On a hot morning last summer, “Shelly” did something she never thought she’d do: she searched online for information on abortion.

At age 38, she was already the single mother of two children who were 11 and 16 years old. The news of her pregnancy devastated Shelly because the last thing she wanted was another child to care for—especially a baby. She was nearing the end of culinary school and looking forward to some exciting opportunities after graduation.

What’s more, the baby’s father had just moved hours away. He wanted her to carry their baby to term and then give the child to him to raise. However, Shelly didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of him taking care of their baby on his own.

Feeling alone, hopeless, and defeated, Shelly walked through the doors of our Pittsburgh women’s care clinic and found compassionate nurses who listened to her fears. While Shelly refused to listen to her baby’s heartbeat during the ultrasound, she reluctantly took home the sonograms that showed the precious 10-week-old baby growing inside her womb.

Shelly left our clinic saying she was “85 percent set on having an abortion.” But we kept praying for her and later followed up with her, only to learn that she’d changed her mind. Just one week after her ultrasound, Shelly decided to carry her baby to term and parent the child herself.

Her beautiful daughter was born earlier this year, and she weighed close to 8 pounds—not bad for a little girl who arrived two weeks early to join her older siblings in a loving family.

Shelly’s daughter teaches us about the sovereignty of our great God. Even though Shelly wasn’t expecting to have another baby at this stage in her life, and even though we weren’t expecting her baby to be born two weeks early, God has special plans for this precious child…a plan for her creation, a plan for her birth, and now a plan for her life.