Wow its been a minute

And man I wish I could be writing in this today saying that life has been nothing but rainbows and butterflies since I last wrote in this 6 years ago…. but that wouldnt be 100% correct.

So where do I start? Well my beautiful son Nikau is now 7 years old and around the time of him turning 5 well his health hit an all time low. Positive, is we finally worked out why he had hit close to 30 hospitalizations by this point. Negative, is well it cant be fixed, managed yes, but again with alot of trial and error medication some of which is not covered financially so moneys tight for this single mama, the medications makes nikau more tired, less active and around the same time as he was mentally excited to be starting school, making new friends he was physically at his weakest and issued a wheel chair. I was guttered and fought with the hospital saying he didnt need it. Turns out I was wrong, at the time he did need it, I just wasnt ready to accept that my love for this human couldnt make him any better. But i dug deep, put on my smile and pushed through the many many hospital clinics, CT, MRI scans and bloods test to be both the best mum and fierce protector of him I can be. And man its a journey, some days im good, at peace with knowing this mama journey will have its extra challenges and well other days I go into a selfish place in my heart where Im angry at the world for not blessing me with a healthy son, with a happpier first mama experience and always questioning myself on whether i made him sick, whether i could have prevented his condition. Years later his pediatricians have shown me untold evidence that his condition is not genetic or could have been prevented but despite the evidence i still feel responsible. A main agenda on my personal shitty committee that keeps me up from like 4am most mornings. This committtee topic is usually the second place contender to the same first place agenda since late 2017… one that i have never said aloud that i am petrified to put down on paper because even thinking about it makes me cry and sick to my stomach.

That is that, I left my unborn child in Madrid! What evil person does that? me! The women writing this, the one that found herself pregnant after believing she had miscarried, went back to her job in a Muslim country where I couldnt be pregnant without being married. So yeah when I realised i still had pregnancy symptoms I used a work trip to Madrid to see a womens clinic and after an internal assessment she tells me in broken English, that there were 2 sacks, 1 baby good but small and well other… gone. (That was the “bleeding” I had experienced back in NZ!).

It was a surreal feeling, mixed with happiness I was to be a mama along with immense saddness that I had been with twins yet one didnt survive! I cried, a real ugly, whaling cry a sound I never knew I could make and a sound I never hope I make again. It scared me, I felt broken! But what followed next is the making of my nightmares, where the female Dr removed the sack and after what seemed like an eternity comes back to me with a paper bag asking if i wanted to take it with me. I sat there crying… knowing as much as everything in my being wanted to take this part of me home to NZ to bury in our beautiful whenua, I was around 20,000kms from NZ, from my place of safety, from the place I was able to be pregnant without being married, where I could have this bag, my other baby (Kauri- is what i refer in my heart to him as), without the judgement, or without risking being arrested. But the reality was… I was in Spain for a few more days then flying back to the country where i would be arrested if I carried this bag and then bring danger to the baby i had inside me. So I took the only option I had which was to leave that clinic with him there…

It was during these days I was thankful I could disassociate from the world, i didnt know a soul in Madrid and I had a room to myself where i stayed for days and screamed and cried into my pillow to muffle the sound, hide the heart break and then leave Madrid to focus on being the best mum I could to the baby I could take home with me, inside of me!

So whilst I still wake with the shitty committee reminded me of his loss and leaving him I use that to fuel my strength each morning to remind myself of the deal i made with myself, all those years ago in Madrid that I will put all my effort into being the best mama to the miracle I had left- my son Nikau. Its what i go to, when things are hard… gratitude for him, im forced to change my perspective to get through the hard times and its the core of why I firecely protect Nikau.

So yeah… thats enough vulnerability or agenda reading of my shitty committee. Those two items are big, sad, very loud at times and ones that I know I will need to challenge and silence probably all my life. But Im hoping in sharing them today as I write this through the tears… my pain will be less, next time I proof this, then less again when I re-read over. And less again if anyone else reads this and asks me questions or comments on these points. This identifying of my shitty committees 4am main points is me being intentional about being vulnerable, admitting my sadest moments, acknowledging the pain, practising my own exposure therapy and ideally help silence my committee of atleast these two points in years to come!

Well thats the hope anyway!

Much aroha always, whoever reads this… Bee x