When Jason Yew, 38, and Joy Goh, 37, first found out they were expecting a third child, it felt nothing short of divine.

Having struggled with conceiving their first two kids, they had prayed that if God wanted them to have a third one, they would be able to do so naturally. 

Within a month of that prayer, the couple discovered that Joy was pregnant.

Everything seemed to be smooth sailing – until the 21-week detailed scan.

“It was a very, very huge shock,” said Joy.

“I would never forget the scene where the (sonographer) did the detailed scan and was happily introducing the different parts of Jalen,” added Jason.

“And then (she) suddenly turned quiet and looked at the screen. I could tell it had to do with the heart area.”

The chirpy sonographer turned solemn, and the room fell silent. 

A paediatric cardiologist was called in, delivering a devastating diagnosis to the couple.

The detailed scan showed that there were five major defects in Jalen’s heart, rendering him pretty much incompatible with life.

Jalen had hypoplastic right heart syndrome with pulmonary atresia. In short, he only had half a heart.

Even if he did survive all the major surgeries, they were told Jalen would not have a normal life.

The couple was then advised to terminate the pregnancy. 

Was this not a gift from God?

“The amount of pain, turmoil and sadness that enveloped me during those days were tough to bear,” said Joy, as she thought about the loss of her child. 

“I felt abandoned by God. I felt He did not keep His promise and gave me something I could not bear.” 

Having already felt Jalen kicking inside of her, Joy could not bring herself to go through with the termination, which would involve taking an injection to make her baby’s heart stop and delivering him as a stillborn.

“I didn’t know how I was going to give that permission for that needle to poke and stop his heart. How was I going to live with this decision?” questioned Joy.

“Once we heard the news, we didn’t speak to each other for at least two weeks. We totally disregarded the Jalen issue, and just continued our duties as Mum and Dad to our older kids.” 

Joy with her two older children: Jaylene, 7, and Jayden, 4.

Jason, too, was fighting an internal battle.

“My head was telling me to just abort, to just end this journey,” he said. Based on the information they had been given, it seemed like the logical decision to make.

“But my heart told me that I was in no position to do so; this was not my decision to make.

“I was also reminded of the prayer that we made before – that if God wanted to give us a third child, He had to do it through us and not anyone else. And He gave us this child.”

With barely much time to make a decision (abortion is only legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy in Singapore), the couple sought advice from the people around them, including other doctors.

“The first few people that we saw in the private practice kept telling us to terminate,” recounted Joy.

“When we shared the news with our family, they also encouraged us to terminate. That was when I just shut down.

“I couldn’t really function because I felt forced to do something I didn’t want to. I felt like I had no choice.”

This was a bittersweet family photoshoot taken after Jalen’s diagnosis, as the couple thought that they might not be able to keep their son.

Sharing about how he prayed a lot during those few weeks, Jason confessed that he was leaning towards an abortion even though Joy felt otherwise.

“At that point of time, most of my prayers were blaming God. Why did He allow such a thing to happen to me?” he asked.

However, something supernatural happened on one particular night.

Jason had been praying, when a strong feeling came over him to seek out another medical opinion. 

It made no sense since they had already consulted one of Singapore’s top paediatric cardiologists.

“Prior to this, I had never really heard from God. I didn’t know how to hear from God,” he elaborated.

But the prompting was so intense that Jason decided to obey, calling up different hospitals.

Due to their tight timeline, they were only able to get an appointment with KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH).

This open door turned out to be a godsend.

What if there was another way?

Met with much empathy, the doctors at KKH offered Joy the option of carrying Jalen to full term, delivering him and making him comfortable until he passed on.

Before making the final decision on whether to proceed with the pregnancy, the couple also talked to their youth pastor and his wife.

“During that meeting we prayed life into Jalen’s tiny body, and we repented that we were grieving before his time was up,” said Joy.

Miraculously, an unexplainable peace and comfort filled their hearts right after that meeting.

For the first time in weeks, the couple were finally able to look at each other in the eye and discuss about Jalen.

