Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mer podcast.
Speaker 2: Muma Me acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters.
Speaker 3: This podcast is recorded on religion.
Speaker 2: We often talk about the role it plays in a
Speaker 2: relationship to people coming from different backgrounds with different beliefs,
Speaker 2: but when you find the right person, differences in those
Speaker 2: systems don't mean a thing if you know you want
Speaker 2: to be together.
Speaker 1: I'd been brought up in an Anglican church, which is
Speaker 1: pretty traditional, but I'd never really continued that after I
Speaker 1: was a child, whereas he was still entrenched in that
Speaker 1: the Pentecostal side of church. He didn't want to have
Speaker 1: sex before we were married, and I suppose I thought,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this guy, he has such good values.
Speaker 1: I was willing to put up with that little bit
Speaker 1: of torture for the sake of the relationship going forward.
Speaker 2: So when a relationship starts and progress with that being
Speaker 2: the only difference you'd never expected to be something else entirely,
Speaker 2: that blows up your marriage and ultimately your life.
Speaker 1: He jumped in the car, and I had my baby
Speaker 1: in the back, and he pulled out a light globe
Speaker 1: which bit of blue tack at the top, and the
Speaker 1: straw and he even said to me, here, try some
Speaker 1: you'll feel heaps better. That made me realize that I
Speaker 1: could not have him around my children because he was
Speaker 1: not a safe person. There was no way I was
Speaker 1: going to let my babies be exposed or even near
Speaker 1: him in this state.
Speaker 2: I'm Georgia Love and this is everyone has an eggs.
Speaker 2: Come with me as we dive into a collection of
Speaker 2: unconventional stories about relationships past through the eyes and the
Speaker 2: hearts of the very people who lived them. The year
Speaker 2: was two thousand and nine, and a newly single, twenty
Speaker 2: five year old Leah realized the hustle and noise of
Speaker 2: big city life no longer felt like home. With a
Speaker 2: new job waiting in her heart. Set on a fresh start,
Speaker 2: she packed her bags and headed for a quite a
Speaker 2: corner of the country.
Speaker 1: I was really keen to move somewhere new, where there
Speaker 1: was a whole new pool of people that I could
Speaker 1: actually meet somebody, and I suppose down the track settled down.
Speaker 1: I wasn't really ready for children and marriage straight away,
Speaker 1: but I was very keen to get out there and
Speaker 1: start dating somebody on a regular basis. I moved into
Speaker 1: a house with some flatmates, so I could get out
Speaker 1: and meet more people, as I hadn't known anybody in town,
Speaker 1: and I had some really awesome flatmates I dated when
Speaker 1: I first moved here with a couple of guys, but
Speaker 1: nothing ever really evolved to anything more serious, and I
Speaker 1: got a bit frustrated and I was ready to move away.
Speaker 1: But just before I made that decision, I ended up
Speaker 1: meeting Kyle, and yeah, everything sort of changed from there.
Speaker 1: He had a cousin that was a friend with my
Speaker 1: flat mate, so that's how she met him, because she
Speaker 1: didn't know anybody in the town either. So the cousin said,
Speaker 1: how about you go out and catch up with these guys.
Speaker 1: They're about your age, they know all the people in town. Yeah,
Speaker 1: go out and meet some new people. So I'd moved
Speaker 1: out of the house into an unit closer to work,
Speaker 1: and they came and met up with my flatmate and myself.
Speaker 1: Him and his brother were there, and they were both lovely.
Speaker 1: His brother had a girlfriend, but Kyle was on his
Speaker 1: own and he came across to me at start really shy,
Speaker 1: but as the night progressed, like we got chatting, and
Speaker 1: of course the drinks were flowing, and as we went
Speaker 1: we got quite close. And you know, while I was
Speaker 1: out that night, there was actually a guy that I'd
Speaker 1: previously dated that saw me, and I just grabbed Kyle
Speaker 1: and hugged into him and just said, look, just go
Speaker 1: with this for the moment, to try and make this
Speaker 1: other guy jealous. And from there, I think that really
Speaker 1: helped speed things along. We ended up going back from
Speaker 1: the clubs and there was a whole heap of people
Speaker 1: staying at my house, so there was a lack of beds.
Speaker 1: There was a couch here and there, but he really
Speaker 1: wanted to come and crash in my bed with me.
Speaker 1: I was a bit like, oh, this is a bit weird,
Speaker 1: but I said, okay, if you leave the door open,
Speaker 1: that's fine. And that's where we had our first kiss.
Speaker 1: We were just probably lying there awkwardly for a while,
Speaker 1: and then yeah, things evolved and we had our first kiss.
Speaker 1: And I kept saying to him, We've got to be
Speaker 1: very quiet because everybody's sleeping right next door. And maybe
Speaker 1: he thought from that that I was a girl with
Speaker 1: some good morals and that probably didn't hurt.
Speaker 2: It didn't take long for them to officially start dating,
Speaker 2: and for Leah, things were looking up.
Speaker 1: Literally our first date ended up being a rock climbing session,
Speaker 1: so we ended up ab sailing off a cliff face.
Speaker 1: So that showed me the saut of guy. He was
Speaker 1: very outdoorsy, very into rock climbing and all that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. So and of course I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: going to do this. It's not going to be a drama,
Speaker 1: and off we went. Me and my flatmate went as well,
Speaker 1: and we had to go at ab sailing and doing
Speaker 1: some rock climbing. It showed me he's willing to teach,
Speaker 1: and he was a really good teacher. He was really
Speaker 1: good at showing us how to use all the equipment,
Speaker 1: really patient, he yeah, just showed a great love for
Speaker 1: what he was doing as well then was really passionate
Speaker 1: about it. So I thought he was so hot. I
Speaker 1: really I was excited that, you know, somebody that hot
Speaker 1: actually was into me. I suppose I've never had a
Speaker 1: guy like that into me, so that was a bit unusual.
Speaker 1: I suppose I'm not a super confident people when it
Speaker 1: is going out there and asking somebody out, so I've
Speaker 1: always sort of taken a backstep to that. And yeah,
Speaker 1: just I suppose he was hot and he was lovely
Speaker 1: and I saw all these wonderful things that you know,
Speaker 1: he did. I knew he was somebody who had certain values.
Speaker 1: He was brought up Christian, and he had certain things
Speaker 1: that he had discus with me previously. So one of
Speaker 1: the big things was that he didn't want to have
Speaker 1: sex before we were married. And that was a big
Speaker 1: shock to me because previously that has never been an issue.
Speaker 1: And I suppose I thought, oh my gosh, this guy,
Speaker 1: he has such good values. I was willing to put
Speaker 1: up with that little bit of torture for the sake
Speaker 1: of the relationship going forward and move forward.
Speaker 3: It did.
Speaker 1: He wasn't great at talking about feelings like many men,
Speaker 1: so I wasn't expecting anything too exciting and too major
Speaker 1: straight away. So we were just dating for a little while.
Speaker 1: And then at one point, I remember it was probably
Speaker 1: about two months into the relationship, and we'd just been
Speaker 1: to a wedding together one of his friends had gotten married,
Speaker 1: and he'd taken me along, and I remember lying there
Speaker 1: at night thinking gosh, like this is it. And I
Speaker 1: remember telling my flatmate as well previously that I think
Speaker 1: this is the dude, this is the one for me,
Speaker 1: because yeah, everything has been going so well, we've had
Speaker 1: amazing dates. We've been out kayaking and ab sailing and
Speaker 1: bushwalking and camping and doing all these amazing things. And
Speaker 1: that night after the wedding, I probably was a little
Speaker 1: bit drunk, actually, and I tried to start having the
Speaker 1: conversation and then I ended up in tears saying I
Speaker 1: love you, and I remember him saying back to me,
Speaker 1: of course I love you.
Speaker 3: So that was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a different way of doing it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he'd obviously felt the same way, but it was a
Speaker 1: matter of getting to that same point. Was a bit interesting.
Speaker 2: A year into their relationship, during a camping weekend, surrounded
Speaker 2: by the beauty of the great outdoors, Cale took the
Speaker 2: next step and popped the question.
Speaker 1: Somebody that comes from that sort of background, that is
Speaker 1: the next step. It's to get married. Yeah, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't very long. Everybody was super supportive. My mum and
Speaker 1: dad absolutely loved him. They got along really really well.
Speaker 1: I go along well with his family and his brother
Speaker 1: and his partner, so everybody was supportive. Everybody said, look,
Speaker 1: you guys have made for each other, like everything was
Speaker 1: going so well. There was no hesitation whatsoever. I was
Speaker 1: super stoked to be getting married and settling down. He
Speaker 1: gave me a ring that didn't have any stone in it.
Speaker 1: It was a platinum ring and he wanted me to
Speaker 1: come up with a design for the engagement ring, which
Speaker 1: I thought was the most amazing thing ever.
Speaker 2: There was no point beating around the bush part in
Speaker 2: the pun. Just eight months later, the wedding day was here.
Speaker 1: We had about one hundred and fifty people, their friends
Speaker 1: and family, plus his church community so they came to
Speaker 1: just watch the ceremony and it was just incredible having
Speaker 1: people travel from all over Australia to come and watch it.
