The first time Charmaine Tang saw her baby girl, it was love at first sight.

“My first thought looking at her was: Wow, you are so perfect. I cannot believe that you grew so beautifully. I was just admiring her.

“It was love at first sight. I had never met her before but the moment I saw her, I was just so full of love for her. ”

Charmaine and baby Eliza celebrating her first Mother’s Day.

Little Eliza Althea Lim Chen Xi was born on December 28 in the thick of the COVID pandemic of 2020. Her parents, Ps Jacob Lim and Charmaine, called her their “Christmas gift that came differently”.

She was the baby they never quite expected to have.

A miracle conception

When Ps Jacob and Charmaine got married in 2017, having met each other at Trinity Theological College (TTC), they lost no time in trying for a baby. After all, he was already 36 and she was 34.

Charmaine and Ps Jacob met as students in TTC.

But when no baby came along after a year, the Lims decided to consult a doctor. That was how they discovered that one of Charmaine’s fallopian tubes was blocked. No treatment was necessary. They were simply told to press on. But with her condition, it meant that Charmaine’s chances of getting pregnant was halved.

“I was disappointed. My friends were all conceiving naturally even at this age. We had always wanted kids. Both of us liked kids a lot and we got along very well with children. I had several godchildren by then.

“But there was also a quiet trust that God knows best and, in His time, He would provide.”

While they weighed their options for fertility treatments and then waited for their turn for Intrauterine Insemination (IUI), Charmaine got pregnant. By then, they had been trying to conceive a child for two and a half years.

“We were very shocked. We had tested so many times before and there was nothing. This time, there was a faint line. Never seen the line before,” said Charmaine.

Added Ps Jacob: “There was a lot of disbelief because there were a few times when her menses was just delayed. So we tested a few times just to be sure.”

The devastating news  

The first trimester of pregnancy was challenging. Charmaine experienced morning sickness and appetite changes.

“I couldn’t eat meat and needed a lot of gassy drinks to help me.”

All that disappeared the moment she entered the second trimester, “like a switch” had been flipped. But she developed medical complications. She had gestational diabetes and showed symptoms of preeclampsia. Her blood pressure was constantly very high.

“But I felt very normal.”

Then came the Week 22 detailed pre-natal check-up.

Said Charmaine: “I asked my friends what the scans would be like. They said it was going to be a special, magical moment because you would be able to see all the baby’s organs and details including the 10 fingers. I was looking forward to it very much.”

When the time came, though, the scans revealed that their baby had a heart condition. Apart from a hole in her heart, she had pulmonary atresia. Her pulmonary valve, located between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery, did not form. So blood could not be pumped from her heart to her lungs to get oxygen to the body.

Explained Ps Jacob: “She would not be able to live. She would be a blue baby because she would not be able to breathe on her own at birth.

“They couldn’t explain why her heart had the condition. It was a rare thing.”

The hope was that, after she was born and had grown to 2.5kg, she could undergo surgery to correct the non-functioning valve. The same surgery would be repeated when she became a toddler and then every 10 years.

A chance to live  

Ps Jacob’s heart broke for his daughter.

“One thought I had was: It’s so tiring and painful and stressful for her. She has to keep going through the cycle (of surgery) again and again. And every time they do it, it’s open-heart surgery. How much pain does this child have to go through?”

Charmaine just “went blank”.

“Then I cried all the way. I was overwhelmed. I thought: If she is a gift that we have been praying and longing for, then what is going on?”

But she never questioned God. At her home church, Church of the Good Shepherd, she had had a youth pastor who had been her mentor. He had a daughter with Down Syndrome to whom Charmaine was a godmother.

“When the pastor’s wife was pregnant and we got to know that the child had Down Syndrome, I had gone through a season of wrestling with God, ‘Why so difficult? Why so unfair?’

“I told God after that, ‘If I ever have a child with special needs, I will keep my child. I know You will see my child through.’”

Ps Jacob had his own struggles.

“I asked, ‘Why like that?’ Of course, there was no answer.

“But I asked myself: With this condition, would I value her any less? No, because she is my daughter. She is a gift from God. It’s a life that is worth to be valued. I would keep her regardless of how difficult it would be.

“We did think: With so many surgical procedures, what quality of life would she have? But if we aborted her, she wouldn’t have a chance to even begin life. So we said, ’Let’s give her that chance.’”

Added Charmaine: “There was also the hope that what if God heals her miraculously in the womb? What if medical science becomes so advanced she needs only one surgery? We really wanted to give her a chance to fight and live.

“There was also this sense that it is not for us to take her life. If God allows her to live, for however long, that is His call. We will be stewards of her life for however long it is.”  

Which was why although they were offered the possibility of terminating the pregnancy, there was never a doubt that the Lims would keep the baby.

It was round about then that they settled on her name – Eliza, which means “consecrated to God”.

Said Charmaine: “All these things about her condition, very cheem (difficult to understand).

“But when the doctor gave us the option to terminate, at that moment, God confirmed to me that she has been pledged to Him. He would be the one to decide what’s next for her, not me because she was consecrated to God.”

They settled on Chen Xi for her Chinese name, which means “hope in the morning”.

Added Charmaine: “We wanted her to have hope every day because we know life would not be easy for her.”

The painful wait

After that, the pregnancy “felt very normal”. Eliza was an active baby who could respond to their voices and to play.

“When you call her by name, she will respond. If you tickle her, she will move. When we watched TV, we could feel her kicking,” said Charmaine.

But at 27 weeks during a routine checkup, Charmaine’s blood pressure was so high that the doctor had her admitted to the hospital for observation.

“They did a series of tests. Every test, they would find something amiss, not enough ions, not enough potassium.

“The drip for the potassium hurt. There was a burning sensation down the whole length of the vein. The drip was for hours and I had to go through it for a few days.

“A question I repeatedly asked God was, ‘Why must healing and treatment be so painful? If it is supposed to be healing, why is it so painful?’”

Charmaine had the old hymn “It is Well with My Soul” and the song “In Christ Alone” “on a loop to keep me going”.

But at Week 31, the doctor told them that Eliza had to be delivered. She had stopped growing.

Three days after Christmas, Charmaine went for a C-section. Just before she was wheeled in, she picked a middle name for Eliza – Althea. The name means “healing” or “wholesome” and represented her hope for her baby.

The first healing

Ps Jacob had to wait outside the operating theatre during the surgery. But as he did, he had “a moment that was bit magical”.

“I heard a baby cry. I thought: Cannot be my baby because my baby is supposed to be a blue baby. She cannot breathe on her own so she cannot cry.”

Just then, he saw the medical team rushing a baby towards the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). As they passed him, he asked if it was his baby. It was.

Ps Jacob and Eliza.

“She was all pink and she was crying and crying very loudly. I called out to her, ‘Eliza.’ She stopped crying and stared at me.”

That, to Ps Jacob, was the first sign of healing. In that moment, he decided that Althea would indeed be his daughter’s middle name.

Read Part 2 of Eliza’s story here.

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