“We released the decision to God, whether to take him away from us or not. God is the only one who can give and take away life,” she emphasised.

After making the decision to keep their baby, Joy also experienced a change within her spirit.

“I was finally able to fall asleep at night with ease. There was no more overwhelming sadness within me.”

What followed next were multiple appointments at KKH, from the team in charge of high-risk pregnancies, to palliative care and medical social workers.

“We received a lot of comfort, a lot of hope,” related Jason.

“What was described to us by the paediatric cardiologist in KKH was quite different.”

“He was the first and only person that gave us assurance that Jalen would be able to live a reasonably normal life,” added Joy.

They would only later find out that the paediatric cardiologist was a Christian and also a former classmate of one of their church leaders.

This would not be the only moment when they felt like God was watching out for them.

Joy’s pregnancy proceeded as usual; Jalen was a full-term baby.

Born on August 31, 2023, Jalen was delivered in his 38th week, with no complications. 

Describing her Caesarian section (C-sec), Joy added that she was able to listen to worship songs because the hospital had recently started music therapy for patients before and during surgery.

Hoping to lessen their financial strain, Joy said they had also chosen a six-bedder C-class ward with no air-conditioning.

However, after 15 minutes of being wheeled into the ward, a nurse asked if she preferred to be transferred to another ward without babies.

To Joy’s surprise, she was brought to an air-conditioned B2+ ward as there were no other C-class beds available. 

There, only three out of five beds were occupied. The other two patients were also soon discharged, leaving Joy in the room for the remaining two days of her stay.

“How great is our God! It was not even a prayer. It was just a complaint I had, and He blessed me and answered my every possible want in the situation I was in.”

Covered in prayer by many groups of people, the couple were hoping that Jalen could gain weight quickly so that he could go for his first heart surgery.

Jalen, the brave fighter

Due to Jalen’s condition, he was in the neonatal then children’s intensive care unit for 66 days. 

“I remembered the helpless feeling when I first saw him. There were so many plugs and tubes going into his tiny body, arms and legs,” said Joy.

“However, we praise God that he was looking so much more pink than the doctors said he would.

“He did not look like a blue baby. No one could tell what was wrong with him just based on his appearance. He looked like a normal baby.”

The days following Jalen’s birth were filled with many tests and scans, as doctors were trying to determine a date for his first open heart surgery. 

“He contracted MRSA (a bacterial infection), and there were problems with feeding and gaining weight, so the initial surgery date was pushed back a couple of times,” explained Joy.

Jalen’s vitals were initially stable. However, his whole body eventually swelled up due to all the medication that he was on.

Travelling to and fro KKH on public transport daily despite recovering from a C-sec wound was also painful, but the mother of three managed to anyway.

“I also don’t know how I did it,” said Joy. “When people ask me, the only answer I have is it was God’s grace and strength that carried me through.” 

As Jalen’s oxygen saturation was slowly dropping, the doctors decided to go ahead with surgery on October 11, regardless of his weight or MRSA status.

This surgery would involve placing a shunt in Jalen, so that it would create a new path for deoxygenated blood to flow from his heart to his lungs. 

“We trusted God to guide the surgeon’s hands and carry him through this operation. Many others were also in prayer with us during his surgery,” said Joy.

Their prayers were answered – Jalen’s first operation was indeed a success!

The scars on Jalen’s body bear witness to all the surgeries he has undergone.

However, there were more challenges in the days to come.

As Jalen’s vitals were not doing too well and his oxygen saturation was hovering at 60–70%, the doctors told the couple that Jalen might have to undergo another emergency operation if his condition did not improve.

A week later, a decision was made to switch the ventilator to spontaneous mode, in hopes that Jalen would initiate breathing on his own.

Within a day, however, Jalen’s oxygen level kept dropping and he became breathless.

“Through an X-ray, they saw that the air sacs in his lungs had burst and were leaking air into his chest wall,” described Joy. 

“His surgeon was called down to do an emergency procedure on him and a chest tube was re-inserted to release air pressure.”