Speaker 1: He also had some family come from overseas, and it
Speaker 1: was just amazing how many friends he has, Like he
Speaker 1: had so many friends, he was so well respected that
Speaker 1: all these people were there to support us, and it
Speaker 1: was just an awesome wedding. It wasn't extravagant or expensive,
Speaker 1: but it was just everybody there that we loved together
Speaker 1: one spot. The whole day was just incredible and it
Speaker 1: was pretty much how I had visaged a wedding, and
Speaker 1: I even wore my mum's wedding dress that got altered
Speaker 1: and it was great. We had it in a big
Speaker 1: farmyard barn with a big fire. It was just, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was stunning. Everybody kept joking because my family and
Speaker 1: friends knew that we weren't having sex, and that that
Speaker 1: was something that I had been patiently waiting for for
Speaker 1: a long time. I knew there'd be no worries because
Speaker 1: pretty much everything had happened but that and yeah, so
Speaker 1: they kept joking, and of course I was super excited
Speaker 1: for the end of the night, so they'd go back
Speaker 1: and yeah, actually have some fun.
Speaker 2: But it didn't take long for the fun to turn
Speaker 2: to business, the business of baby making.
Speaker 1: We'd both spoken previously about how many kids we want,
Speaker 1: you know, what we want to see in the future,
Speaker 1: so we were both on the same page. He'd come
Speaker 1: from a family of two children and I had come
Speaker 1: from a family of two, so we were both pretty
Speaker 1: much on the same page. That was what we wanted,
Speaker 1: and yeah, we wanted to live in the country, out
Speaker 1: in the bush and raise our kids in nature. After
Speaker 1: we got married, we actually decided to book a trip
Speaker 1: to Kokoda and walk the Kokoda Track, and we did
Speaker 1: that with his family and one of my friends, and
Speaker 1: during that trip we decided that was it. We're going
Speaker 1: to stop using contraception that we were going to just
Speaker 1: see what happens. And not long after that trip, we'd
Speaker 1: bought a property outside of town on some acreage, so
Speaker 1: we had all this land and we had the bush
Speaker 1: that we wanted, and it wasn't long after that that
Speaker 1: we fell pregnant with our first child. I loved being pregnant.
Speaker 1: I wasn't too crook. I was very lucky. I loved
Speaker 1: the belly. He loved the belly. He thought a pregnant
Speaker 1: woman is the most beautiful thing in the world. So
Speaker 1: he was just overjoyed to be becoming a parent and
Speaker 1: that was a really nice time. He did work away
Speaker 1: a lot, so you know, I'd FaceTime him and send videos.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he was super excited, like everybody else was.
Speaker 1: This was the first grandchild on both sides of the family,
Speaker 1: and everybody was just super keen to meet this. Literally,
Speaker 1: we had a great relationship. Everything was going really smoothly.
Speaker 1: He was working a lot. He also started a side
Speaker 1: business with one of his hobbies, like doing survival things.
Speaker 1: He was into that, and he was really excited to
Speaker 1: be bringing a child into the world and just couldn't wait.
Speaker 1: And I was the same. It was really exciting, and
Speaker 1: I'd never been super maternal or super clucky, but this
Speaker 1: time I was ready. I think because I was thirty
Speaker 1: and I was ready, and about twelve hours of decent
Speaker 1: active labor, we had our first child. It was horrible,
Speaker 1: this little bean that came out and he had a
Speaker 1: massive spot on his cheek. It was a massive little
Speaker 1: mole on his cheek. But I didn't care. I thought
Speaker 1: that was he was the most beautiful thing ever. And
Speaker 1: Kyle was exactly the same. He was just besotted with him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we absolutely loved it. Having this newborn and taking him
Speaker 1: home was just like, Wow, we're allowed to take this
Speaker 1: child home. That's incredible. He was just loving giving him
Speaker 1: cuddles and being as involved as possible while he was
Speaker 1: home before he had to go away for work. I
Speaker 1: had my mom and my dad staying up there on
Speaker 1: the property as well, so we had that extra help.
Speaker 1: He wasn't the easiest baby in the world. Let's just
Speaker 1: say that he had a lot of issues happening, and
Speaker 1: as a first time mum, I didn't really understand. I
Speaker 1: suppose what wasn't normal and what was normal. We had
Speaker 1: a lot of issues with feeding. We thought it was
Speaker 1: reflux and all that sort of colic or whatever they
Speaker 1: call it. He did cry a lot. He wouldn't sleep much,
Speaker 1: he would cry all night, and we just thought that's
Speaker 1: part of the normal parenting journey. Everybody has these dramas.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of getting through and you know,
Speaker 1: putting up with this newborn time. We did struggle a
Speaker 1: lot with I suppose lack of sleep, and I got
Speaker 1: quite resentful and frustrated because I'd be doing all the
Speaker 1: feedings and the night stuff. Because I understood that he
Speaker 1: had to work a risky job, so I didn't want
Speaker 1: him to be tied off going to work. So a
Speaker 1: lot of the work did end up falling back on me.
Speaker 1: I had my mum there to support as well, but
Speaker 1: I was very reluctant to let her take the baby
Speaker 1: away to then feed him. You know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that I was there for everything. That first
Speaker 1: mum guilt, I think it's always ever present. As time
Speaker 1: went on and we found out that there was more
Speaker 1: issues and more issues evolving from this little bub that
Speaker 1: he wasn't developing as a normal baby would, that's when
Speaker 1: things started to get more and more difficult in the relationship.
Speaker 1: There's more stress and pressure put on everybody. He was
Speaker 1: the most gorgeous little baby, really happy, but you know,
Speaker 1: just would be crying and very hot. A lot a
Speaker 1: lot of work, We had a lot of appointments, and
Speaker 1: I suppose one of the big issues with having a
Speaker 1: child that isn't developing as a normal child is the denial.
Speaker 1: I think, especially from Kyle. He didn't believe that there
Speaker 1: was anything wrong. He would eventually get there, it might
Speaker 1: just be a bit slower. My mum used to work
Speaker 1: with a lot of people disabilities, and I knew lots
Speaker 1: of people with disabilities, so it wasn't strange to me,
Speaker 1: and I always thought, well, if I have a child
Speaker 1: like that, it's not going to be the end of
Speaker 1: the world. But I suppose Kyle came from a background
Speaker 1: where it was very much hasn't been exposed to that
Speaker 1: doesn't understand that world. So having that new child looking
Speaker 1: very differently to what he expected was probably something quite
Speaker 1: confronting and scary for him. He really struggled, I think,
Speaker 1: to accept that side of it. He absolutely loved him
Speaker 1: and absolutely it was an amazing father, but there was, yeah,
Speaker 1: that denial, and from his family as well. They were
Speaker 1: very much in the point of view that we could
Speaker 1: pray and that would help fix this child. You know
Speaker 1: that he was broken, and that the Lord would be
Speaker 1: able to help him talk or to help him walk
Speaker 1: or anything like that. This was very difficult to sort
Speaker 1: of reconcile that they didn't understand or they had that
Speaker 1: massive denial towards him. And I suppose I saw him
Speaker 1: as Yep, he has challenges, he has different things happening,
Speaker 1: but he's still him. He's our little man. He's an
Speaker 1: amazing little dude, and he brought joy to absolutely everybody
Speaker 1: he met. And I suppose I didn't see the need
Speaker 1: to fix him so much. I knew that we'd have
Speaker 1: to work on a lot of things and it'd be
Speaker 1: a tough journey, but he is who he is. And
Speaker 1: I suppose I had a lot more realistic views and
Speaker 1: that was very difficult. And as time progressed, Kyle really
Speaker 1: stepped back from that parenting journey because as he got older.
Speaker 1: I suppose usually dads find it easier as the kids
Speaker 1: get older, they can actually relate to their children, But
Speaker 1: this was the opposite. He found it harder and harder
Speaker 1: because the Bubba or now a toddler wouldn't do anything
Speaker 1: that he wanted to do. So Kyle wanted to be
Speaker 1: outdoors and making fires and playing with rocks, whereas our
Speaker 1: son he was just not interested in that whatsoever, and
Speaker 1: there was that lack of connection there.
Speaker 2: I think it was an incredibly tough time, but Lea
Speaker 2: and I had always been a rock solid unit. Despite
Speaker 2: the fact their belief systems were at longerheads at times,
Speaker 2: they'd always found a way to talk through their issues
Speaker 2: and work out what was best for their family.
Speaker 1: We would have arguments around beliefs, I suppose in terms
Speaker 1: of him and his family being very religious and very
Speaker 1: probably to more the right wing extreme side of it,
Speaker 1: whereas my family is more left and I was more
Speaker 1: open to you know, homosexuality and climate change, whereas they
Speaker 1: didn't agree with a lot of that stuff and were
Speaker 1: into conspiracy. So I suppose I really struggled with that
Speaker 1: side and with his support of his parents, and they
Speaker 1: always had those very strong views which I did struggle
Speaker 1: a fair bit to assimilate too. I also attended church
Speaker 1: and really tried to fit into that church community, but
Speaker 1: I suppose I always felt like a bit of a fraud,
Speaker 1: like I was there trying to believe it and trying
Speaker 1: to really accept it. But I suppose in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind I was always very down full around
Speaker 1: all of that. I've been brought up in an Anglican church,
Speaker 1: which is pretty traditional, but I'd never really continued that
Speaker 1: after I was a child, whereas he was still entrenched
Speaker 1: in that the Pentecostal side of church, so they were
Speaker 1: very involved in the church his family, and I suppose
Speaker 1: I accepted it because I understood where they were coming from.
