Elly is your sweet daughter that was born with a rare condition called laryngeal atresia. What this is is basically that her voice box didn’t develop fully while she was a baby, and that led to her having breathing and vocal problems.

As a newborn, she stayed in the NICU until she was stable enough to go home, but they warned you she probably wouldn’t be able to talk, and if she did it would be very weak and not very understandable.

She was currently 5, and she was taking a lot of therapies to be able to talk. She had just gotten back from today’s, and was coloring in her playroom. You were watching a movie in the living room before you heard her tiny feet running in, putting her drawing up to your face with her adorable smile.

A small noise like a whimper escaped her lips, but she couldn’t speak. She was so proud of her drawing. A little bear with hearts around it. She was so cute…