Zion’s Story
O Warrior Stories
Written by: Tresja Ellis
My husband and I were done having kids — we had already had two 14 year old boys and a 9 year old boy. In the summer of 2024 I got pregnant and was very excited about it, because I thought having more kids was something that I didn’t think would happen again. I was already taking vitamins, eating healthy, and working out, I had no worries about getting pregnant on accident. At around 12 weeks I went to my first OB appointment and I found out that not only was I having my fourth boy (and I thought I was finally getting a girl), but my baby had an omphalocele.
That night my husband and I were devastated because we had no idea what was going to happen to our son’s and our family’s quality of life. I went to sleep and had a dream that my son’s name would be Zion. In the Bible, Zion represents perfection, ideal, and holy. I thought “wow, what a revelation” in this moment, even though Zion is not ideally perfect in how he was created but he is perfect and ideal in the eyes of God.
Zion’s due date was May 9th, with a scheduled c-section on April 22, 2025. Unfortunately I went into early labor and had to have an emergency c-section on March 14,2025 and Zion was born at 32 weeks. He was 3 pounds 6 ounces with a head full of hair. Zion has a large O that contains liver, bowel, and half of stomach. He has been on high breathing support because he has pulmonary hyperplasia, which is small lungs. He also had a large PDA (hole in heart) which needed to be closed because it did not close on its own. Thank God that they were able to close the PDA through an artery in his leg vs getting open heart surgery.
So far Zion has been in the nicu for 73 days and is doing well, no matter what obstacles have been thrown at him. A win for him is he has been tolerating continuous feeds and has been gaining weight with the help of my breast milk. I’m so proud of him and I’m glad that he is a very, very strong boy. I know that he has a long road ahead, but I’m believing that through this Zion has a beautiful purpose on this earth. I can’t wait to see who God has created him to be.
