14 years, 8 IVF cycles, 5 miscarriages, 1 battle with cancer later, God gifted them with 2 babies

This Mother's Day, Salt&Light honours all mothers, grandmothers and spiritual mothers.

by Theresa Tan // May 8, 2026, 7:50 pm

It took them 14 years and much heartbreak to become new parents to their twin girls, Annette and Anya. But through it all, Josephine Foong, 42, learned the magnitude of God's faithfulness and the love of her husband, Winston Yip, 43. All photos courtesy of Josephine Foong.

Today (May 10), Josephine Foong, 42, finally gets to celebrate Mother’s Day after 14 years of trying for a child.

She endured not one but five miscarriages in her long IVF journey of eight cycles – plus a breast cancer diagnosis that resulted in a double mastectomy.

But God brought her vision of a baby to pass.

“After the first miscarriage, as I was crying, I had a vision of my hands holding a tiny foot,” she told Salt&Light.

Each time the embryo failed to implant, or came to nought, Josephine’s heart would shatter.

“Friends would try to comfort me, but their words couldn’t touch me. I was inconsolable,” she recalled.

Yet, she would be brought back to the vision. “And every time, I would see a little bit more: One foot, two feet, one hand.”

That small sliver of hope would keep her and her husband, Winston Yip, 43, going on in their unusually challenging quest for parenthood.

On March 2 this year, the Yips finally welcomed their twin girls, Annette, born at 9.30am and Anya, born at 9.31am.

Josephine said, smiling as she bottle-fed Anya: “I only saw two feet in the vision, I never saw four feet! God really surprised us!”

They met in church

Josephine received Jesus as her Lord and Saviour when she was just 17. “My cousin invited me to City Harvest Church, I was in Year 1 at Polytechnic.”

She found herself immersed in church life, much to the dismay of her parents and grandmother who were devout followers of another faith.

“I went through what we used to call in those days, ‘parental objection’,” she said.

Things were particularly difficult with her late grandmother, who had raised her and with whom Josephine was very close. Her grandmother’s disappointment manifested in comments that cut Josephine to the heart, but still, she clung on to Jesus.

In 2005, Josephine met Winston when she joined his cell group. They began dating and got married in 2009.

Josephine and Winston were wed in 2009.

“From the start, he was always there for me,” she said. “When I had problems at work, he was the only one who could calm me down.”

Winston was a steady influence in her life, and even won the approval of her late grandmother and father, even though he was a Christian.

“My grandmother saw him, and she was happy with him. My father first said that ours was puppy love, but as the years went by, he gave his approval, seeing the way Winston takes care of me and pampers me.”

The quest to start a family

She noticed early on that Winston had a deep love for children. “When he interacted with other people’s children, you could see he really loved kids, much more than I did,” she told Salt&Light.

“We thought we would try for a baby after two or three years. I really wanted to do this for him after all he had done for me – I knew having children meant a lot to him.”

Winston always loved children – he served in his church’s children’s ministry.

When pregnancy did not happen the first few years, “we started going for checks at KK Hospital,” she recalled.

It was then that Josephine was told she had PCOS – polycystic ovarian syndrome – a hormone health issue that often causes irregular periods. But that was not the cause of their inability to conceive, doctors told them.

“They called it ‘unexplained infertility’,” she said with a shrug. “No one knew what the problem was.”

It was only later, when they had started IVF, that the doctor found that Winston, being diabetic, was producing weaker and weaker sperm. But that alone was also not the cause of their infertility.

The young couple had not considered it at the time, but Josephine’s endocrinologist Dr Veronique Viardot-Foucault, who was looking after her for PCOS, suggested they try assisted conception.

Josephine and Winston with Dr Veronique Viardot-Foucault, the IVF doctor who championed their quest for a baby from the start.

“Dr Veronique was my PCOS specialist,” said Josephine. “She is the one who has journeyed with us these 14 years.”

First, they tried IUI (intrauterine insemination), but after two failed attempts, the medical team suggested a freeze-all IVF protocol, where her eggs would be harvested and frozen for future cycles.

IVF made sense to the Yips, as there is a government co-funding available which brings the cost down substantially. “We didn’t have to pay out of pocket for the first four or five cycles,” she told Salt&Light.

In 2012, Josephine underwent the first round of IVF. Sadly, she had a miscarriage five weeks in – she bled out while heading home on a bus. It was traumatising for her and Winston.

After that, her parents suggested they adopt a baby from overseas, but the cost of S$7,000 was prohibitive.

“In comparison, the frozen transfer cycle only cost S$2,000,” she said, adding that they were able to pay for all their treatments with the government co-funding and Medisave.

The Yips before breast cancer happened.

The Yips soldiered through four more IVF procedures in their 30s. One did not take, but the other three did. However, she miscarried again every time.

“Each time, I couldn’t stop crying,” she said of the emotional devastation she went through again and again.

All these years, it hurt Josephine to see friends get pregnant and give birth. Even now, when she looks at someone else’s child who was conceived the same time as one of her failed IVF babies, she thinks of her children that could have been.