Speaker 1: But I just sort of, yeah, I would just put
Speaker 1: up with it. I would push those feelings down and
Speaker 1: just be like, I'm not going to make waves. I'm
Speaker 1: not into confrontations, so you know, I'll go along with
Speaker 1: the with the conversations they're having, but I still have
Speaker 1: my own beliefs and values. So I suppose we did
Speaker 1: clash a lot on those certain things. It was often
Speaker 1: easier to put those conversations to the side rather than
Speaker 1: keep pushing them because other things in the relationship were great.
Speaker 1: We both had great jobs, we both had the same goals,
Speaker 1: we got along really well, all our friends were really great,
Speaker 1: so we really didn't have other big issues. And I
Speaker 1: understood that everybody has their issues in a relationship, you know,
Speaker 1: and there's often lots of times that people from different
Speaker 1: faiths or religions end up staying together and making it work.
Speaker 1: So I thought, well, maybe, you know, this is just
Speaker 1: one of those things that we have to have to
Speaker 1: work with. Another big issue in our parenting journey was
Speaker 1: the fact that I was very much the belief that
Speaker 1: vaccines have a place and that they are needed to
Speaker 1: assist with herd immunity, pretty much a science based approach,
Speaker 1: whereas Kyle was very much from that Pentecostal religious side,
Speaker 1: where a lot of them, not all, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them have that view of that vaccines mandated by
Speaker 1: government and that government can't be trusted, so a lot
Speaker 1: of those conspiracy theories and that vaccines are bad. So
Speaker 1: we had a lot of discussions around that, but at
Speaker 1: the time, Kyle trusted me to make those decisions, and
Speaker 1: I was quite happy that we'd had the discussions, and
Speaker 1: I knew where he sat, but he was always sort
Speaker 1: of willing to go with what I ultimately decided in
Speaker 1: terms of the parenting role. It was always a bit
Speaker 1: of a struggle, and it did create a lot of
Speaker 1: difficult discussions in the relationship around those different beliefs sort
Speaker 1: of impacting on big decisions in life, like schooling and
Speaker 1: medical decisions. There's a lot of things that you don't
Speaker 1: realize where you've really got to align, and they are
Speaker 1: massive life decisions. He made me feel that I was
Speaker 1: lucky that he was willing to let me make those decisions.
Speaker 1: We had the discussions, and he might not have been
Speaker 1: one hundred percent comfortable, but he wasn't as extreme as
Speaker 1: his parents, or he wasn't as extreme as other people
Speaker 1: at that point.
Speaker 2: So with his son's well being the ultimate priority, LEAD
Speaker 2: took charge.
Speaker 1: I just got on with parenting and just continued to
Speaker 1: do what I needed to do. I went to all
Speaker 1: the appointments, and I listened to the doctors. I did
Speaker 1: all the things. Whereas as Kyle would be more on
Speaker 1: the side of, oh no, he's going to walk, he's
Speaker 1: going to talk like that's not a problem, and he
Speaker 1: wasn't as involved in the appointments or all that side
Speaker 1: of things, and he did work a lot, so I
Speaker 1: wasn't putting pressure on him to attend everything. But everything
Speaker 1: fell to me, and ultimately, yeah, he pretty much stepped
Speaker 1: aside and just let me handle parenting and being a mum.
Speaker 1: This made a lot of resentment grow in the relationship.
Speaker 1: I got really sick and tired of doing the bulk
Speaker 1: of everything. So I'd be getting up in the morning
Speaker 1: after having minimal sleep, and then he would be sitting
Speaker 1: on the toilet like every man for about forty minutes,
Speaker 1: avoiding any responsibility until it was his time to go
Speaker 1: off to work. So I literally got no help in
Speaker 1: the morning. And I ended up going back to work
Speaker 1: after about ten months, and I was working about four
Speaker 1: days a week, and I really struggled. I was tired, exhausted.
Speaker 1: I had to drive about forty minutes in the country
Speaker 1: to get to where I was, so at some points
Speaker 1: I was super tired, Like I remember thinking this is
Speaker 1: bordering on dangerous in terms of driving. And then I
Speaker 1: pretty much had a bit of a breakdown. And after
Speaker 1: about eighteen months of looking after this Bubba, who absolutely adored,
Speaker 1: but I was diagnosed with post natal depression. Trying to
Speaker 1: fit everything in. After I got diagnosed and the doctors
Speaker 1: recommended that I go on antidepressants, that was a big issue.
Speaker 1: He didn't want me to go on antidepressants because that
Speaker 1: was something that, you know, I could just tough it out.
Speaker 1: It was something that you know, you just work through.
Speaker 1: You don't need that assistance. And he didn't agree with
Speaker 1: me going on antidepressants whatsoever. So I held off on
Speaker 1: doing that for a little while, probably a few weeks.
Speaker 1: But in the end I had very strong support from
Speaker 1: my mum, who has a mental health journey herself, and
Speaker 1: from friends, and they said, no, you've got to go
Speaker 1: onto these antidepressants just to get you through. I think
Speaker 1: that really put a lot of pressure on more in
Speaker 1: terms of creating that bigger wedge between us in terms
Speaker 1: of our medical views. That he didn't agree with it,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't going to stop me from doing what
Speaker 1: I had to do. From that point, everything sort of
Speaker 1: settled down a fair bit. I went back to work
Speaker 1: just three days a week, which was more achievable he
Speaker 1: was working away, and I managed to get our son
Speaker 1: into daycare, so that took the pressure off a lot,
Speaker 1: and everything sort of went back to normal for a
Speaker 1: fair while.
Speaker 2: And wild things were feeling normal again. There was no
Speaker 2: better time to go on a little getaway and spend
Speaker 2: some much needed quality time together alone.
Speaker 1: We were really lucky that Nana decided to take a
Speaker 1: little man for a few nights, and I was so excited.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is amazing. We're going to go
Speaker 1: and stay in an airbnb and a beautiful little country
Speaker 1: town and have some great adult time and just not
Speaker 1: have to deal with crying baby at night. So I
Speaker 1: was super excited. And on the trip to the airbnb,
Speaker 1: which was a few hours away, I had a headache.
Speaker 1: I don't drink enough water, so I just had a
Speaker 1: mic starting to get a migraine. So I thought I'll
Speaker 1: pop a couple of panadines. Because back in the day,
Speaker 1: that's when codine was not you didn't have to get
Speaker 1: it prescribed by the doctor, so everybody could get some panadine.
Speaker 1: And when I said, oh, look, I've just got to
Speaker 1: pop a couple of panadine because I've got a headache,
Speaker 1: Kyle said to me, oh, can you just chuck me
Speaker 1: one as well? And I said to him, I was
Speaker 1: just astounded because I was like, why, you don't have
Speaker 1: a headache and he was like, no, no, no, just
Speaker 1: give me one. It's fine, And so that really sent
Speaker 1: some alarm bells off. I was like, what is going on?
Speaker 1: And then we had a blown out argument on the
Speaker 1: way to this romantic getaway about the fact that he
Speaker 1: just does this every now and then because it makes
Speaker 1: him feel nice and gives him a slight buzz, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not going to be giving you panadine.
Speaker 1: This is a problem, Like this is not normal. And
Speaker 1: by the time we got to the accommodation things had
Speaker 1: settled down. We'd had a bit more of a chat
Speaker 1: about it, and he was like, look, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to keep doing this. Obviously you don't agree with it,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to stop that. And I was under
Speaker 1: the impression that he was going to stop it.
Speaker 2: Lea didn't love this at all, but she knew Kyle
Speaker 2: liked to have fun, and importantly, he knew how to
Speaker 2: control himself, so there wasn't anything to worry about.
Speaker 1: Kyle was always like to drink and he'd always finished
Speaker 1: the first two drinks very quickly. He was a regular drinker,
Speaker 1: and he'd just have a few after work generally, but
Speaker 1: as time went on that grew and grew to like
Speaker 1: sayb three to four to two a six pack, so
Speaker 1: then he could fall asleep at night, which was quite frustrating.
Speaker 1: But he also in his younger years had also dabbled
Speaker 1: with recreational drugs like speed, and that was just something
Speaker 1: that I knew was in his past. You know, lots
Speaker 1: of people do that. It's just something you do when
Speaker 1: you're a teenager and you're rebelling, as he would have
Speaker 1: in the household. In school that he went to, it
Speaker 1: was very strict religious, so that was not something that
Speaker 1: really concerned me. Yeah, So the drinking, as drinking is
Speaker 1: pretty socially accepted. He would drink a lot at parties too,
Speaker 1: but he would never really seem affected. He was really
Speaker 1: good at holding his drink. He would never get violent.
Speaker 1: He just had a great time. Those alarm bells around
Speaker 1: the fact that he was using codeine. I was just,
Speaker 1: I suppose in a way, I was super alarmed, But
Speaker 1: then I also just pushed it to the back of
Speaker 1: my mind, like we dealt with it at that time,
Speaker 1: and we didn't really need to keep bringing it up.
Speaker 1: He said he was going to fix the problem, so
Speaker 1: I had no reason not to believe it.
Speaker 2: After a brief escape from everyday life, reality came rushing back.
Speaker 2: Lea dived once again into the search for a clear
Speaker 2: diagnosis for their son, while Kyle's mind was occupied with
Speaker 2: something else.
