Dear friends, as some of you may know and some don't, Elaine is now 5 months pregnant with our baby girl, Elizabeth. It has been a wonderful and amazing 5 months for us as first-time parents, observing God's hands at work. Before Elaine was pregnant, we have been praying for God to give us a child so that we can raise the future generation of kingdom citizens. We prayed every day for her, that she will be a child who will glorify God. This joy was taken away last week through a dramatic turn of events which I want to tell you because we believe that God wants this to be a testimony to many people. I am not sending this to you so that you can sympathize with us or comfort us, but that you will pray for little Lizzie and tell this to others. God wants the life of others changed, and if it takes our child's life to do this, we will accept it. Last Tuesday (25 April), we went to NUH for a scheduled scan of the baby. Everything about Lizzie, her head, her hands, her legs, are perfectly formed. The gynae told me to expect a tall girl because she has long legs. Half way thru' the scan, the gynea detected a gap in Lizzie's heart. We were sent for another scan on the same day and it is confirmed that there is a hole in her heart. We were devastated. On Wednesday, we were sent to a NUH specialist for further scanning to see if there are other defects. It turned out that the hole is the smallest problem. Lizzie is diagnosed with Fallot's tetralogy, which is a group of 4 major defects of the heart. With that, our hearts were crushed. On Friday, we sought a second opinion from a pediatric cardiologist. He is recommended by NUH as well as a church friend. He scanned Elaine's tummy for more than 1 hr and said it is worse than he thought. Lizzie does not have Fallot's. The defect is rarer than Fallot's and more tricky to treat. Besides the gap in her heart, the main artery leading from the lungs to her heart is underdeveloped and not leading to the right place in her heart. Effectively, she will not be able to breathe the moment she arrives in this world. Lizzie's chances of survival to term is good, but there will be at least one open heart surgery within the first week of her birth to temporarily fix the problem. When she is 3 or 4, there will be a major open heart surgery to close the hole and put a tube to direct the blood flow from her lungs to her heart. The mortality rate of each surgery range from 5% to 40%. Naturally, we are crushed to receive bad news almost every day about our baby. We felt hopeless and abandoned by God. After much reflections and prayers over the weekend, we are more at peace with what's been happening. We want to trust our God to heal Lizzie and restore her heart before she is born. We trust our God to bless His people and so we know Lizzie will be born a healthy baby, formed in the image of God. We trust that she will not need to undergo surgeries because God will heal her. We covet for your prayers for our baby girl. We also asked that you tell your friends about Lizzie, even your non-believing friends. We believe that God wants this to be a testimony for Him. Please tell as many pple as you know. It will be with great joy in future when I send you the news that Lizzie is healed. We thank you for your prayers for our baby girl and be a part of this testimony. Not only do we know that our baby is prayed for, we feel so comforted that we have you to support us in our times of need.
God is good, all the time.
God bless,Simon
