There are children whose lives begin with challenges so immense that the very act of taking their first breath feels like a miracle. There are families whose love is tested not once, but again and again, by battles they never imagined facing. And there are stories—like that of little Saabirah Antullay—that remind us how much strength can exist in a body so small, and how deeply a family can love even while standing in the heart of a storm.
Saabirah’s story began long before she opened her eyes to the world. During pregnancy, doctors discovered a severe congenital heart defect—Tetralogy of Fallot. The condition was complex and dangerous, involving multiple structural abnormalities within her tiny heart. The recommendation from physicians was devastating: termination. It was the clinical option, the medical conclusion, and yet it was something her parents could not bear to accept.
Instead, they chose life.
They chose faith.
They chose their daughter, even knowing that her path would not be easy.
From that moment on, their journey became one of fierce love and unyielding determination. Each prenatal appointment was cloaked in uncertainty. Every scan carried both relief and fear. Still, her parents believed that if their child was fighting to stay alive inside the womb, they would fight alongside her.
On 2 July 2023, their little warrior arrived—premature and vulnerable, born at just 33 weeks. She was tiny, fragile, and yet so full of presence. The world around her seemed far too harsh for a baby her size, but from the very beginning, she proved she was stronger than she looked.
The first major battle of her life came swiftly. In August 2024, she underwent open-heart surgery—an operation that stretched long into the day and tested the limits of a family’s endurance. Her parents waited through each hour, suspended between fear and hope, clinging to the belief that she would survive.
And she did.
Not only did she survive, but she recovered with a resilience that surprised even her medical team. Slowly, she began reaching the milestones everyone had prayed for. She laughed, played, learned, and grew. Her family’s world brightened, filled with sounds and smiles they feared they might never hear.
For a while, it seemed like the hardest days were behind them.
But life had one more cruel twist waiting—one that would shake their world once again.
It began with something so small it almost went unnoticed: a bump on her spine. It was dismissed at first—children fall, children bruise, children develop harmless swellings that fade over time. And for a while, her parents let themselves believe that it was nothing serious.
But then her health changed.
She grew weaker. Her body, once so full of light, seemed to lose its spark. Her energy dropped. Something deeper was wrong, something hidden beneath the surface, and the quiet unease in her parents’ hearts grew steadily into fear.
In April 2025, the truth came.
Another diagnosis.
Another life-altering moment.
Stage 4 germ cell cancer.
A rare, aggressive tumor that had spread from her spine to her lungs. A diagnosis that left her family stunned, breathless, and searching for answers to questions no one wants to ask.
The news hit them like a wave—one they had no time to brace for. They had barely healed from her heart surgery, barely settled into a sense of normalcy, and now they were being thrust into an entirely new world of oncology wards, treatment plans, and terrifying prognoses.
Even so, their little girl did what she had always done.
She fought.
At just over a year old, she began intensive treatment at Red Cross Children’s Hospital. The hallways became familiar, the rhythm of machines became routine, and the world outside seemed to fade as her family focused on the battle unfolding inside her small body. Her parents stood beside her through every scan, every needle, every moment of uncertainty.
They learned the language of cancer:
staging, metastasis, chemotherapy cycles, tumor markers.
Words no parent should ever have to understand.
Words that shaped every hour of their days.
Through it all, they saw the strength that had carried her from the very beginning. Despite her fragile frame, despite the odds stacked sharply against her, she remained their bright, brave little girl. She still smiled. She still reached for familiar hands. She still looked at the world with a softness that broke their hearts and healed them in equal measure.
At home, her father bore the weight of supporting their family. As an e-hailing driver, he worked long hours, often leaving early and returning late, battling exhaustion so he could keep moving forward. That work was not just a job now—it was an anchor holding their lives together. He balanced the responsibility of providing for his wife and three children with the equally heavy responsibility of being present at the hospital whenever he could, travelling back and forth between work and the treatment center, torn between roles that demanded everything from him.
The emotional strain was constant.
The physical strain was exhausting.
The financial strain added its own silent pressure.
Yet—despite every hardship—they held on to hope.
They found strength in small victories: a day when she ate a little more, a moment when she reached for a toy again, a night when the monitors stayed calm. They celebrated the gentle rise and fall of her breathing when she slept peacefully, knowing these moments were fragile gifts.
The cancer had changed everything—daily routines, future plans, the structure of their family’s life. But it had not changed the love that surrounded baby Saabirah, nor the determination of her parents to walk beside her through whatever came next.
Her mother carried an emotional weight that cannot be put into words. She held both fear and love in her arms every time she picked her baby up. She knew how precious each day was, how uncertain tomorrow might be, and yet she remained steady. A mother’s heart is extraordinary—capable of breaking and beating at the same time—and hers did both.
Her father, though exhausted, pushed forward for all of them. He gave everything he had—time, energy, comfort—to make sure his family could keep going. Every kilometer he drove, every night he stayed awake thinking about the future, was a testament to the quiet sacrifices he never spoke about.
Together, they carried the weight of uncertainty, sharing whispered conversations late at night, grounding each other in moments when fear threatened to swallow them whole. Their home was filled with the sounds of their other children, laughter mixed with worry, playfulness woven with unspoken questions. The entire family stood inside the storm, bound together by love.
And through every moment—every appointment, every night in the hospital, every difficult day—Saabirah remained the heart of their fight.
A little girl with a history of defying expectations.
A child who had survived what she was never meant to survive.
A baby whose story was marked not only by suffering but by astonishing resilience.
Her life had been shaped by struggle, but it had also been filled with light—her smile, her spirit, her small victories radiating hope even when everything felt impossible.
Now, as her treatment continues, her family remains by her side, holding her hands, whispering gentle encouragement, remembering all the moments that brought them here. They carry love into every hospital room, into every consultation, into every hour that unfolds with uncertainty.
Their journey is long and heavy, but they continue because she continues.
Because even in the face of rare heart defects, premature birth, and now stage 4 cancer, baby Saabirah has shown what it means to fight with a courage far beyond her size.
Her story is one of heartbreak and hope intertwined.
Of suffering met with love.
Of fear tempered by unwavering devotion.
Of a little girl who has endured more in a year than many do in a lifetime.
And of a family who holds on—every day, every moment—believing that somewhere beyond the struggle, their daughter will one day feel sunlight on her skin without pain, breathe without fear, and live the childhood she deserves.