“It still stings,” she admitted.

Out of the blue, breast cancer

The couple was preparing for another egg transfer in 2021 when Josephine felt a lump in her breast. She saw a doctor and was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.

Further tests revealed she had triple positive breast cancer – the cancer cells use estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and the human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2) protein to grow – with BRCA2 mutation. This meant the rate of cancer recurrence was as high as 49 percent. She made the decision to undergo a double mastectomy and reconstruction of both breasts.

Her doctors put her on chemotherapy and Herceptin (targeted therapy for HER2 positive patients) for a year, followed by hormonal therapy.

“He shaved his head for me,” said Josephine of Winston’s support when she underwent cancer treatment.

During cancer, Josephine received support and company from some of the women in her cell group who are closer to her.

She received help from her church’s Cancer Care Group, which walks with cancer patients and supports them physically and emotionally. When she was declared cancer-free, Josephine volunteered with the group to support others diagnosed with cancer.

Most women would have called it quits with IVF after undergoing such a major operation and treatment. But Josephine is not most women. In 2023, the Yips’ IVF journey continued.

Dr Veronique had worked with Josephine’s oncologist Dr Raymond Ng to manage her treatment with the view that she would resume IVF after.

“Dr Ng asked me if I wanted to stop the hormonal therapy and try IVF again,” she related to Salt&Light. Hormone therapy is usually conducted for a minimum of five years. This would be cutting it short, but the doctors had already discussed her intention to try IVF again.

Josephine agreed. She stopped hormone therapy in December 2023, and within six months, her periods had resumed. In July 2024, she underwent the seventh round of IVF. She soon found herself pregnant.

Tragically, it turned out to be a blighted ovum, a case where the egg implants in the uterus and forms a yolk sac, but the embryo fails to develop. So what looks like pregnancy and a growing embryo is actually an empty sac.

It felt like the final straw for Josephine, after having gone through more than a decade of IVF attempts on top of cancer surgery and treatment.

“I cried like nobody’s business,” she recalled. “Winston was also affected. We were like, ‘Why?’”

It was especially painful because “you can’t determine if it’s a blighted ovum, you have to give it time to grow,” she explained. “So you have to scan at Week 7 and Week 9 just to confirm if it’s viable.”

It was not. She had to take a pill to expel the ovum. “My doctor said to me, ‘Your body wants to get pregnant, so it holds on to everything, even if it’s not going well.”

Dr Ee Tat Xin was the procedure doctor that saw her throughout much of her journey right to her successful pregnancy.

After this crushing experience, Josephine was ready to give up.

“I can only say I could keep going on by the grace of God, and because I felt no physical pain – only heart pain.”

Altogether by this time, 12 years into her IVF journey, Josephine had suffered five miscarriages.

“I’ve literally been a broken tap before God,” she told Salt&Light. “Yet I feel comfort from Him.”

She added: “He said to me, ‘It’s not done yet”. The miscarriages are not the end yet.”

The final two embryos

As she stood, ready to throw in the towel, Winston asked her: “It’s our final two embryos. If you give up now, what have we been paying the storage fee for? And we still have to deal with the final two.”

So Josephine decided to give it one last shot – her eighth IVF attempt. Her doctor encouraged her to try to lose some weight first, to maximise her chances of a successful pregnancy. Josephine battled a weight issue brought on by PCOS and diabetes.

But she was determined to give this last shot her all: She lost 10kg, which was a 15% drop in weight.

On August 13, 2025, her final two embryos were transferred to her womb.

A shot of the final two implanted embryos. “Their first photo,” quipped Josephine.

“It was a high-risk pregnancy,” she told Salt&Light. “I had had multiple miscarriages. Plus, the babies shared a placenta and the membrane separating them was not found till Week 19.”

On top of that, following the transfer, it was found she had low levels of progesterone, the hormone that supports the baby’s development during early pregnancy, maintains the uterine lining and prevents contractions that could lead to miscarriage. So Josephine had to have daily progesterone jabs for four weeks. Thankfully, after the first scan, things stabilised and the jabs stopped.

As the weeks progressed, Josephine was excited but cautious. After five failed attempts, she had come to the conclusion that only God decides if a baby successfully grows.

“In 2024, during the fifth pregnancy, my hCG level was higher at 1,100,” she said. HCG is a hormone found in early embryos and usually signals pregnancy. “In 2025, my HCG level was only 500, but I was carrying twins. So you cannot base your hopes on such measurements.”

The first ultrasound of Annette and Anya “which confirmed their existence”, said Josephine.

When it was discovered that she was carrying identical twins, Josephine was nervous, for good reason.

“The safest pregnancy would be a single baby from one egg,” she said. “But this was a case where both eggs were transferred, and one implanted and split. That meant a higher risk.”

Given Josephine’s condition and the risk level of the pregnancy, she had to go for scans every two weeks to check that the babies were doing okay.

There was the risk of selective intrauterine growth restriction, which is when there is unequal placental sharing between the twins, and one develops at the expense of the other.