Speaker 1: Altogether, we were struggling to get a diagnosis for him.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what was going on. None of the
Speaker 1: doctors were helpful. We were having troubles with seizures. He
Speaker 1: only walked when he was two, so we were struggling
Speaker 1: with getting him walking and moving around. He wasn't talking.
Speaker 1: So there was all this stuff going on that I
Speaker 1: was so invested in and concentrating on that I suppose
Speaker 1: I didn't really see a lot of what Kyle was
Speaker 1: up to. He was doing his own thing. He was
Speaker 1: working a lot. He started his own little business, so
Speaker 1: that was going really well, and he would always be, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've got to work, I've got to work. So he
Speaker 1: wasn't in helping me. The main thing he wanted to
Speaker 1: be was a really good provider for the family, not
Speaker 1: only just in terms of monetary provision. He really wanted
Speaker 1: to be able to if the world ended, as the
Speaker 1: Bible says it will eventually. When that happens, he wanted
Speaker 1: to have us ready to go. You know, we could
Speaker 1: make our own fire, we could collect our own water,
Speaker 1: we could make our own tools. He was into gardening,
Speaker 1: so he really wanted to grow all these vegetables and
Speaker 1: make sure that we were self sufficient. That was his
Speaker 1: way of providing for the family. This really annoyed me sometimes,
Speaker 1: Like I loved the fact that he was trying to
Speaker 1: do these things, but it was always to the extreme.
Speaker 1: He would pick everything to the extreme. He would go
Speaker 1: down a rabbit hole of how to make stone tools
Speaker 1: for so long, and then he'd move on to the
Speaker 1: next topic, so then he'd be going into the how
Speaker 1: to filter water or how to make rope from scratch.
Speaker 1: So there'd be all these different things. And I liked
Speaker 1: the fact that he had such a wonderful hobby that
Speaker 1: was a positive hobby, but at the same time, it
Speaker 1: really took away so much time from our family and concentration,
Speaker 1: and that's all he wanted to talk about. So I
Speaker 1: got very frustrated a lot of the time about these
Speaker 1: things and just said, look, I don't need this to
Speaker 1: be provided. I need come and stability. It was always
Speaker 1: something that was always there, just chipping away a little
Speaker 1: bit all the time.
Speaker 2: Despite all this, breakthrough finally presented itself, as did another
Speaker 2: life changing decision.
Speaker 1: We had finally got the diagnosis for the other child,
Speaker 1: and we decided since there was no red flags. He
Speaker 1: had a red genetic condition, but that wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be passed down to their next child because it wasn't
Speaker 1: passed on from us. So we decided, let's go again.
Speaker 1: We fell pregnant really really quickly, and yeah, that was great.
Speaker 1: We were at a good point when we fell pregnant.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he was again super excited to have a child.
Speaker 1: There was going to be a big age gap about
Speaker 1: five years between the two kids, so that at least
Speaker 1: our other child would be close to going to school,
Speaker 1: so we'd have a bit more ability to have a
Speaker 1: baby around. And yeah, like I was excited. I was
Speaker 1: a little bit nauseous at the start of this one,
Speaker 1: which was a bit worse than the last pregnancy. But yeah, again,
Speaker 1: I love being pregnant. I loved having the belly and
Speaker 1: that was really exciting time of the life of our life.
Speaker 1: When I was pregnant with my second child. We decided
Speaker 1: to go again, and you know, everything was quite good,
Speaker 1: apart from those few little hiccups. He had invited his
Speaker 1: cousin to come and stay with us because he needed
Speaker 1: somewhere to live, and they were really close and had
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in childhood together, and his
Speaker 1: cousin was, you know, a lovely guy. I really supported him.
Speaker 1: He had a lot of health issues. He was unemployed,
Speaker 1: so and he wanted to come out and help with
Speaker 1: the property. So I thought, this is fair. We've got
Speaker 1: a donga that you can stay in. It's all a
Speaker 1: non issue. So he came out, and then there'd be
Speaker 1: a night here and there that they would go off
Speaker 1: and they would have these spiritual experiences, which they tried
Speaker 1: to sell to me that it was them talking to
Speaker 1: God and having an actual experience with angels and demons.
Speaker 1: And I was just so tired and I said to them,
Speaker 1: look what is going on, Like this is crazy. And
Speaker 1: in the middle of it, there was no sense being spoken.
Speaker 1: They were clearly in another world literally, So I would
Speaker 1: just try and ignore it go to sleep, but I
Speaker 1: was so angry, like this was just ridiculous. And in
Speaker 1: the morning he would usually come and say, look, I
Speaker 1: yeah we did speed last night and say I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: like this is what happened. And I felt like he
Speaker 1: always owned up to what he was doing, so I
Speaker 1: didn't feel like there was deception, and that's maybe why
Speaker 1: I thought that, you know, he was doing the things.
Speaker 1: He was saying. He was, you know, just here and there,
Speaker 1: just having a little bit of speed, like once every
Speaker 1: few months, and just to enjoy his time with his
Speaker 1: mates and have those spiritual experiences. And I was trying
Speaker 1: to support his spirituality as well and not just be
Speaker 1: like the not understanding. I always try to be understanding
Speaker 1: and empathetic. But yeah, I probably took it a little
Speaker 1: bit too far. The second pregnancy flew by really really quickly,
Speaker 1: so I went into labor naturally. With this birth, my
Speaker 1: waters broke at home and I was like, this is
Speaker 1: super exciting. I'm going to be on t I don't
Speaker 1: need to be induced. This is amazing. Kyle was meant
Speaker 1: to go and do some work that day, but he
Speaker 1: managed to call up cancel it. All good done, and
Speaker 1: we needed two cars in town for some reason. I'd
Speaker 1: drive my car down Snana's house and drop off our child,
Speaker 1: and then from there I would go straight to the
Speaker 1: hospital and he would come and follow behind because he
Speaker 1: had a few jobs to do before he left. And
Speaker 1: I said, that's fine, I'll meet you at the hospital.
Speaker 1: You come when you're ready, and yep. Off. I went
Speaker 1: got to the hospital, settled in, started having mild contractions
Speaker 1: and everything was going well, and he rocked up about
Speaker 1: an hour and a half later, and yeah, from there
Speaker 1: things got weird. So the whole way through the labor,
Speaker 1: he was acting super strange. He was comparing to how
Speaker 1: life was like creating a fire, how a woman and
Speaker 1: a man, how they make the babies, like make fire
Speaker 1: with sticks, and comparing it to natural things. And he
Speaker 1: was just very strange, and I suppose I was in labor,
Speaker 1: so I was sort of trying not to concentrate on him,
Speaker 1: like he wasn't my biggest worry at that time. He
Speaker 1: was very also very paranoid around people coming into the
Speaker 1: room and who they were, and he was very paranoid
Speaker 1: over the doctor's advice. He was causing me so much drama.
Speaker 1: He didn't want me to have any drugs. And I
Speaker 1: had been in labor for about about ten hours, and
Speaker 1: normally with your second child, it comes and happens pretty
Speaker 1: quickly and straightforward. But after ten hours nothing was really happening.
Speaker 1: Everything had slowed down, and at that point I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm done, I'm ready for an epidural. And he did
Speaker 1: not want me to have an epidural. He said, no,
Speaker 1: if you listen to me, We're going to get this
Speaker 1: baby out in the next half an hour. And so
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh my gosh, get him out. I
Speaker 1: just wanted the nurse to take him out, but I
Speaker 1: couldn't put it into words, and she was The nurses
Speaker 1: were great, but they didn't understand what was going on,
Speaker 1: and they didn't understand how frustrated I was. And the
Speaker 1: doctor came in and he said, look, you've got this
Speaker 1: thing called a bandal's ring, which is where the baby
Speaker 1: gets stuck in your uterus, and we're going to have
Speaker 1: to do an emergency caesar. And by that time I
Speaker 1: was like, yep, do it. I don't care. I just
Speaker 1: want this baby born. The epidural was the most wonderful
Speaker 1: thing I'd ever had. I wanted to kiss the anethesis
Speaker 1: and he was super grumpy because he didn't want this
Speaker 1: to happen, and he decided he kept saying to me,
Speaker 1: if you listen to me, we'll get this baby out.
Speaker 1: You don't need to listen to the doctors. So I
Speaker 1: just remember get him out of the room. I was
Speaker 1: so angry. I even tried. I think I physically tried
Speaker 1: to push him away from me. A couple of times,
Speaker 1: and in the end the doctors took us off. He
Speaker 1: had no choice. We had to go and get the
Speaker 1: emergency caesar. Yeah, that all happened. That was all fine.
Speaker 1: We had it. We met our baby and he was
Speaker 1: just beautiful. I remember lying there thinking, this is just great.
Speaker 1: But everything that had happened throughout the whole labor I
Speaker 1: had completely forgotten about, and you know, I had to
Speaker 1: get stitched up and everything. So he was off looking
Speaker 1: after baby, and that I suppose gave me a bit
Speaker 1: of a break from the crazy after that long day
Speaker 1: and probably having the emergency birth happened at about ten pm,
Speaker 1: went back to the rooms and I remember saying to him, Okay, look,
Speaker 1: it's good. We'll tell everybody that he's been born. You
Speaker 1: head home, like you can head home because the fathers
Speaker 1: aren't meant to stay in the hospital. And he was like, nah, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going anywhere. I said, well, you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to stay here. We asked the nurse and she said no, no,
Speaker 1: you can't sleep in here, like it's just protocol. So
Speaker 1: he was like, oh, I'll just sleep in my car.
