Speaker 1: I used to pretend. Sometimes I'd sit down on the
Speaker 1: sofa with a cup of tea and I'd listen to
Speaker 1: the silence, and I actually would pretend that Henry, Jasper
Speaker 1: and Evan had just fallen asleep in the cot next door,
Speaker 1: and I was finally going to get just a few
Speaker 1: moments of peace before they woke up.
Speaker 2: And that's why it was so quiet, And.
Speaker 1: That's why it was so quiet. An oh, a bit
Speaker 1: of silence.
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm kateline Brook, host of No Filter. My guest
Speaker 2: today is Sophie Smith. When Sophie and her husband Ash
Speaker 2: discovered they were expecting triplets, they thought they were stepping
Speaker 2: into the life they'd always dreamed of, becoming parents for
Speaker 2: the very first time. Instead, after going into premature labor
Speaker 2: halfway through her pregnancy, Sophie found herself facing unimaginable heartbreak.
Speaker 2: Over the months that followed, she and Ash lost all
Speaker 2: three of their baby boys. In the years since, Sophie
Speaker 2: has transformed that grief into something extraordinary, founding Running for
Speaker 2: Premature Babies, a charity that has helped save the lives
Speaker 2: of thousands of premature babies across Australia. Sophie and Ash
Speaker 2: later welcomed two more sons, Owen and Harvey, before tragedies
Speaker 2: struck their family once again when Ash was diagnosed with
Speaker 2: brain cancer and died. But somehow, despite all she has endured,
Speaker 2: Sophie's story is not just one of loss. It's a
Speaker 2: story about perseverance, about purpose, motherhood, hope, and about what
Speaker 2: it means to keep going when life turns out nothing
Speaker 2: like you expected. Mostly really, it's about love. This is
Speaker 2: Sophie Smith. Sophie Smith, Welcome to No Filter.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Keith.
Speaker 2: I'd like to preface our conversation by extending my regret
Speaker 2: at what has led us to be having this conversation.
Speaker 2: Thank you, the loss of four of your boys, your triplets,
Speaker 2: and of course your beloved husband, Ash. But what it
Speaker 2: has led to for you is the publication of this
Speaker 2: book called Sophie's Boys. And it is such a discovery
Speaker 2: and a revelation of grief and so searingly honest that
Speaker 2: when I was finishing this book yesterday morning it was
Speaker 2: probably about said thirty in the morning, I was absolutely howling.
Speaker 2: It's quite a master work and a work of the soul.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I hope that you found that it was
Speaker 1: also a story of hope over a story of despair.
Speaker 1: And because that's what I see my story, as you
Speaker 1: know it's I would hope that it's uplifting rather than depressing.
Speaker 1: Even though you know it's sad, there's still so much hope.
Speaker 2: I think, well, you're living testament to that, really, because
Speaker 2: people who have encountered loss, and if you live, you
Speaker 2: will lose, right, we know that about life. But for
Speaker 2: you to have encountered such devastating loss and repeatedly, and
Speaker 2: then to have not only picked yourself up, but to
Speaker 2: have picked up others around you is such a test
Speaker 2: stument to the human spirit and such a balm to
Speaker 2: the human spirit.
Speaker 1: Thank you, I mean, you know, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: actually helped me. I can't imagine how my life would
Speaker 1: be if it hadn't been for you know, the charity
Speaker 1: that's come from my boys and the fact that I've
Speaker 1: been able to bring them with me on the journey
Speaker 1: of the last twenty years through running for Premature Babies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the charity is running for premature babies. And
Speaker 2: you know about premature babies because in two thousand and six,
Speaker 2: so twenty years ago, you were pregnant with triplets. Tell
Speaker 2: me about how you came to that point to be
Speaker 2: expected three babies as your first baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just, oh, it was just so incredible
Speaker 1: when Ash and I. I was recently married to Ash,
Speaker 1: and when we found out that we were pregnant with
Speaker 1: not one, not two, but three babies, it was really
Speaker 1: such a spin out. I mean, we couldn't believe it,
Speaker 1: but we couldn't think of anything more wonderful. I remember
Speaker 1: at the very first scan when we found out we
Speaker 1: were having three, and I mean, it was a huge shock,
Speaker 1: but I remember when the sonographer was just measuring the
Speaker 1: three little ones in there, and one of them was
Speaker 1: too small, and the sonographer said, oh, you know, there's three,
Speaker 1: but come back in two weeks because this other little one,
Speaker 1: you know, probably won't make it. And I remember walking
Speaker 1: out of that room and Ash holding my hand and saying,
Speaker 1: Bobz's I really hope that little one makes it. And
Speaker 1: I just thought that was so beautiful that right from
Speaker 1: the beginning we sort of loved them all. And when
Speaker 1: we went back two weeks later, the little one had
Speaker 1: caught up, and yeah, we continued on with the pregnancy.
Speaker 1: We were so excited. I used to love it when
Speaker 1: people would, you know, random strangers would see that I
Speaker 1: was pregnant and say, oh, you know, congratulations, is it
Speaker 1: your first? And I used to absolutely love saying yeah,
Speaker 1: it's my first. Three. We spent the next six months
Speaker 1: preparing for this instant family. We found a triplet buggy
Speaker 1: which was so cute, and we got it home and
Speaker 1: we assembled it and it sat in our hallway and
Speaker 1: it was like these three little seats in a line
Speaker 1: awaiting this precious cargo, and I couldn't wait to be
Speaker 1: pushing them around Centennial Park. And yeah, I just, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't really I remember at the beginning, I didn't
Speaker 1: really consider all the sort of logistics of the difficulties,
Speaker 1: how difficult it would be to be a mother of
Speaker 1: three babies. I just thought we were blessed.