“At Week 21, there was a 21% difference in size between them,” she recalled. If the difference exceeds 30%, then is a chance of Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) which would endanger the lives of both babies.

On top of that, Josephine was experiencing high blood pressure, which is dangerous in any pregnancy. “My doctors said, ‘Try to keep them in past 30 weeks.’”

Josephine was warded for three days at Week 28 because of extremely high blood pressure. She was discharged in time for Chinese New Year.

Each week brought new challenges. She was sent to A&E at Week 28 because her blood pressure was abnormally high. Doctors found something in her blood sugar that suggested a possible problem with the placenta, but within a week, that was resolved.

At Week 29, she was hospitalised again and subjected to a series of scans and tests, including a blood test for pre-eclampsia.

“They had already planned to deliver the twins after 31 weeks,” Josephine mused. “They just didn’t tell me.”

Once she crossed 31 weeks, she was scheduled for a Caesarean section. “I had to go through a 24-hour magnesium sulphate infusion to prevent stroke and brain bleed,” she added.

At 31 weeks and four days, her twin daughters were delivered: The surgeon removed the amniotic sac carrying each baby so as to gently introduce them to the outside world. They went straight into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

“The first time I saw them, I cried.” Josephine holding Annette’s tiny hand and foot.

The first ever photo of the girls post-birth.

Annette’s birth weight was 1.3kg, while Anya’s was 1.2kg. Preterm babies need to reach around 1.8kg in weight and Week 35 of gestation before they can be discharged. Annette reached her goal weight and went home at Week 36. Anya followed suit a week later.

Both husband and wife went through the pregnancy holding their breath. “We could only trust that God was in charge,” Josephine said. “Winston said to me, although every week we faced many issues, God gave us a medical team that cares.”

A miracle from start to finish

Josephine and Winston are most grateful for their IVF doctor, Dr Veronique, and their procedure doctor, Dr Ee Tat Xin, who worked tirelessly to see them through the long journey to parenthood.

“Everything was within KKH: My doctors exchanged notes and coordinated my care so well it was seamless – from IVF to oncology to the Stork Clinic,” she noted. The Stork Clinic is a support group for women with high-risk pregnancies.

“We were not private patients, so we didn’t get to choose our doctors, but God gave us the best doctors who really cared for us. I had joined Fertility Support SG and that is how I came to know Dr Ee. So when he became my doctor, it was so comfortable. The support group also made our journey easier.”

The Yips also credit the church support at CHC they have received throughout, particularly from their cell group. “They would pray with me, talk to me, just chat with me to keep me sane,” Josephine smiled.

Josephine and Winston with their cell group in 2023.

Her cell group leader told a Pastor, Veronica Tang from their church about their situation. “She connected with us and prayed with us regularly. Because of her, we learned to trust more and more in God. What we can do, we do. Beyond that, we must trust that God will give us two babies and not take them away.”

A new adventure x 2

The first time Josephine laid eyes on her daughters in NICU, she wept. God had kept His promise – she held their little feet in her hands. God had done exceedingly abundantly more than they had imagined: They now had not one, but two children.

The first photo taken when Annette and Anya finally came home.

“God had prepared me all these years,” she reflected. “From going through miscarriages, He prepared me to handle cancer and all the treatments.”

Through this long journey, “I learned just how faithful God is. A lot of things we didn’t expect, He brought us through. He knows the best way. We are amazed now, seeing how His hand had guided us through it all,” Josephine told Salt&Light.

She has also learned the depths of Winston’s love. “He loves me, he loves our girls, our family. I learned I could trust Winston to go through cancer with me, because he went through every miscarriage with me and learned how to support me.”

The couple at a marriage retreat conducted by their church, held in Bali last year.

Now, walking through the corridors of KKH to bring her twins for their checkups, “it feels different. When you walk through the hospital you think of the many years you spent here trying to get pregnant. And now, you realise that your children are a gift.”

Now the Yips find themselves overwhelmed and sleep-deprived – just like any other new parent.

“Every day I’m worrying. I don’t know what to expect!” Josephine exclaimed. “They are so demanding! When one stops crying, the other one starts. We have so many questions: Are they okay? Why are they crying so much?”

Being celebrated on her first Mother’s Day comes with complex feelings, she said, admitting: “I am joyful, happy that it came to pass, but I don’t know if I’m up to the task.

“I want to be a supportive mother when they grow up. But now, we are just at their beck and call,” she said wryly.

A very happy Mother’s Day indeed: Josephine with Annette (left) and Anya (right).

Although Josephine has S$0 left in her Medisave account (temporarily, after Anya’s hospitalisation bill), and Winston is currently between jobs – all the better to help her with the twins – they know that the God that has brought them through the past decade and a half will surely continue to uphold them.

“The Bible verse I always hold on to is: ‘Be still and know that I am God’ (Psalm 46:10),” she told Salt&Light. “When there’s nothing we can do, we can trust in Him and rest in Him.”

Watch Josephine and Winston’s video on their parenthood journey: