Xi En.

” Do you… worry about your child?” I asked in slight trepidation. She was very open about her situation, but still, I decided to tread carefully.

“Yes, sometimes. But I tell myself every single day is a miracle. God’s mercies are new every day!”

When she said that, I simply looked at her in amazement. The membranes in her womb had ruptured prematurely at 21 weeks (just mid-point of the full-term pregnancy of 40 weeks), and her baby was very possibly in great danger. She had an amniotic fluid index of less than 1, when the normal levels should be between 6 and 11. She had been seen by numerous doctors, and all but one gave her hope of her unborn child surviving. They had told her that her chances of getting past 24 weeks were slim and she ought to be mentally prepared for the worst, but here she was, still happy, smiling and going strong at 27 weeks. She was radiant, glowing with joy and had one hand on her tummy. The neonatology team had just seen her, to counsel her and her husband of the possibilities of having a child with severe abnormalities such as growth restriction, musculo-nervous problems, lung problems or cerebral palsy, what you may call in layman’s terms a spastic child.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Yes, at times… But who but God knows the outcome of my child? He still has a chance- Dr W said so.”

In light of the gloom and doom of the situation, her words almost seemed foolish, naive, even. But weren’t her words true? And who are we to deprive an unborn child a fighting chance at life?
Her positivity and radiance was sincere, with no sense of hypocrisy or putting on a front. “I’m going to name him Xi En.”

Xi En. It means “hope” and “grace” in mandarin.

Later on, as we chatted more and became more comfortable, I broached the question, “And did any of the doctors ever mention to you the possibility of… terminating the pregnancy?”

She laughed. “Oh yes, one doctor did, and I think my reply shocked her. Why would I even consider that? This is my child- my husband and I planned for him, he was a planned pregnancy. He has a heart which is beating inside me now, he is a life- how can I even think of terminating a life?”

He was a Planned pregnancy. Those two words shall never hold the same meaning for me again. I always thought babies were made quite easily-you get married, you do happy things and wala, you get a baby, easy-peasy right? I am learning, it is not quite so. Family planning is exactly what it is-it takes time, effort, consideration, and a lot of prayer and hope. And when those hopes are threatened, it can be very difficult to accept.

Little did I know that while she had been warded in that room for months, clinging onto every morsel of hope for her dear child, with more and more hope each day as her chances of delivering her baby rose, just upstairs was a ward full of patients, admitted for planned abortions. Amidst them, lay a twenty year-old girl who had met a “bad man”, now jailed for having sex with his ex-girlfriend, a minor. In the next room, lay another lady younger than me who had a two year-old child and who wanted an abortion because “my husband and I are not ready for more kids at this point. We’re unprepared. This is not planned.”

Perhaps it was the contrast of it all which startled me. One floor below lay Mdm H who would do anything for her child to see the world, for her Planned pregnancy to work out. One floor above her lay Mdm A who wanted out because her situation was not Planned.

And I wanted to cry when I read Mdm A’s medical notes, for I found copies of her ultrasound scans which showed not one, but two signs of life within her. She was aborting twins.

Downstairs, lay Mdm H, desperately holding onto the dear life of her unborn child, even though there was a chance of him being abnormal or sick, simply because she believed in the sanctity of life and God’s gift to her. I thought about the discussions she and her husband might have had, the months of them planning and trying to conceive, the joy of knowing she was pregnant and now… this. And upstairs, lay Mdm A, wanting to abort her twin babies because “they just weren’t prepared”.

Oh the craziness of this world.

It reminded me, that for all our dreams and plans, there is only so little within our control. Yet, hope is always available and in times of trial, it is our umbilical cord to God, a symbol of trust of His Best Plan, even though we might not know what it may be. Mdm H was willing to accept the outcome of her baby, whatever it was, because she knew it was right to put her hope in God.

On the other hand, when we try to control too much of our lives according to our own plans, disasters can happen- we terminate our lifelines to God, we abort our hopes in Him. Mdm A’s eyes were filled with grief, her face blank with despair. Somehow, something deep inside turned restlessly, refusing to give her peace.

I was reminded, that for all our plans in life, we ultimately have to surrender to the Plans of God. A lot of times I worry about the future, about medical missions, purpose, life partner etc-but I am learning, that instead of simply erasing these concerns from our minds (which is hardly possible anyway) or giving up on those dreams, there is place for holding on to them and hoping for the best. There is place to hope for God’s plans to unfold His way and in His time.

Hope, because it gives us life; hope, because it produces faith and because God’s grace often surprises us in ways unimaginable, if we are patient enough to wait; and hope, because, as Mdm H says, every dream deserves a fighting chance.

Xi En. Hope and grace. In times of darkness, there is always room for hope.

But if we hope for that we see not,