Norfasarie Mohd Yahya

Mommy, don’t cry. Just love me.

Maybe I can tell you how I met Moza... When I went for the scan with my husband we were approached by the sonographer, it was a Caucasian lady. She kept turning and poking my tummy to wake the baby up. I asked her, “Is there something wrong?” She was very focused and didn’t reply then. She told me, “This is her heart, her liver, her head, her toes, her left arm and left forearm and the five fingers.. This is her right arm. But, her right forearm I really can’t see it.”

She got a second opinion from another sonographer. It happened very fast and I kept telling my husband, “She has no right hands.” I was already crying and he got the professor to come down to diagnose the baby. He told me to go to my gynecologist. We came down to see my gynae and she then officially broke the news to me. She told me, “Everything else is fine, but she has a missing right arm. You know what? You can abort this pregnancy if you want, but I can only give you a week to decide. Anything more it will be illegal to abort in Singapore.”

I had so many things going through my mind then. “How would she cope?” We had no family members who are handicapped, disabled or autistic. We questioned ourselves on where we went wrong. We felt like we didn’t deserve it then. My gynae then told me, “This baby chose you to be her parent because she knows you are capable of taking care of her. You are very lucky.” Although we embraced different religions, what she said impacted me a lot and made me think very hard. What she said was right.

I started asking questions, “Will she be in a normal school?” She told me that Moza was normal and everything about her was perfect, just that she has no right arm. This was later diagnosed as the Amniotic Band Syndrome. This band had caused the separation and stopped the growth of Moza’s right hand resulting in a stump.

We are both public figures, we had the perfect family, perfect wedding. How could this happen to us? We were given a week to think about the abortion. After a week, we decided to go on with the pregnancy. My parents and in laws still felt that there was chance that the right hand could be hidden and not seen. They told me to keep on praying. When I knew about her, I told my husband, “You know what? She’s not going to have a hand, what’s there for me to show. (I was still dressed very sexily then) Maybe it’s a wake up reminder for us. Perhaps He is giving us a sign that we have perhaps gone astray.”

I wore the hijab subsequently and submitted myself to Him. I performed the pilgrimage soon after coming to terms with it. When I was in Mecca, I kept rubbing my tummy. Back then, I still prayed that He would give her a hand. I asked for nothing else but just her hand. I was about to reach the Ka’abah, my father was on my left and my mother in law was on my right. Suddenly a girl (about 5 years old) in jilbab, came over to us. As she was approaching us, I turned to my dad and asked,“ Do you have small change?”

Right back when I turned to her, I saw the girl extending her hands. She was without her right hand, just exactly like what my gynae and sonographers had described. Her right hand was below the stump, as she asked for money from the pilgrims. I broke out crying so badly. He answered my prayers, heard my pleas and showed me how my child would look like. It was something so divine.

After I came back from my pilgrimage, I felt a sense of redha (submission). If God’s giving me this, I will accept this. I no longer prayed for her hands to grow anymore. I told Allah to make her the most beautiful that He could make her. I will accept her the way she is.

After that, whenever I went for subsequent scans, I no longer cry. But sometimes when I do, my gynae will tell me not cry, and speak for Moza, “Mommy, don’t cry. Just love me”.

It came the time when Moza was due. The minute I pushed her out, my husband told me that the hand was really not there. Everyone was crying but I toughed out through the whole process.

It was at night when everyone left. I was trying to breastfeed her, but her right stump pushed it away. I was very surprised! I was super shocked and thought, “Her right hand was so strong!”

I broke down and cried, maybe because I had put up a brave front for a very long time. My husband told me that that was the last time I should cry in front of Moza.

People are judgmental and quick to judge us on why we received such children. But I will raise her as a confident child. I let her wear short sleeves and I won’t let her hide her hand. That is who she is! She changed us a lot. She makes us look at things at different perspective. She makes us become a less judgmental person.

We look at people in a different way now. Moza is Baihakki’s strength. That’s his inner strength. Moza has to do things with double the effort. She even plays the piano and does ballet. For us, Moza is the rainbow of our family. She’s always happy! During field trips, some other kids touched her hand. Since young, we’ve taught her on how to reply when people ask her where’s her hand.

At 5 years old, Moza knows a lot of things. There was once when Mika asked me “Will Moza’s hand be forever like that?” I said yes to Mika. Moza appears to overhear the conversation between Mika and me but kept quiet because she later asked me, “Will my hand be forever like that?” It was clear that she overheard me. I remember there was once she was 3 years old, and she saw other kids clapping their hands, and wondered why she couldn’t clap her hands as hard as them. At first it was hard, when kids don’t understand and tell their parents, “Mommy, that girl has no hand.” At first, I was sensitive but after some time, I grew accustomed to the questions and the stares. Sometimes I feel like approaching the parents to educate them instead of asking their child to not acknowledge it.

I wish for people to treat her normally. She is capable of doing things just like other normal girls. Do not stop them from being the best. She will surprise you in many ways. I would like to thank my husband and my family. I would not have done through this without their constant support.

Moza is the best of me and she will always be our rainbow.
Norfasarie Mohd Yahya