Speaker 1: So he decided to instead of going to a friend's
Speaker 1: house that was just around the corner. He wanted to
Speaker 1: go and sleep in the car, and he did this
Speaker 1: for about three nights in a row that we were
Speaker 1: in the hole hospital. He decided to keep going and
Speaker 1: sleeping out in the car during the day. We're in
Speaker 1: private hospital, so we got a bit longer. And they
Speaker 1: understood that I had a child with a disability at home,
Speaker 1: so I think that's why they gave me a little
Speaker 1: bit longer. We had about five days. He would come
Speaker 1: in and he would just sleep. Kyle would just lie
Speaker 1: and sleep with the baby all day. But then if
Speaker 1: somebody wanted to come in, and because it was a
Speaker 1: Catholic hospital, he was so wary of the nurses or
Speaker 1: anybody coming in. And we had a one of the
Speaker 1: I suppose the guidance offices come in from the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church to give us a little token of congratulations on
Speaker 1: your baby being born. And he wanted me to throw
Speaker 1: this little token away because he thought it was evil.
Speaker 1: That was another thing, and there was just the paranoia.
Speaker 1: We couldn't decide on a name, so I remember him
Speaker 1: staring at the ceiling and asking for God to give
Speaker 1: him a sign of what the name was, and I
Speaker 1: remember him saying, can't you see it? Can't you see
Speaker 1: the name? And I was like nah, And so I
Speaker 1: ended up coming up with the name. But in the end,
Speaker 1: it was just it was all so strange, and I
Speaker 1: was crying every day because he was just doing my
Speaker 1: head in but I didn't understand why, and I think
Speaker 1: he was very good at making me feel like I
Speaker 1: was in the wrong. I was the one who didn't
Speaker 1: believe enough in God, and I didn't believe enough in
Speaker 1: all the Catholics wanting to come in and give us
Speaker 1: tokens of the evil God. So yeah, there was all
Speaker 1: this happening.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: We had lots of visitors coming as always. His family
Speaker 1: always wanted to come in and see the baby, which
Speaker 1: was good but frustrating because it was just not a
Speaker 1: great time and he would put on a good act
Speaker 1: for them, but then go back to sleep once they went.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until my friend Shelley came in. She was
Speaker 1: a neonatal nurse and so had a lot of experience
Speaker 1: in this area and had seen all sorts of crazy
Speaker 1: things as she worked in the public system, and she
Speaker 1: was great to see. She came back out and I
Speaker 1: remember a few days after I got home from the hospital,
Speaker 1: she said to me, what's wrong with Kyle, And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. He's just acting really weird. I don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on. And she said to me, I
Speaker 1: think he's on something, and that finally made it click
Speaker 1: for me, and I said to her, Oh, he's had
Speaker 1: this problem with codine in the past, maybe he's back
Speaker 1: on that. And she just nodded and said, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would ask him. I would have a chat with him
Speaker 1: about that. So that gave me food for thought. In
Speaker 1: that moment, everything sort of made sense. The sleeping all day,
Speaker 1: the weird paranoia, trying to make decisions for me over
Speaker 1: a doctor, all those things. It sort of was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe this is why he's acting weird. He's not normally
Speaker 1: like this. So it really dropped a bomb on me,
Speaker 1: and it scared me a lot, but it also gave
Speaker 1: me a reason and it made me feel less crazy
Speaker 1: because I was made to feel like the crazy one
Speaker 1: that whole time. I felt like I wasn't being supportive
Speaker 1: enough of him and his beliefs and his God. And
Speaker 1: it was weird because it made me feel good, but
Speaker 1: it also made me feel like crap, because I had
Speaker 1: to then battle with this problem potentially.
Speaker 2: With the newborn and with Kyle acting increasingly off. Leah
Speaker 2: planned to spend the first week out of hospital in
Speaker 2: familiar and comfortable surroundings.
Speaker 1: I ended up moving into my dad's house because I
Speaker 1: had to be in town and be closer to everything
Speaker 1: because I'd had a caesar so I couldn't drive, so
Speaker 1: I decided to stay at my dad's house. And he
Speaker 1: was still staying at home with our other child. And
Speaker 1: this was probably about a week after I'd given birth,
Speaker 1: and we'd also been having trouble with our second child
Speaker 1: having tongue ties. But apart from that, he was perfect.
Speaker 1: I was amazed by how well a baby can actually sleep,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: what it's like to have a quote normal baby. And
Speaker 1: so I was just getting along with things again. But
Speaker 1: he came in one day and I thought this is
Speaker 1: the perfect time. My dad wasn't home. I said to him,
Speaker 1: what is going on? What happened in hospital? What are
Speaker 1: you taking? Are you on anything? And he sat there
Speaker 1: and I could see his mind ticking over. He was
Speaker 1: thinking do I actually tell her or do I just
Speaker 1: but he decided. He said, yeah, I'm on something and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, is it codeine? And he was like, nah, nah,
Speaker 1: it's actually I'm on ice. That blew my world apart.
Speaker 1: I'd never realized how serious this had gone, it would
Speaker 1: gone to the next level. Everything started to fall into place.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's what you were doing with
Speaker 1: your cousin. Your cousin used to make that back in
Speaker 1: the day. Clearly, you guys have got your hands on it.
Speaker 1: So even though how much I hated it, everything started
Speaker 1: to make sense. I stayed at my dad's for longer
Speaker 1: because I decided I needed a break. At that point,
Speaker 1: I wanted him gone, I wanted him out. I just thought,
Speaker 1: at that point, he will stop taking this. Now. We
Speaker 1: know that's it. He's going to come off it. We
Speaker 1: know he's going to go and get help. And you know,
Speaker 1: I've got all this support. He's got all this support,
Speaker 1: he'll be able to fix himself up. And I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: give it a couple of weeks and he'll get himself good.
Speaker 1: So at that point I didn't know exactly how long
Speaker 1: he'd been doing it for, but I know on the
Speaker 1: day that I gave birth, he had done ice that
Speaker 1: morning before he left to come and see me at
Speaker 1: the hospital, and he told me that, and I think
Speaker 1: he obviously played it down because I wanted him out
Speaker 1: to go and get himself sorted. But I didn't see
Speaker 1: this as a risk to our relationship. I thought, this
Speaker 1: is just this is just one of those issues. I
Speaker 1: knew his dad had had addictive problems back in the past,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've seen it in families, and I
Speaker 1: knew that people can get over their addictions. So I'd
Speaker 1: put these rose colored glasses on that he's going to
Speaker 1: get himself sorted. He he's an amazing dad, He's got
Speaker 1: an amazing job. Like people like this, they don't they
Speaker 1: don't turn to drugs like these people don't end up
Speaker 1: being drug addicts to the rest of their lives. It's
Speaker 1: just a little bit of an issue we're going through
Speaker 1: right now, and we're going to get it sorted. So
Speaker 1: I stayed at my dad's for the next four or
Speaker 1: so weeks for a few reasons, to be closer to everybody,
Speaker 1: and the fact that I couldn't drive, so I wanted
Speaker 1: to be in town. I also wanted to have that
Speaker 1: distance and to make sure that I could get some
Speaker 1: rest and be closely supported as well by family, and
Speaker 1: then yeah, like just have that a bit of a
Speaker 1: separation for a little while, Like it wasn't official, Like,
Speaker 1: just have a bit of a break from him and
Speaker 1: his drama for a few weeks while he got himself
Speaker 1: sorted over that time, I believe that he'd got himself
Speaker 1: off it. He'd continued to drink, like that was just
Speaker 1: a thing he did, but he seemed to get back
Speaker 1: on track. He was starting to act normally again. There
Speaker 1: was no issues with work. Yeah, he'd said he's not
Speaker 1: taking it and I'd ask him, and he'd always get
Speaker 1: so angry if I'd ask him about it, because that's
Speaker 1: something just believe me. Why don't you believe me? That
Speaker 1: was a big thing. It's always like my fault if
Speaker 1: I don't believe him, because you know, why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you believe me? Because I'm telling you this,
Speaker 1: this is how it is. I'm the man, you're the woman.
Speaker 1: And that was another thing. He'd always have this thing about,
Speaker 1: I'm the head of the house, so I make decisions
Speaker 1: with you, but ultimately, I'm going to sail this ship.
Speaker 2: And this is what's happening, So Lee decided to believe
Speaker 2: him and they gave it another shot.
Speaker 1: So he got his act together for a little while,
Speaker 1: and we decided to move into a house in a
Speaker 1: town that was a bit closer to the main, bigger town,
Speaker 1: away from the farm, and we'd still keep the farm
Speaker 1: area for his business that he'd set up. And that
Speaker 1: was a really good move for me, as in we'd
Speaker 1: be closer to the help I needed and closer to
Speaker 1: his family, and the house was his grandma's old house
Speaker 1: so that we could move in there and not pay
Speaker 1: any rent. So yeah, so that was all going really well.
Speaker 1: But then COVID happened, and he'd actually so he'd had
Speaker 1: all this excitement happening and bubbling away. He'd been doing
Speaker 1: all these amazing things with his business, and he'd been
Speaker 1: now working full time on this business, and he'd had
Speaker 1: all these opportunities to go overseas and actually film a
Speaker 1: show overseas. He was ready to pack and get ready
Speaker 1: to head overseas to shoot this new show that was happening,
Speaker 1: and that was just keeping him alive. He was so excited.
