considering surrendering Elijah to God’s will was incredibly hard. Part of me felt like I was giving up the fight, but another part of me felt that I was truly surrendering to God. There was a strange peace in that. It broke me, but I surrendered.

But the very next day, Elijah began to improve.

He became stable enough for an MRI, and the doctors were amazed to find only a small area of stroke in his left occipital lobe. Elijah was later airlifted back to the Children’s Hospital in Calgary to continue recovering.

One of the cardiologists who had diagnosed Elijah in utero came to see us. She was alone that day. She sat down and said, “I had some time alone with Elijah today, and I was praying with him.”

She told us she believed Elijah was anointed and that she sensed it from the very beginning. She also shared that the doctors had not expected him to survive. His aneurysm was larger than his heart. What saved him was a piece of tissue that developed between his heart and the aneurysm, something medically unexplainable. The doctors said, “It could only be God.”

Since then, Elijah has had another open-heart surgery after turning two and a heart catheterization before his fourth birthday. Today he is thriving. He is smart, kind, and already curious about Jesus and God. His life is a living testimony of God’s answered prayers and promises.

That is why whenever we sing about God’s goodness and faithfulness, I am overwhelmed with gratitude and hope. This journey brought my understanding of faith full circle and deepened what it means to trust in God’s faithfulness. Elijah’s life has become a powerful reminder of God’s goodness.

I know some people might wrestle with the fact that he still went through so much, and I still carry the trauma of it every day. But what matters most is that he lives, because He lives.

We get more days. We get to see God’s promise to our family every day in human form. Even through trials, it reminds me that faith carries us through the hardest days and that miracles are still happening every day.

Life itself is truly a miracle.

Thank you, Shirley, for sharing your story!