Life came to an immediate standstill as Herng Wei and Gaius struggled to make one of the hardest decisions of their life. Watch what happened next.

As a Christian, she said “I’m sorry God, but I have no choice.”
She booked an abortion appointment, determined to delete this chapter from her story.

What happened next? Watch to find out.

To anyone in a similar situation: do not be afraid to ask for help. You might be surprised at how much your community would be willing to invest to help you succeed in this journey!

Watch how their community impacted their journey as young parents!

You’ve watched Mark & Sarah’s story. Now listen to their daughter, Ines, as she shares her take, her dreams and what it’s like growing up with young parents!

Catch their responses in our new series “Dear Adults” as the kids give their take on one of society’s most sensitive subjects.

By Yifen Tan

I was studying my PhD when I entered a relationship with a friend. We were living together in the same house, but we kept our relationship a secret because he was in a relationship with another woman. To others, we presented ourselves simply as good friends. Back then, he did not want to break up with his girlfriend for various personal reasons, and there were many times when I saw no future in the relationship and wanted to leave.

I was doing well in my studies, and had applied for a grant to study in Harvard. Things went smoothly and a professor in Harvard Medical School promised to take me in if my application was successful.

Six months later, in August 2010, I bought two pregnancy test kits after I had missed my period. I was very happy when not only one, but two kits showed two lines, confirming that I was pregnant.

Dead silence. He responded with silence when I broke the news of my pregnancy to him as he drove us home after I had seen a doctor for some flu-like symptoms. Back home, he emerged from the room after half an hour of silence. “I don’t want the baby,” he finally spoke. We argued for days.

He suggested an abortion. It broke me because I knew from my scientific background that the baby in my womb was a human life, not a mere “lump of tissue”. Once, I even went down on my knees, pleading that I could not live with myself knowing what I have done to my baby if I had an abortion. But he promised that he would leave his girlfriend, marry me, and have children with me.

I hardened my heart. I began to drink heavily. The abortion was scheduled five days later.

The night before the abortion, before I took the pill they gave me, I tossed a coin. Both times, the answer was ‘no’ to the abortion. But I took the pill anyway. He had threatened to leave me if I continued with the pregnancy.

Neither of us slept much that night. When I visited the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning, I began to bleed heavily. In the midst of that extreme pain, I knew that my baby had died.

The abortion appointment was scheduled very early in the morning. At the clinic, I was weighed, asked my name and age after I climbed into the specifically-designed bed, and injected with a drip. I lost consciousness at around 7 AM and awoke at 11 AM. It was over.

A Beautiful Exchange
Even though he left his girlfriend after the abortion, our relationship did not improve. I left for the United States in January 2011. He broke up with me the very next month. The break-up plunged me into depression. I could not eat or sleep.

I had done my little hometown back in Malaysia proud by not only going to Harvard Medical School, but also receiving a prestigious award for young women in science. Putting up a strong front was an everyday thing for me. But, due to the pain, there were times when my mind simply went blank and I could not absorb a single thing in the weekly scientific talks and seminars.

It was then that I began to attend a church with a thriving young adult ministry, surrounding myself with many close friends when I joined a small group. We had many deep conversations, sharing our lives and testimonies with one another.

After I tearfully confided in a pastor about my abortion, he introduced me to a Christian counsellor, who was also serving in a pregnancy crisis centre. My weekly visits to the counsellor involved long conversations through many tears, and even though I still have flashbacks and emotional breakdowns sometimes, I have learnt that healing is a journey.

I am reminded that the God I believe in is here to do a beautiful exchange at each turn, giving us a crown of beauty for our ashes, gladness instead of mourning, and praise instead of despair.

By Rachel Tan

Less than two months into the pregnancy with my first child Johanna, I started spotting (bleeding) heavily and the obstetrician-gynaecologist (OB-GYN) that I was seeing at KK Hospital diagnosed it as a threatened miscarriage.

“About 20 per cent of pregnancies end in miscarriages,” he said matter-of-factly. “Sometimes, it’s the body’s way of telling you there’s something wrong with the quality of the embryo. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

My husband and I prayed very hard in our helplessness, bargaining with God to let us keep the baby. The spotting eventually stopped and we started looking forward to building our family, and in the excitement, the incident was relegated to the back of our minds.

In January 2014, I was about 22 weeks along in my pregnancy when I went for a detailed scan.

“There’s something wrong with your baby’s heart,” the words of the doctor were razor sharp and cut deep. My mind went awfully blank. I did not feel any emotion, but some part of my soul must have heard the doctor because I could feel hot tears slipping down my cheeks.

Between sobs I called Ivan from the toilet. When he arrived, we were told that our baby would be born blue, and would require multiple dangerous, expensive heart surgeries and a daily cocktail of medication just to get her to adulthood.

We sought a second opinion that day from another doctor. Using a rudimentary sketch of a heart on a piece of paper, the older doctor explained that our baby had a rare condition called Transposition of the Great Arteries, among other complications. He advised us to consider our options carefully, or that we could also choose to terminate the pregnancy there and then.

Giving New Life
We were just two weeks shy of the legal time limit of 24 weeks for abortion. To keep our options open, the doctors recommended that Ivan and I go for the mandatory pre-abortion counselling.

In that time, Ivan reminded me of how God had answered our prayers to let us keep the baby in our first trimester, and it was then that we knew termination of the pregnancy was not an option. Right now, we had to trust that if our prayers to sustain her life before had been answered, then surely He could do another miracle for Johanna.

I had already begun feeling the butterfly movements of the baby, and I realised that she was a fully formed being and I had no right to choose whether she should live or die. When she was found to be free from chromosomal abnormalities or foetal infections, I realised I would have kept her and loved her even if the results were otherwise.

At 9.34 AM on 22 April 2014, Johanna was born, weighing in at a hefty 3.2kg. Despite all the fears that she would be blue and un-oxygenated once out of my womb, she emerged pink and yelling at the top of her lungs.

Since then, Johanna has gone through two operations to fix her heart, each teaching me to trust God more. Today she is a precocious pre-schooler! Other than a zipper scar on her chest, she is medication-free and no different from her nursery playmates. To be sure, even as she has turned my life upside-down, she put a whole lot of things into perspective. Some may say it is the mother who brings new life into this world, but really, I think she is the one who gave me new life.

22 years later, they were still not able to conceive a child. Despite medical treatments, procedures and an unexpected diagnosis of thyroid cancer, they never gave up on their dream.

Watch this true story of hope and find out if they ever saw their dream come true.

The doctors told them that the long term survival rate for their son was 0%. The medical recommendation was to abort. But together, they chose life.

Watch the true story of how Elkan’s parents both fought for him despite their own fears. Because in a family, no one gets left behind.