Behind the Scenes of Writing Noely, A Tiny Miracle: How My Daughter Inspired My First Children’s Book
Updated: Aug 21
Some stories begin with an idea. Others begin with a moment.
For me, Noely, A Tiny Miracle began with a tiny four-pound baby, an unexpected early arrival, twelve days in the NICU, and a completely new understanding of what it means to call something a miracle.
When I first began writing Noely, A Tiny Miracle, I wasn't simply trying to write a children's book. I was trying to capture a season of my life that I knew would pass far too quickly. I wanted to remember the little things. The bottles. The baths. The tiny expressions. The curious eyes. The quiet nights. The prayers. The moments when Noely would watch everything happening around her as though she were trying to understand this enormous new world she had entered. What started as memories slowly became words. And those words eventually became a book.
The Story Started Before I Ever Wrote a Page
My journey to motherhood was something I had wanted for a long time. My husband and I had been married for years before deciding that the time was finally right to grow our family. Like many couples, life had influenced our timeline. Finances, work, the uncertainty surrounding COVID, and simply trying to establish ourselves meant that becoming parents was something we postponed.
But by 2024, my desire to become a mother had grown much stronger. In July 2025, I became pregnant.
I imagined what motherhood might look like. I thought about holding my baby, decorating her nursery, bringing her home, and experiencing all of those little milestones I had heard other mothers talk about.
What I didn't imagine was meeting her earlier than expected. At 35 weeks pregnant, I developed preeclampsia. Suddenly, the pregnancy I thought I still had several weeks left to experience changed.
Noely arrived weighing only four pounds. She was tiny. Beautiful. And immediately, my world felt completely different. Because she was premature, she spent twelve days in the NICU. The hospital was about an hour away from our home, which made an already emotional experience even more difficult.
Those twelve days changed me. There is something incredibly humbling about looking at your newborn baby in a hospital setting and realizing how little control you have over anything. You want to protect your child from everything, yet sometimes all you can do is stand beside her, love her, pray for her, and trust the people caring for her. When Noely finally came home, ordinary moments no longer felt ordinary. They felt extraordinary. That feeling became the heart of Noely, A Tiny Miracle.
Why I Chose to Tell the Story Through Noely's Eyes
As Noely grew, I became fascinated by the way she observed the world. Babies cannot tell us what they are thinking, but their faces say so much. I would watch her looking around the room, staring at me while I worked, watching her dad, discovering toys, noticing sounds, studying food, and examining everything within reach. And I started wondering: What does all of this look like to her? That question became one of the most important creative decisions behind the book. Instead of writing a story about a baby from a mother's perspective, I wanted the reader to experience life from the baby's point of view.
Suddenly, everyday activities became adventures. Mom vacuuming wasn't simply cleaning the house. It was something fascinating for Noely to watch. Dad coming home from work wasn't an ordinary evening routine. Here was this familiar person returning in his chef clothes. Bath time wasn't just bath time. It was an experience that could begin with tears and end with splashing and play. Holding a toy wasn't insignificant. It was a new skill. Reaching for something wasn't just movement. It was discovery.
Food wasn't simply food. It was a world of colors, textures, smells, and tastes. That perspective changed the way I wrote the entire book. I wanted adults reading the story to their children to remember that what seems completely ordinary to us can be absolutely fascinating to a baby experiencing it for the first time.
Turning Real Family Moments Into a Children's Story
Many of the scenes in Noely, A Tiny Miracle were inspired by our actual life. That was very important to me. I didn't want Noely to exist as a fictional baby who happened to share my daughter's name. I wanted pieces of the real Noely to live inside the story.
Her strawberry-blond hair.
Her curiosity.
Her nursery decorated with pink flowers.
Her bottles.
Her toys.
Her bath-time experiences.
Her growing ability to sit, hold things, reach, touch, and explore.
Her fascination with what Mom and Dad were doing.
Her dad being a chef.
Her mom working on a laptop, exercising, cleaning the house, and moving through everyday life while caring for a baby.
Even something as simple as Noely watching her father prepare food became meaningful to me because those were the moments that made up our days. When you're living them, they can feel small.
Later, you realize those were the moments you wish you could hold onto forever. Writing the book became my way of holding onto them.
Finding Noely's Voice
One of the biggest challenges was deciding how Noely should sound. She is a baby, so obviously she wouldn't realistically narrate her experiences in full sentences. But this wasn't meant to be a literal transcript of a baby's thoughts. I wanted her voice to represent curiosity, innocence, warmth, and wonder. That meant looking at the world differently while I wrote.
Instead of asking, "What happened today?" I started asking, "What might Noely have noticed today?"
What would she notice about Mom?
What would she notice about Dad?
What would make her curious?
What would seem funny?