Speaker 1: He was doing really well. And yeah, then COVID hit
Speaker 1: and so we called up defat to check to see
Speaker 1: what was going on because of COVID and the restrictions
Speaker 1: that were starting to pile on from different countries. Because
Speaker 1: we had a return ticket booked, he was going to
Speaker 1: be able to get in, stay there for a couple
Speaker 1: of months, and then come back, and they said to us,
Speaker 1: do not go. You will not be getting back. So
Speaker 1: in a snap, like it was, within a couple of days,
Speaker 1: he had had to cancel that, cancel the show, cancel
Speaker 1: all these plans that he had going forward to move
Speaker 1: his next step in his career. And we were restricted.
Speaker 1: We couldn't go and do the business stuff that we'd
Speaker 1: been doing previously. And yes, so we ended up just
Speaker 1: being stuck at home together like the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: So I had a say, a four month old and
Speaker 1: a four and a half year old with me at
Speaker 1: that point, and so we were hunkered down like everybody else.
Speaker 1: And he decided he was going to garden his butt off.
Speaker 1: He went nuts with the gardening because that was the
Speaker 1: way he was going to provide for our family. He
Speaker 1: was going to plant all the veggies and make sure
Speaker 1: that we had a solid food supply going forward, especially
Speaker 1: when the world ended and As COVID went on and
Speaker 1: things got harder and harder, he gardened more and more,
Speaker 1: and he had lots of more and more in depth
Speaker 1: religious conversations with his friends and family, and started that
Speaker 1: paranoia started to build up again. After I suppose the
Speaker 1: worst of it passed and we decided to purchase a
Speaker 1: van for our business, and so we went away and
Speaker 1: we had to also pick up the van, and we
Speaker 1: also had to go and get an EEG for our son,
Speaker 1: our oldest son, who had all these problems, and we
Speaker 1: thought all make it into one trip. But I remember
Speaker 1: driving back he pretty much slept the whole time and
Speaker 1: was going back into that pattern of sleeping all the time,
Speaker 1: being paranoid, having these weird, long religious conversations with his family,
Speaker 1: and just doing my head in in terms of wanting
Speaker 1: to provide for the family and make sure that we
Speaker 1: had food when the world ended. So at that point
Speaker 1: I'd gone back to his mum and dad had said, look,
Speaker 1: I think this is happening again, and they didn't believe me.
Speaker 1: That was another thing is that his family was always
Speaker 1: in denial around it, and they thought, oh no, this
Speaker 1: is just a little issue, a bump, that's happened, and
Speaker 1: we're going to get over this. It's not a biggie.
Speaker 1: So an incident happened one afternoon, and I knew I
Speaker 1: had to go back and ask him about what he
Speaker 1: has been doing in terms of his drug use, because
Speaker 1: all the signs were leading back to that addiction pattern.
Speaker 1: And his mum came over and I remember sitting there
Speaker 1: on the couch with him, saying, what is going on?
Speaker 1: Are you taking drugs again? And he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: not on anything, nothing's going on, blah blah blah, and
Speaker 1: he just stood up and stormed out of the house.
Speaker 1: And I knew at that point that it was happening,
Speaker 1: and his mum's sat there and yep. I was just yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: this is happening again. But we'll be able to get
Speaker 1: over it. Yep, we'll be able to deal with this.
Speaker 1: His family were very of the mindset that we're going
Speaker 1: to get him into rehab. We're going to be able
Speaker 1: to deal with this. This is not an issue that's
Speaker 1: going to blow our lives up or anything. It's just
Speaker 1: something we have to deal with. They were ringing rehabs,
Speaker 1: they were ringing the family Support Service, all those different
Speaker 1: things to make sure that he could get the help
Speaker 1: he needed. But you know, it took a lot of
Speaker 1: time for him to actually then admit he actually needed
Speaker 1: that help. And so that afternoon I kicked him out
Speaker 1: of the house and said, you need to go and
Speaker 1: stay with your mum and dad because you're not welcome here.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely horrible. I hated it, but I suppose
Speaker 1: I'd been through these conversations before and I was just
Speaker 1: done at this point. One thing that kept reoccurring is
Speaker 1: the more and more I moved on with all these
Speaker 1: dramas and hassles, I felt less and less invested, and
Speaker 1: I felt less upset as time went on, because even
Speaker 1: when we had arguments, if I wasn't super upset and
Speaker 1: super wanting to make it all better, I could tell
Speaker 1: that this was not going in a good direction. I
Speaker 1: just didn't care, and I knew I really wanted him
Speaker 1: to go to rehab. I thought, like them, oh, this
Speaker 1: would really really help. So about three months after this
Speaker 1: incident happened and I had to kick him out, they
Speaker 1: managed to finally get into a rehab and he had
Speaker 1: finally admitted that he was using again, and he decided,
Speaker 1: with the help of his mom and dad and his
Speaker 1: brother that he would go to a rehab and start
Speaker 1: the process of detoxing and getting well again. And his
Speaker 1: mom and dad actually even helped him detox And it's
Speaker 1: the worst thing I've ever seen a grown man squirming
Speaker 1: and groaning on the ground. And it's definitely taken a
Speaker 1: toll on his mum and dad. His dad's had a
Speaker 1: herd attack and lots of health problems, and that's probably
Speaker 1: exacerbated by the fact that they've had to go through
Speaker 1: trauma watching their own son virtually nearly dying from withdrawal
Speaker 1: of drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 2: With Kyle in rehab, there was hope he would get better,
Speaker 2: but that hope soon came crashing down. Right before he
Speaker 2: was due to come home.
Speaker 1: It was New Year's Eve, and I think a few
Speaker 1: of them from the rehabit decided to go out and party.
Speaker 1: So and it's a voluntary thing, you're not forced to
Speaker 1: be there in rehab. So they had left the rehab
Speaker 1: to go on news and then the rehab said Nope,
Speaker 1: you're not welcome back, and that was just devastating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was devastating because he had been calling me and
Speaker 1: I had been in contact with him during his stay
Speaker 1: in that rehab, and he rang me that night of
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve and I was alone with the kids,
Speaker 1: all on my own. I was already so depressed because
Speaker 1: I'm like, how this is not how I want to
Speaker 1: be spending New Year's Eve. But he was calling me
Speaker 1: and he was off his face, and I could tell
Speaker 1: that he was just making everything worse and worse. And
Speaker 1: I ended up having to hang up on him multiple
Speaker 1: times because he was just yeah, talking crazy things and
Speaker 1: still trying to you know, I love you. I'm going
Speaker 1: to come back. It's all going to be fine. So
Speaker 1: then he got kicked out, and I think I think
Speaker 1: his dad ended up driving down to get him and
Speaker 1: bring him back. And he's always been welcome at his
Speaker 1: mum and dad's house. He's got a spot there for him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's always had that place to go if he's really
Speaker 1: has nowhere else to go. So after our his first
Speaker 1: in in rehab, he moved back to his mum and
Speaker 1: dad's house, and he still had contact with the kids.
Speaker 1: He would try and come around and visit and make
Speaker 1: sure he caught up with them, and they would love
Speaker 1: seeing Dad. It was so exciting to have Dad back
Speaker 1: home but he would only just stay for a little
Speaker 1: amount of time, and I would often have Nana come
Speaker 1: around as well. The few times he did come around
Speaker 1: on his own, generally it ended in an argument. The
Speaker 1: first hour might go okay, but then after that it
Speaker 1: would end up into that paranoia, Oh you know, I'm
Speaker 1: just doing this, this is what I need to do.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't trust me, trying to make me
Speaker 1: feel like the bad guy of course for kicking him out.
Speaker 1: And in the end, yeah, he just went back to
Speaker 1: Mum and Dad's. And this pattern went on for about
Speaker 1: a year.
Speaker 2: Throughout this, Leah still tried to support her husband where
Speaker 2: she could.
Speaker 1: He'd called me and he was at the Pokey's and
Speaker 1: he wanted a lift home. So I thought, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: give him a lift home because I at that point
Speaker 1: still had a bit of hope for him. He jumped
Speaker 1: in the car and I had my baby in the back,
Speaker 1: and he pulled out a light globe which had had
Speaker 1: a bit of blue tack at the top and the straw,
Speaker 1: and he even said to me, here, try some you'll
Speaker 1: feel heats better. And he just about started to try
Speaker 1: smoking meth in the car with the baby in the back,
Speaker 1: and I just remember screaming at him get out of
Speaker 1: the car, and yeah, he left, and I just drove away, thinking,
Speaker 1: my goodness, this is really how bad it is. I'd
Speaker 1: never in my life seen a meth pipe or anything
Speaker 1: like that in real life, and it was the biggest
Speaker 1: shock that made me realize that I could not have
Speaker 1: him around my children because he was not a safe person.
Speaker 1: There was no way I was going to let my
Speaker 1: babies be exposed or even near him in this state.