There were many health scares, but Jalen overcame them all.

Thankfully, Jalen slowly showed improvement in his condition over the next few days.

He was finally able to be transferred from intensive care to the step-down unit, where they would try to wean him off all the machines and tubes.

But as Jalen’s oxygen saturation did not seem to be rising even after more than a week, the doctors told the couple that it was highly likely that they would have to bring him home with various machines to support his breathing. 

“That was another huge stress point in terms of caregiving and finances,” said Joy.

The cost of procuring all the different machines and consumables would have easily exceeded $5,000 even after subsidy. 

“I started to pray for Jalen’s condition to improve, so that we would not need to bring him home with any machines. If not, then to somehow help with this financial burden.”

Four days later, God answered Joy’s prayer again.

“The homecare nurse texted me saying someone returned all the three different medical equipment that Jalen needed, and we just had to pay for the consumables and oxygen,” she marvelled.

“This cut our cost by about 75%. Praise God! I was just dumbfounded.”

Jalen could finally go home, but he was back in the hospital again after a week.

Never alone

But even after his initial discharge, Jalen would go in and out of hospital repeatedly over the next few months.

Around a month later, his oxygen level plummeted to 30–40%, requiring hospitalisation and intubation again.

Although Jalen’s second heart surgery was only planned for between six and nine months old, the doctors decided to bring it forward, performing this when he was four months old.

While the operation was a success, it was not long before Jalen was back in the ICU again.

“He was struggling to breathe, and his oxygen levels were not that fantastic,” said Joy. “They found out that his windpipe collapsed due to a complication from too many intubations.”

For a long time, Jalen’s condition was not stable.

Estimating that Jalen spent six out of the first eight months of his life in KKH, Joy said: “It was very crazy. By eight months old, he already had seven surgeries.

“After work, I would go down to the hospital to deliver the milk, then after that I would head back home.

“Our older children also suffered. Because of that, we didn’t have dinner with them for the longest time.”

By the time the couple reached home, it was usually bedtime for their then three-year-old and six-year-old. On weekends, their daughter and son would also follow them to the hospital.

Remembering how earlier on there were well-meaning people who advised them to terminate the pregnancy since they already had two kids, Jason said: “It’s true that we’re not able to spend as much time with our two older children. Financially, we’re not able to splurge on them too.”

“But through Jalen, I feel that our older children can learn a lot of things – not to take their own health for granted, and that there are a lot of things to give thanks for. We don’t need expensive things,” noted Joy.

Today, their three children play well together – the older siblings always shower Jalen with a lot of love.

Revealing that they had to balance Jalen’s needs for long-term caregiving and having sufficient income, she said: “I was willing to take no-pay leave, but we were so afraid of the medical bills that were racking up. 

While she was not able to work from home due to her job as an air traffic controller, Joy was grateful that her bosses understood when there were times she had to drop everything due to Jalen’s unstable condition.

“They were flexible. I could still attend to both my job and Jalen at the same time.”

Likewise, Jason also saw God’s hand in how he was able to juggle both his home and work responsibilities as a primary school teacher with the help from supportive colleagues.

“Every time when things felt like they were going to crash, it seemed that there was a safety net that God put in place,” observed Jason.

“There was always someone there to give us a lift or a boost. That motivated me to just keep going.”

Jalen also has a birth defect in his ear, and he once had to be hospitalised due to an infection. The doctors are waiting until he is older to determine the next steps.

Sharing how they had also recently changed church before Jalen was conceived, Joy said: “I feel that God placed us in this cell and this church for this purpose as well. They were really behind us.”

As Jalen was unable to be insured due to his condition, their cell leader from Gospel Light started a fundraiser to alleviate some of their medical expenses.

Prayer and practical support also poured in, from offers to shop for groceries, to caring for their older children.

“We didn’t ask, but it was just given to us. It helped us a lot. We felt less alone in this journey,” said Joy.

“That’s another way that we felt that God had us in mind. He’s not going to put us through something we cannot bear.”

