The baby I carried for ten months stopped breathing less than a month after birth. I never knew joy and sorrow could stand so close together. Born with pulmonary artery atresia and a ventricular septal defect, my son Gyeongtae seemed unusually unwell through the night. When we brought him to a nearby hospital, the medical staff quickly placed him in an ambulance.

 

Just as we arrived at the emergency department of Asan Medical Center, someone shouted, “The baby is not breathing.”

 

In that moment, my own breath became clumsy and uneven, as if I had forgotten how to breathe. This cannot be the end of our time together.

It was August 29, 2001.

 

 

A Question with No Answer

I did not even have the courage to consider giving up. The medical team approached us and said they would do everything possible, as far as medicine could go. With no choice but to let them take over, we entrusted our baby entirely to their hands.

 

After surviving a critical moment, Gyeongtae spent his first Chuseok, Christmas, and Lunar New Year in Asan Medical Center. For a mother who had watched her child stop breathing, even the smallest hospital room felt overwhelming with gratitude as long as he was beside me and breathing. Spring quietly came to us, and the decision for discharge was made. It would have been better if they had not added that he might not last another year.

 

“Gyeongtae, what are we going to do…” I whispered, wondering if he could understand me. In my arms, he responded with a gentle smile. I remembered the medical staff saying, “Gyeongtae turns pain into laughter.” Somehow, this small child seemed bigger and braver than I was.

 

Afterward, he went through more hospitalizations and two surgeries, and he safely passed the year that had been predicted as uncertain. He did not need special treatment, but walking long distances or living an ordinary daily life was not easy for him. Until he finished high school, I accompanied him every day on his way to and from school.

 

On particularly difficult days, he would quietly ask, “Why am I the only one who hurts?” I had no answer to give him. I wanted to ask the same question to God every single day. Why my child had to endure such pain.

 

 

Through You, We Are Discovering a New World

Whenever we found the smallest chance, our family went on trips. Even our relatives joined, taking turns carrying Gyeongtae on their backs. I still remember the ache in my heart when, during his time in the intensive care unit, his older sister mentioned her upcoming school trip to Lotte World.

Will my child leave this world without ever seeing Lotte World even once?

From that moment, I promised myself that once he left the hospital, I would show him the world, wherever and however we could.

 

Of course, traveling at his pace was not travel in the usual sense. But when I saw how he endured each day by imagining our next destination, I could not help but dream bigger. We promised to visit Spain together in the winter of 2024. We had no idea what the future held.

 

Starting in the fall of 2023, his oxygen saturation began to drop sharply and he suffered two strokes. Each time, he miraculously came back to me. Professor Jee Hwan Ahn at the Intensive Care Unit told us that with no further treatment options available, it was Gyeongtae’s sheer will to live that brought him back.

 

In January of the following year, he needed hernia surgery. Because of his weak heart, the anesthesia posed significant risks. When he did not wake easily after the operation, I found myself pouring out a kind of blame, both to God and to the medical staff. If this was to be his final moment, why could he not have been taken without suffering?

 

But again, Gyeongtae awakened the next day.

 

“Mom, yesterday was so hard I thought I was going to God. But I still want more time with you and Dad.”

 

I felt my heart settle back into place. And once again, Gyeongtae welcomed a new day.

 

 

A Long Question, A Deep Greeting

In October of last year, Gyeongtae once again stood at the threshold between life and death. Professor Jeong Jin Yu from the Division of Pediatric Cardiology at Asan Medical Center suggested a final option: transplanting his heart and lungs.

 

“Is that even possible?” I asked.

 

Gyeongtae had been born with a blocked pulmonary artery, and small collateral vessels branching from his heart had been supplying his lungs. A transplantation would require cutting all of those vessels and connecting an artificial conduit, a procedure far more dangerous than usual with outcomes that remained uncertain. For years, we had been told that transplantation was impossible, just as even the best chef cannot succeed if the ingredients are too poor.

 

Even so, we continued to believe that someday Asan Medical Center would find an answer. For more than twenty years, our trust in the medical team had grown steadily. I had seen how they rejoiced more than anyone when a child recovered and left Asan Medical Center, and how they suffered more than anyone when a child was in pain. I knew they never stopped caring even when they were not standing directly at my child’s bedside.

 

Professor Jeong Jin Yu sat down with Gyeongtae, now a grown adult, and explained the transplantation himself. Without a moment of hesitation, Gyeongtae replied:

 

“I want to do it.”

 

Waiting for the opportunity to receive both a heart and lungs could itself become a long and arduous battle. All we could do was pray.

About a month later, around Christmas, a miracle arrived like an unexpected gift.

With steady determination, Gyeongtae headed to the operating room.

The tears I shed at that moment were purely from a deep sense of sorrow and gratitude toward the donor and their family.

 

The surgery lasted eleven and a half hours.

 

When I saw him afterward, even with countless lines attached to his body, he greeted me with a soft smile.

Professor Sehoon Choi from the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Asan Medical Center, who stopped by to check the results, also wore an unmistakably joyful expression. When I thanked him, he simply praised Gyeongtae for holding on so bravely.

 

The faces of the many medical professionals who had cared for him over the past twenty-four years flashed through my mind.

Retired professors, pediatric specialists who had since completed their training, newly acquainted adult care physicians, and countless nurses who had watched over him day after day.

If they hear that he has finally undergone the transplantation safely, will they smile the same way? Will they say, “Gyeongtae has finally done something extraordinary”?

 

My gratitude, though it could never reach them all, lingered on my lips.

 

 

Ordinary Days with Shadows and Smiles

After the transplantation, Gyeongtae began enjoying a lively daily life. He now goes to church by himself and rides his bicycle with enthusiasm. Sometimes I wonder how he can be so full of energy, yet when I met Professor Kyung-Wook Jo from Division of Pulmonology and Critical Care Medicine at Asan Medical Center, I could not hide my own excitement.

“Professor, Gyeongtae is doing so well after the surgery.”

“He must feel very satisfied, considering how difficult his condition was at birth,” the professor replied. “But compared to a healthy person, he will still have limitations.”

I often fool myself into thinking I know everything about my son. How fragile he truly is, and at the same time, how strong his will must be to remain here by my side. In the clinic, I am reminded of this again and again.

And into the quiet shadow sitting in one corner of my heart, Gyeongtae cast his warm smile once more.

“Mom, let us go to Spain this winter. The trip we could not take last year. I can go now.”

“Yes,” I answered, “I want to go too. With you.”