Speaker 1: Probably about four months after his first rehab stint, and
Speaker 1: nothing had been changing. He was still living with his
Speaker 1: mum and dad. I decided to go and try to
Speaker 1: do a bit of counseling, not necessarily to save the relationship,
Speaker 1: but to just see if I'd done enough to try
Speaker 1: and fix the relationship and try, and I suppose get
Speaker 1: somebody else to have another set of eyes over what
Speaker 1: was going on. And that was great. The counselor there
Speaker 1: was absolutely amazing, And she said to me, she pulled
Speaker 1: me aside and said, look, Leah, I honestly recommend that
Speaker 1: you finish this relationship. This is not working. He's not
Speaker 1: to change. Please just look after yourself and separate and honestly,
Speaker 1: you'll do fine. In one way, it was super devastating
Speaker 1: to know that that was the end, But in another
Speaker 1: way I was super relieved because in a way, that
Speaker 1: gave me permission then to give up, to say enough
Speaker 1: is enough. I'm not going to be able to save this,
Speaker 1: and it gave me that line in the sand to
Speaker 1: end things. I knew it was over even before starting
Speaker 1: that counseling. I think I knew really after that night,
Speaker 1: that New Year's Eve night, when he was calling me
Speaker 1: and he was left rehab, I knew that if he
Speaker 1: wasn't willing to do this for his kids and his marriage,
Speaker 1: then nothing would make him do this. We couldn't make
Speaker 1: him do it. He had to want to do it
Speaker 1: for himself. And after that counseling and when the counselor
Speaker 1: said end it, I decided to try and make a
Speaker 1: time to meet up with him in person, and he
Speaker 1: just kept flaking on me. I said, meet me here,
Speaker 1: meet me there. I want to have a chat. I
Speaker 1: need to talk to you, And in the end he
Speaker 1: rang me and he said I'm not coming to catch
Speaker 1: up with you, and I said, well, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this on the phone. But we are done.
Speaker 1: He said, I saw this coming. I knew this was
Speaker 1: going to happen, and I just didn't want to face it.
Speaker 1: He knew that I was done, and he was super upset.
Speaker 1: But I think at that point he knew that he
Speaker 1: had pushed me too far. He always would say, even
Speaker 1: when I caught up with him after this point in time,
Speaker 1: but you know, I always love you, know I always
Speaker 1: want to be with you. But I said, look, you
Speaker 1: know you're not changing, so I can't do it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and I suppose he was also very angry at me
Speaker 1: as well. I think that it's just a thing that
Speaker 1: comes with addiction, is that everybody else is doing this
Speaker 1: to me. It's everybody else's fault. It's not my fault.
Speaker 1: This person has treated me like that. You know, this
Speaker 1: person's doing the wrong thing. The government's doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: He had every excuse in the world to why he
Speaker 1: was angry. But yeah, and even at me, Oh, she
Speaker 1: kicked me out, she's taken me away from seeing the kids,
Speaker 1: but not taking any accountability for his own actions. I
Speaker 1: was a mess during that time. I had a lot
Speaker 1: of support from my mum and dad, which was amazing,
Speaker 1: and they had only divorced about four years before that,
Speaker 1: so they had been through that and after forty two
Speaker 1: years of marriage, so I had their support. They were
Speaker 1: very angry at him. My dad was so angry at
Speaker 1: him that he couldn't see past the anger. He was
Speaker 1: so devastated, and because they had had such a good
Speaker 1: relationship with this man and he was now nothing that
Speaker 1: they could recognize. He was just a completely different person
Speaker 1: to this, you know, person that everybody looked up to
Speaker 1: and was such a great teacher and role model and
Speaker 1: you know, I was doing youth development courses and is
Speaker 1: now a drug addict. I always missed him because he
Speaker 1: was my person that I would go to for everything.
Speaker 1: I'd miss being able to call him for certain things,
Speaker 1: or we would have so much fun. We would just
Speaker 1: laugh and laugh, and we would play fight and we would,
Speaker 1: you know, just have the best time. And he was
Speaker 1: my person, Like he got me, even though he had
Speaker 1: very different values and beliefs, Like we had the same
Speaker 1: level of crazy in a way that he wasn't when
Speaker 1: he wasn't addicted. I could just one hundred percent be
Speaker 1: myself around him, and I think he was the same.
Speaker 1: He felt the same because he couldn't really be one
Speaker 1: hundred percent himself around his own family, whereas with me
Speaker 1: he could. It's like mourning the death of somebody that's
Speaker 1: still alive.
Speaker 2: Leah had never faced a tougher decision, yet, deep down
Speaker 2: she knew it was the right one. A new beginning
Speaker 2: lay ahead for her and her boys, but it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be an easy road.
Speaker 1: So few after the official separation, it gave me a
Speaker 1: lot of relief. I could just move on with my life.
Speaker 1: I could get things set up. In that time too,
Speaker 1: his mum and dad decided that I was no longer
Speaker 1: welcome in Grandma's house, that I wasn't paying grant him.
Speaker 1: I think they were angry because I was giving up
Speaker 1: on him. That's what they thought. We had a big,
Speaker 1: like a lot of big fights at that time that
Speaker 1: you're leaving him, you're giving up. You know, you're taking
Speaker 1: the children away from him, which I never did because
Speaker 1: I'd always let them visit Nana and Poppy and go
Speaker 1: and see them. But yeah, it was really hard because
Speaker 1: I was battling with them hating me, and then I
Speaker 1: was battling with him hating me. But then I was
Speaker 1: also able to get on with life and not have
Speaker 1: to worry so much about trying to rebuild this relationship
Speaker 1: that wasn't any hope of saving. He would still message me,
Speaker 1: and he would still try and contact me. I would
Speaker 1: try and send him photos, and he would also try
Speaker 1: and call the kids, but that was very sporadic. He
Speaker 1: would never do it on a regular basis. He would
Speaker 1: blame me for not calling him, even though, like he
Speaker 1: wouldn't answer his phone half the time. Sometimes we didn't
Speaker 1: know where he was. He would come and go. He
Speaker 1: would sometimes beat his mum and dad's house, and sometimes
Speaker 1: he wouldn't. So there's no reliability or regularity about what
Speaker 1: was going on. And I just had to make sure
Speaker 1: the kids had a stable life and that we could
Speaker 1: just keep doing what we needed to. So I moved
Speaker 1: back into the bigger town and ended up renting a
Speaker 1: unit really close to my dad's house and started to
Speaker 1: get in the mindset of we need to sell our property,
Speaker 1: the farm. And he was living there on his own,
Speaker 1: doing his own thing, and that was horrendous because the
Speaker 1: neighbors kept telling me that he was having these friends around,
Speaker 1: they were shooting at things, they were having parties. It
Speaker 1: was just an absolute shit show. Up there, so I
Speaker 1: was trying to deal with the neighbors and tell them, look,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get him out. So down the track,
Speaker 1: he eventually did move out, and the house was just
Speaker 1: left in a bit of a disarray, and it was
Speaker 1: left to me to then paint everything, renovate, deal with furniture,
Speaker 1: and get it ready for sale. Once we did manage
Speaker 1: to sell it, that was a big relief that I
Speaker 1: could then sort of move on with my life and
Speaker 1: make sure we had everything in place to then have
Speaker 1: some stability going forward.
Speaker 2: Around this time, Kyle returned to rehab for a second
Speaker 2: attempt at recovery, but sadly, it didn't bring the results
Speaker 2: everyone had hoped for.
Speaker 1: So the second stint he had in rehab, that was
Speaker 1: the local rehab, he probably didn't last very long. It
Speaker 1: was probably about a few weeks in and he found
Speaker 1: apparently the love of his life in there, who already
Speaker 1: had about four children to four different fathers, and he
Speaker 1: then found out that he had potentially got her pregnant.
Speaker 1: So I remember him saying to me, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be such a great dad to this one. I'm going
Speaker 1: to really not make all the mistakes I made with
Speaker 1: my first two and he was so chuffed. And then
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks after that he had found out
Speaker 1: that that was not his baby. The more I saw
Speaker 1: him after his stints away from his mum and dad's
Speaker 1: house and coming back, every time I saw him he
Speaker 1: was more of a shell of a human being. And
Speaker 1: the more I realized that the man that I married
Speaker 1: was not in him. His brain was changing, his looks
Speaker 1: were changing, He'd become skinny. He couldn't make any sense
Speaker 1: of his thoughts or his feelings and emotions and would
Speaker 1: just it would take nothing to set him off. So really,
Speaker 1: I just slowly saw the man that I married die
Speaker 1: over a couple of years. Really, for a long time,
Speaker 1: I had the hope that he could get better, and
Speaker 1: I saw glimpses of that, but as time progressed, there
Speaker 1: was less and less of him there, and that reality
Speaker 1: really hit me that this man is disappearing slowly and sadly,
Speaker 1: and he won't come back. That man that I married
Speaker 1: has completely gone and he's a completely different person. Now.
Speaker 1: Last time I had contact with Kyle was when he
Speaker 1: was back at his mum and dad's house about seven
Speaker 1: months ago. He was staying there after being away for
Speaker 1: a long time. He had been living down south in
Speaker 1: a homeless community and continually taking drugs. So his dad
Speaker 1: had gone down there and got him, tried to rescue him,
Speaker 1: brought him back home, and we'd just made sure the
Speaker 1: kids could catch up with him every now and then
Speaker 1: if he was in the right state of mind, and
Speaker 1: the kids were very excited to see him, and you know,
Speaker 1: we managed that. And the last time I saw him,
Speaker 1: I remember he was in the back of the car
Speaker 1: trying to buckle in his son, and he kept checking
Speaker 1: the car seat because he didn't believe that I had
Speaker 1: the car seat buckled in right. He didn't trust me
Speaker 1: that I had that safely installed, and that I just
Speaker 1: remember getting so angry at him and telling him get
Speaker 1: out of the car because he wouldn't move and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't get out. And it's really sad that we haven't
Speaker 1: heard anything from him since that time for about seven months.
