“Your baby has water in the brain and a hole in the main arteries of the heart,” my doctor told me. “He will most likely be born with Down Syndrome as the brain cells are being spaced out further and further.”
In fact, he was so certain that he told me that I did not need to do the Down Syndrome test.
I was already 20 weeks pregnant then.
By then, I was so familiar with disappointments that I felt nothing but weariness. Why was my pregnancy journey so difficult? Why me again?
The doctor went on to inform me I only had about two more weeks left, according to Singapore’s abortion laws, to decide if I wanted to terminate the pregnancy.
And that was when it really hit me. I had been filled with so much hope for the past five months. As it turned out, I was carrying false hopes. Telling me that I now have to abort my baby was even a bigger blow than finding out that I could not have kids.
I did not know how we did it, but almost instinctively, my husband and I made the choice to keep our baby that weekend. We sought counsel with our leaders, and my Pastor, Pastor Maria met us to discuss about the diagnosis.
Our decision wasn’t driven by a clear understanding of what we were in for. In fact, I struggled to come to terms with it even after making our decision.
“Why didn’t You give me a perfect baby?” I cried out to God. “Why are we suffering this way? It would be better if I had not conceived!”
I was plagued with fear, despair and helplessness. How was I to care for a special needs child? What kind of life would my baby have? Would giving birth to him the best I could give him? God was good. He gave me a verse that encouraged me even when I was feeling down: “Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?"” (John 11:14).
There were days where I took out the ultrasound scans and simply stared at them. There were nights when I cried myself to sleep. I was even afraid to go for future checkups because I was so emotionally scarred.
But every time I felt my baby kicking in my tummy, I felt like I had made the right decision to keep him. I couldn’t explain it… It was like maternal instinct. Whether my baby lived or died, he was still my child. I just could not give up on him like that.
I also began to understand that while my baby was not perfect in the world’s eyes, he was perfect in God’s eyes... in my eyes. He was perfect simply because we loved him.
After deciding to keep my baby, my husband and I decided to switch from a private hospital to a public hospital. We were worried that we would not be able to afford the medical fees in a private hospital if there were birth complications, especially with a baby like ours.
At the new hospital, the gynaecologist decided to redo all the scans for me. To our shock and utter disbelief, he could not find anything wrong with my baby! We remained unconvinced, scans after scans, until the Head of Fetus Centre was roped in to look at my case. He, too, found nothing wrong!
Note: the difference in two diagnosis were within weeks. We were puzzled and come to the conclusion that God is our healer!