What would seem enormous?
What would make her feel safe?
What would make her reach out and want to touch something?
Those questions helped shape the personality behind the narration. Noely wasn't just the subject of the story anymore. She became its storyteller.
Why I Decided to Use Rhyme
I also knew that I wanted Noely, A Tiny Miracle to have rhythm. Children's books are often read aloud repeatedly, sometimes night after night. I wanted the words to feel gentle and musical when a parent, grandparent, caregiver, or teacher read them aloud. That led me toward rhyme. What I discovered very quickly is that writing a rhyming children's book is much harder than simply finding two words that rhyme. The story still has to make sense. The language needs to sound natural. The rhyme shouldn't feel forced. The sentence needs to be understandable to a child. And most importantly, the meaning cannot disappear simply because I need the final word to rhyme with another word. There were lines I rewrote again and again. Sometimes I knew exactly what I wanted to say emotionally, but the rhythm didn't work. Other times I found a perfect rhyme, but it didn't sound like Noely. I learned to let the meaning lead and allow the rhyme to support it—not the other way around.
Faith Was Always Going to Be Part of the Story
My faith also naturally became part of Noely, A Tiny Miracle. I didn't want faith to feel like something inserted into the story simply because I wanted the book to have a religious element. I wanted it to reflect the way faith exists within our family. Prayer is part of Noely's world. Gratitude is part of her world. Learning about God is part of her world. One of the lines that became especially meaningful to me was: "Mom teaches me to put my hands, And thank dear God for all His plans." There is something particularly meaningful about writing those words after experiencing an unexpected premature birth. My plans certainly did not include having Noely at 35 weeks. My plans did not include preeclampsia.
My plans did not include a four-pound baby. My plans did not include twelve days in the NICU.
But those experiences became part of our story. And when I looked at Noely months later—growing, learning, smiling, exploring, and becoming more curious every day—the title felt even more appropriate. She really was my tiny miracle.
Creating the Visual World of Noely
The illustrations became another major part of the creative process. I had a very specific feeling in mind. I didn't want the book to feel overly digital, harsh, or trendy. I wanted something warm and nostalgic—something that reminded me of classic children's illustrations while still feeling like a modern family. That eventually developed into the visual direction I kept returning to: a 1950s-inspired, modernized watercolor cartoon style. The watercolor feeling mattered tremendously.
I wanted softness. Visible painterly qualities. Gentle colors. Warmth. A slightly nostalgic atmosphere.
At the same time, I didn't want the characters to look like they were actually living in the 1950s. Their clothing, home, routines, and surroundings needed to feel contemporary. Finding that balance took experimentation. And a lot of revisions.
The Details Became Extremely Important
I quickly discovered something else while developing the illustrations: Consistency is difficult.
Once I knew what Noely looked like in my imagination, I wanted readers to recognize her immediately from page to page. Her strawberry-blond hair mattered. Her age mattered. Her expressions mattered. Her clothing mattered. Her curious personality needed to come through visually.
The same was true for Mom and Dad. I paid attention to Mom's light-brown hair, Dad's brown hair, their ages, their clothing, their expressions, and even small details like whether a character looked too formal or whether an outfit fit the modern setting. Sometimes an illustration could be beautiful and still not be right for the book. That was an important lesson. "Beautiful" and "right" are not always the same thing. If an image didn't feel like Noely's world, I kept working on it. Sometimes the change was significant. Other times it was something as simple as making the image brighter, softening a character's features, adjusting someone's hair, changing clothing, making Noely's eyes slightly more expressive, or pushing the image further toward a true watercolor appearance. Those tiny decisions eventually created the visual identity of the book.
Some of My Favorite Scenes Were the Simplest Ones
It would be easy to assume that the biggest scenes would become my favorites. But many of the scenes closest to my heart are incredibly ordinary.
Noely sleeping peacefully in her pink flower nursery.
Noely taking a bath.
Noely watching me work.
Noely seeing her dad come home.
Noely exploring toys.
Noely watching food being prepared.
Noely sitting with us.
Noely praying.
These are not enormous events. There are no castles. No dragons. No magical kingdoms. The magic is simply childhood. That became one of the most important things I learned while writing the book. Children don't necessarily need extraordinary circumstances to experience wonder. For a baby, everything is new. A mirror is fascinating. A toy is a discovery. A new texture is an experience. Mom's voice is comfort. Dad walking through the door is an event. A bedtime prayer is a ritual of love and security. Once I understood that, I stopped feeling as though every page needed something dramatic to happen. Noely's discovery of ordinary life was the story.
Writing About the NICU Without Making the Book Too Heavy
One of the more delicate decisions involved Noely's beginning. Her premature birth and NICU stay are essential to understanding why the word miracle means so much to me. But I also knew I was writing for children. I didn't want the story to become frightening or medically complicated.