Speaker 1: Apparently he's still down there. He's still homeless, sometimes accessing
Speaker 1: mental health support, but we have only heard through some
Speaker 1: social workers down there. His parents haven't been able to
Speaker 1: make contact and see him. They are just honestly devastated,
Speaker 1: but they understand how bad his addiction is and that
Speaker 1: they can't save him. They have had done a lot
Speaker 1: of work themselves through Family Drug Support, which is an
Speaker 1: amazing organization supporting families through that process, and they are
Speaker 1: now the most amazing supports they I suppose seen how
Speaker 1: much of being put through. They just support me one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, even though we've got differing, differing values and
Speaker 1: different beliefs. They are the other parent that I've been missing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so they helped me a lot with especially
Speaker 1: the one with the disability. They are amazing. And yeah,
Speaker 1: the other day we were at a family event and
Speaker 1: everybody was there except for him, And I get invited
Speaker 1: to his family events all the time because everybody is
Speaker 1: so supportive. And his dad was just so upset that
Speaker 1: he wasn't there because he was the only one missing.
Speaker 1: And he decided a few days later to try and
Speaker 1: go down there and find him, and he didn't manage
Speaker 1: to He managed to hear from the social workers, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that he didn't get to see him. Yeah, he's devastated. Also,
Speaker 1: his brother has given up on him. His brother doesn't
Speaker 1: even make an effort anymore to try and be in contact.
Speaker 1: He's just and they are now pregnant with a child,
Speaker 1: so he's going to be missing out on a nephew
Speaker 1: or a niece, and that's his only nephew on that
Speaker 1: side of the family. I suppose his survival skills have
Speaker 1: come in handy, but it's really sad to know this
Speaker 1: is not something that anybody would choose. This is something
Speaker 1: that is a disease, and I now understand that this
Speaker 1: is something that has taken away his family, his business,
Speaker 1: his success that he's had, the respect that he had
Speaker 1: from the community, his own family. Like in terms of
Speaker 1: his family, it's taken his health everything. He's just a
Speaker 1: shell of a human now. And honestly, which is the
Speaker 1: really sad thing is if I get a phone call
Speaker 1: from the police saying that he has passed away, I
Speaker 1: won't be surprised, but that would be an end to
Speaker 1: the pain that he must be feeling.
Speaker 2: While this whole situation had been complet de letely heartbreaking,
Speaker 2: Leah has found the strength to keep moving forward.
Speaker 1: I think about him, probably not as much as I
Speaker 1: used to, obviously, as time goes on, your heart heels,
Speaker 1: but I'm always going to miss that connection I had
Speaker 1: with him. I do think about him. I suppose every
Speaker 1: time I look at my oldest son, he's a spitting
Speaker 1: image of him. He's got the same body. He's a
Speaker 1: little mini Kyle. You know, he's good looking, he's tall,
Speaker 1: and the other one is a mini me. So he's
Speaker 1: got the white skin and the stumpy look. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but like even this morning, my youngest son said to me, Mum,
Speaker 1: I really miss Dad And all you can say is
Speaker 1: I know, buddy, it's it's a really hard hay. And
Speaker 1: I said, no, Dad's really really sick, and he said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. So yeah, that's really hard. I said to him, oh,
Speaker 1: do you think about Dad a lot? And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: not really, I think just maybe every now and then
Speaker 1: he probably gets reminded that Dad's not well, and he
Speaker 1: thinks Dad's trying to get a job so he can
Speaker 1: make enough money to get a train ticket to come
Speaker 1: back home. That's his belief. Whereas the other the older child,
Speaker 1: is a bit easier because he has an intellectually disability,
Speaker 1: so he I don't know what he understands, but he
Speaker 1: definitely lights up when he sees a picture of Dad.
Speaker 1: Since separation, really I knew I had to move on.
Speaker 1: I don't have a choice. I've got two kids that
Speaker 1: really need me, and luckily with NDIS, even though it
Speaker 1: has its faults, I have a huge amount of support
Speaker 1: in terms of cares and I have the best, amazing
Speaker 1: care a team. They're like second parents. I couldn't work
Speaker 1: without them. Now my youngest is in school. That makes
Speaker 1: life so much easier. So both kids are in school
Speaker 1: and I can actually work a really awesome job, and
Speaker 1: I love my work. I've tried dating. It's a minefield
Speaker 1: out there, especially the town we live in. It's always
Speaker 1: the same people on there. A lot of miners, a
Speaker 1: lot of farmers, a lot of those sorts of people,
Speaker 1: so it makes it really difficult to find the sort
Speaker 1: of person that I would have a connection with. I'm
Speaker 1: currently dating a bloke at the moment from Bumble, so
Speaker 1: it's very early days, but we'll see. I'm ready to
Speaker 1: try and get out there again after having numerous breaks
Speaker 1: off the apps. But yeah, hopefully this will go okay
Speaker 1: and we'll see where we go from here. I think
Speaker 1: after seeing my own parents separate and divorce and they're
Speaker 1: both repartnered and having great lives, I definitely believe it's
Speaker 1: out there. I'm probably a bit more realistic about life
Speaker 1: now and very fussy. I'm very fussy, and that's probably
Speaker 1: why I'm happy to stay single unless I find the
Speaker 1: absolute right to settle down with. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to just pick anybody to be involved in my life,
Speaker 1: because they have to earn that, and especially to be
Speaker 1: involved with my two boys. There's nobody to blame for
Speaker 1: his addiction. I believe that addictions can run in families,
Speaker 1: and they can be caused by mental health conditions. It's
Speaker 1: not something that I blame him for. I feel sorry
Speaker 1: that he's had to battle it because it must be
Speaker 1: so hard. It must be absolutely horrible to go through
Speaker 1: that every day. I think it's really important for everybody
Speaker 1: to remember that it's not something that people choose, and
Speaker 1: that it is something that people battling. Addiction doesn't affect
Speaker 1: the person going through it. It affects the whole family
Speaker 1: and the community, and there is help out there, not
Speaker 1: only for the person going through it, but for everybody else.
Speaker 1: And I strongly encourage people to reach out and seek
Speaker 1: those supports because that's what's helped me and the family
Speaker 1: get through these really tough times. What I've learned from
Speaker 1: this whole experience is that I don't regret any of it.
Speaker 1: That I was where I was meant to be. I
Speaker 1: was meant to meet him, and we had the most
Speaker 1: amazing time when we were together and things were good.
Speaker 1: I don't regret my children. They are just fantastic. And
Speaker 1: I think this is just life. Life throws things at
Speaker 1: you and you just have to try and learn how
Speaker 1: to be resilient and move on and try and live
Speaker 1: your life. But that addiction is a disease, and that
Speaker 1: no matter how hard you push somebody, you can't make
Speaker 1: them do things they don't want to do. So I
Speaker 1: feel sad for his family and for him that it's
Speaker 1: ended up this way. And I suppose until the point
Speaker 1: where he's passed away that there is still hope. There's
Speaker 1: always hope. He probably won't be the person that I married.
Speaker 1: He never will, but there is hope that he could
Speaker 1: fix his life and then be able to be to
Speaker 1: see his own children and experience the good things down
Speaker 1: the track. I want other people to understand that it's
Speaker 1: okay to separate, like it's okay to end a relationship
Speaker 1: that's just a chapter of your life. You don't have
Speaker 1: to be with that person forever just because of your beliefs,
Speaker 1: and that's not a failure. That marriage is not a failure.
Speaker 1: That's just a chapter and now we're up to the
Speaker 1: next chapter, so it's not a failure. And that women
Speaker 1: are so resilient and amazing. Yeah, especially so mums with
Speaker 1: kids of disabilities. I have the most amazing network of
Speaker 1: mums who are single because the blokes can't handle it
Speaker 1: because it is just it's hard, and it's honestly yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's worth it. I'm super happy that my six
Speaker 1: year old is a normal little man. He's super talkative
Speaker 1: and he is like the big brother to the family.
Speaker 1: So we've got a really awesome little three person family
Speaker 1: and we have lots of fun. We're such a happy
Speaker 1: little family at this stage in life. I'm really blessed
Speaker 1: with all the support that I've got around me, and
Speaker 1: that I'm really looking forward to what the future holds
Speaker 1: as the boys grow older and become more and more
Speaker 1: independent and as life changes into the future. There's so
Speaker 1: much more exciting things to happen in our future. And
Speaker 1: this has just been one chapter of our book.
Speaker 3: Really, everyone has an eggs.
Speaker 2: He's a MINTI Media Production and proudly part of the
Speaker 2: Mum and me a Network. This episode is written and
Speaker 2: produced by Linda Scott. Interview conducted and episode narrated by
Speaker 2: me Georgia Love. If you have a story you'd like
Speaker 2: to share, email podcast at momameia dot com dot a.
Speaker 2: You You can support us by following the show in
Speaker 2: your favorite podcast app and leaving a five star review.
Speaker 2: We'll see you for the next episode.