God of the impossible

Admitting that it has not been easy, Joy shared: “It has been very, very tough. But somehow we’re able to get by. God didn’t give us something that we couldn’t bear.” 

Currently, 16-month-old Jalen is able to breathe on his own, though his oxygen saturation is only around 70-75%.

“That also explains why his growth is slow, at a three-quarter pace,” said Jason. “If you look at him, you would think he’s a nine- to 10-month-old baby, or a small one-year-old if you’re stretching it.”

At Jalen’s one-year-old celebration, family and friends who had journeyed with the couple were present, including their cell group.

“His weight and height are below the third percentile. He’s really, really small for his age,” said Joy. “But intellectually, he’s fine.”

While Jalen has to be on daily aspirin to thin his blood and iron supplements because of anaemia, he does not require any other special care.

The toddler has also recovered from a few bouts of flu and fever without needing to be hospitalised.

“My biggest struggle is probably taking care of him,” she added. “Because until now, his body still functions a bit like a newborn.

“He still requires milk every two to three hours. And that’s taken a huge toll on me, physically and mentally.” 

Although Jalen has started on solids, he is still not eating a lot. He has also just taken his first steps a few days ago. 

The family enjoys walks in nature and other outdoor activities.

Nonetheless, the couple are amazed by Jalen’s growth and are hopeful about the future.

“If he completes his last heart op (around age three) without much complication, he will actually be cleared to do PE (Physical Education) in school,” said Jason.

“But he will not be cleared to do any competitive sports, and he has to avoid contact sports.”

“That is still so different from the picture the first few doctors painted for us!” exclaimed Joy.

“If anybody were to see him, they wouldn’t guess that there’s anything wrong,” she pointed out.

Other than the small bulge in Jalen’s chest due to how his rib cage has healed back after surgery, one would not be able to guess that he suffers from a heart condition.

However, because Jalen only still has half a heart, the couple are not sure how much time they have left with him. 

“His heart will start to fail in his 30s and, along with his heart failure, his other organs will start to fail,” explained Joy. 

Due to the way certain arteries were formed in his body, his paediatric cardiologist has also raised the possibility of sudden death.

“But the doctor also did tell us, ‘Who knows what will happen 20 years down the road?’ There might be advancements in technology that would help prolong his life,” said Jason.

The Yews live life normally, treasuring the time they have together and creating memories as a family of five.

Recalling that she had asked God why He had given them a baby with just half a heart, Joy said Psalm 139:13–14 came to mind.

“It reminded me that Jalen is not a mistake. God made him this way and chose us as his parents,” she declared.

“We may not fully understand why, and we don’t know what His plans are, but we just continue to cling on to Him, and know that He is our strength and refuge.

“Jalen may not seem perfect, but actually he is perfect. And he is created in God’s image.”

As for Jason, he has seen how Mark 10:27 has been real in Jalen’s life.

“He has already beaten many, many odds. What was termed as ‘impossible’ by the initial paediatric cardiologist was made possible with God,” he remarked.

“God has answered many of our prayers until now. (Jalen) has been successful in all his operations. There were complications, but they were not fatal. 

“Every operation he managed to pull through with God’s grace is like a miracle. He has gone through so many miracles.”

Despite all that Jalen has been through, he has been such a bubbly baby.

While both Jason and Joy are pleading for more time with Jalen, they are also praying that they will be able to fully surrender their son to God.

“It’s now very, very, very difficult to imagine life without Jalen. As tiring as it has been, he has brought a lot of smiles and laughter to our lives,” said Jason.

“If God calls him home, I want to be strong enough, to be thankful and happy for the time that I have had with him.

“Rather than blaming God again, to say ‘Why did you take away Jalen?’, I want to be able to thank God for all the wonderful time, the bonus time, that He has granted us.”

Agreeing, Joy added: “What if Jalen is not with us anymore? That is our biggest fear. But since God put us on this journey, we are trusting Him for His grace, strength, patience, joy and all His promises to carry us through.”

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