I wanted to acknowledge that Noely arrived early and was very small while keeping the overall tone gentle, hopeful, and loving. That required restraint. As her mother, I could write pages about what those twelve days felt like. But the children's book wasn't the place for all of my fear. The book needed to belong to Noely. The deeper emotions behind those pages could exist beneath the story without overwhelming a young reader. In some ways, that made writing those moments even more emotional for me. I knew what was behind them.
Becoming an Author While Becoming a Mother
Perhaps the most unexpected part of creating Noely, A Tiny Miracle was realizing that I was documenting my own transformation too. The book is about Noely discovering the world. But while writing it, I was discovering motherhood. I was learning how quickly babies change. One day they cannot do something, and suddenly they can. They begin reaching. Sitting. Holding. Recognizing. Reacting. Exploring. And while all of that is happening, you're changing too. Your routines change. Your priorities change. Your home changes. Your relationship changes. Even the way you experience time changes. Before becoming a mother, seven months sounded like a reasonable amount of time. After becoming a mother, seven months felt like a blink. Writing gave me somewhere to put those feelings.
The Moment It Became More Than One Book
While creating Noely, A Tiny Miracle, another realization began forming. Noely wasn't going to stop discovering things when I finished the last page. There would always be something new. New seasons.
That realization eventually grew into The Noely Collection. Instead of thinking about one isolated children's book, I began imagining a series that could grow alongside Noely. The first book could introduce readers to this tiny miracle and her world. Then future books could follow her as that world became bigger. That idea felt incredibly natural because it mirrors childhood itself. Children are constantly becoming. There is always another discovery waiting.
What I Hope Parents See in This Book
I hope children enjoy Noely. I hope they love the pictures. I hope they enjoy hearing the rhymes.
I hope they point at things on the pages and ask questions. But I also wrote this book for the adult sitting beside them. I hope parents see pieces of their own lives in these pages. Maybe your baby didn't spend twelve days in the NICU. Maybe your child doesn't have strawberry-blond hair. Maybe Dad isn't a chef. Maybe the nursery isn't pink and covered with flowers. The details of our families will be different. But the feeling of looking at your child and wondering how something so small could completely transform your life is universal. I hope the book reminds parents that the routines that sometimes feel repetitive won't last forever. There will be a last bottle. A last time you carry your child because they're too little to walk. A last bath with baby toys. A last night in the crib. And most of the time, we won't know it's the last time when it's happening. That realization makes the ordinary feel much more precious.
What Noely Taught Me About Creativity
Before this project, I thought creating a children's book would mostly involve writing. Instead, it became writing, rewriting, imagining, editing, visual storytelling, character development, design, rhythm, color, pacing, and hundreds of tiny decisions. It also required patience. There were times when something looked almost right. There were times when a rhyme was almost right. There were times when I knew something was wrong but couldn't immediately explain why. I learned that sometimes creativity is less about suddenly having the perfect idea and more about being willing to keep refining an imperfect one. One more revision. One different word. One softer illustration.
One brighter scene. One adjustment. Then another. Eventually, all of those decisions started feeling like they belonged together. And slowly, there it was: Noely, A Tiny Miracle.
The Most Personal Thing I Have Created
This book will always be deeply personal to me because I know the real moments behind the pages.
I know the tiny baby behind the character. I know the NICU room. I know the hour-long drive. I know the pink flower nursery. I know the bottles. I know the cries. I know the peaceful nights.
I know the curiosity behind those little eyes. I know the prayers. And I know the mother behind the words because writing this book helped me understand her too. Someday, Noely will be old enough to read these stories herself. She won't remember being four pounds. She won't remember those twelve days in the NICU. She won't remember the first months in her pink nursery. She won't remember learning how to hold a toy or sitting on the floor studying everything around her. But I will. And now those memories live somewhere outside of me. They live in a book.
From My Tiny Miracle to Your Family
When I look at Noely, A Tiny Miracle now, I don't just see a children's story. I see the beginning of motherhood. I see fear that became gratitude. I see ordinary days that became memories. I see a baby discovering her world. I see a mother trying desperately to remember it all. And I see the beginning of something I never originally imagined creating: The Noely Collection. My hope is that as Noely grows, the collection grows with her. There will be more seasons to discover, more family traditions to experience, more lessons about God and gratitude, and countless ordinary moments that turn out to be extraordinary. But Noely, A Tiny Miracle will always be where it started. With a four-pound baby.
With twelve days in the NICU. With a mother watching her daughter grow. And with the realization that sometimes the biggest miracles arrive in the tiniest packages.
— Glenys Boyne
Author of Noely, A Tiny Miracle
The Noely Collection
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