Sometimes motherhood begins long before the baby arrives.
Earlier today at praise team rehearsal, one of the young women shared the joy of feeling her baby kick for the first time. The room lit up with excitement, the kind only expecting mothers truly understand.
But her words took me back to my pregnancy with my daughter, Ella Grace.
Because of uterine fibroids, I never once felt Ella kick.
Not once during the entire pregnancy.
While most mothers count flutters and kicks, my reassurance came in a different form. Ultrasounds. Each appointment became a sacred moment where I could see my little girl moving, stretching, and resting peacefully.
What amazed me most was how she seemed to make space for herself. Some fibroids shrank. Others calcified. And there she was on the screen, perfectly comfortable, as if she knew she belonged there.
Eventually my doctor made a life-saving decision. One fibroid blocked the birth canal completely. If labor had begun naturally, the outcome could have been devastating for both of us.
So my C-section was scheduled early.
Ella Grace entered this world at 36 weeks—six pounds, six ounces of pure promise.
Healthy. Strong. Beautiful.
When I look back now, I understand something I couldn’t fully articulate then.
I was pregnant by faith.
God had spoken to my heart years earlier that Oji and I would be parents one day. And when the time came, that promise showed up in ways I could never have predicted.
First through love and adoption with Trevor and Tyson.
Then through the miracle of Ella Grace.
Sometimes faith doesn’t feel dramatic.
It doesn’t always come with signs you can feel in your body.
Sometimes faith simply asks you to trust what God has already spoken—even when the evidence is only visible on a screen.
But when the promise finally arrives in your arms, you realize something beautiful:
Faith was carrying the story the whole time.
© 2026, Lela Fagan. All rights reserved.