Speaker 2: Well, that seem interesting because normally paper arre overwhelmed at
Speaker 2: the prospect of having their first chart being a single
Speaker 2: and yet because you didn't know any other way to be.
Speaker 1: I think that's right. I think when I look back now,
Speaker 1: sometimes I wonder how was I so blase about being
Speaker 1: pregnant with three? But because I'd never been pregnant before,
Speaker 1: you know, and once we got over the sort of
Speaker 1: initial shock of the fact that we were having three babies.
Speaker 1: We were just you know, we were all up for
Speaker 1: it and just super excited.
Speaker 2: Because you've also got the spirit of an adventurer. I mean,
Speaker 2: you came to our shores from the UK, you were
Speaker 2: born in Japan, you lived extensively as a child in Asia.
Speaker 2: Then you came here as a teacher and you met
Speaker 2: you fell in love with one of our finest Ash.
Speaker 1: I sure did.
Speaker 2: And what were you looking for at the time? Were
Speaker 2: you looking for adventure for us?
Speaker 1: At the time I met Ash, I was just living
Speaker 1: in the present, living in the moment, having a great time.
Speaker 1: I was new to Sydney. I met Ash a week
Speaker 1: before the Olympics, and we had our first date on
Speaker 1: the night of the opening ceremony of the Olympics, and
Speaker 1: the city was a buzz And the next two weeks
Speaker 1: was just like a whirlwind of you know, fun. As
Speaker 1: you know, we met and we fell in love, and
Speaker 1: we were you know, Sydney was just on fire then
Speaker 1: and we were having a great time and and really
Speaker 1: we just we we just had a really great time together.
Speaker 1: And then we moved in together. And it was actually
Speaker 1: five years later we finally got married and then we
Speaker 1: were like, right, let's let's do this, Let's have kids.
Speaker 2: And so you were thirty five then, and you were like,
Speaker 2: now's the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, come on, let's get on with it.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to have a big family. And you know,
Speaker 1: I love I love kids. And I was working as
Speaker 1: a primary school teacher at the time, and I yeah,
Speaker 1: Ash and I were, and Ash was so excited as well.
Speaker 1: He was, Yeah, he was. He was a great dad.
Speaker 1: His his for our boys were his pride and joy,
Speaker 1: every all five of them. Well, it turned out.
Speaker 2: In the in the book, and when you talk about
Speaker 2: the progression of the pregnancies and when things started to
Speaker 2: go awry, Ash really proved himself to be a perfect
Speaker 2: partner for you and a perfect dad at that time
Speaker 2: as well. So your pregnancy was traveling in a pretty
Speaker 2: uncomplicated manner until you were in a supermarket. You were
Speaker 2: twenty one weeks.
Speaker 1: Pregnenty one weeks. Yeah, So yes, I was in the
Speaker 1: supermarket one morning and I felt this sort of I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: if I just wet myself, that's weird. I didn't really
Speaker 1: panic because I just thought, oh, it must be some
Speaker 1: weird pregnancy thing. I've just had some bladder leak. So
Speaker 1: I carried on with my supermarket shop. And then as
Speaker 1: I was getting home and I was sort of carrying
Speaker 1: my bags in, as I was walking up the stairs
Speaker 1: to the house, I suddenly felt this second sort of gush,
Speaker 1: much bigger than the first. And then I just thought, oh,
Speaker 1: that's really weird. But still, I because it was so
Speaker 1: early on in the pregnancy, it wasn't. I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was my water's breaking because I didn't really think
Speaker 1: that that happened twenty one weeks into your pregnancy.
Speaker 2: So I just read last week we've been pregnancies anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just thought it was something weird, you know it.
Speaker 1: So I wasn't too worried. And I rang in the
Speaker 1: hospital and they said, they'll just come up and we'll
Speaker 1: we'll check you out. So Ash was at work. I
Speaker 1: don't think at that stage. Maybe I gave him a
Speaker 1: call and said, oh, don't worry, I'm just off to
Speaker 1: the hospital that's checking me out. And I got to
Speaker 1: the hospital and they said, okay, we'll just test. By
Speaker 1: this stage, there was more. There was actually more when
Speaker 1: I was starting to think, what the hell is going on.
Speaker 1: And then they said, we're just going to test see
Speaker 1: what this is. And then they came back and I
Speaker 1: remember the doctor coming in and taking my hands. I
Speaker 1: was on my own still because I hadn't called Ash up.
Speaker 1: He took my hand and he looked me in the
Speaker 1: eyes and he said, we've just confirmed that that is
Speaker 1: amniotic fluid. And this means that you will go into
Speaker 1: labor within the next twenty four hours and at twenty
Speaker 1: one week's gestation, nothing can be done to save your babies.
Speaker 1: They will all die.
Speaker 2: And you were on your own.
Speaker 1: I was on my own, and honestly, I can't even
Speaker 1: I mean, there aren't even the words to describe the horror,
Speaker 1: the absolute horror. I remember when I was pregnant a
Speaker 1: few weeks earlier, Ash had, as a surprise, had signed
Speaker 1: me up to this magazine from America called The Triplet Connection,
Speaker 1: and it was some triplet family magazine of triplet families,
Speaker 1: and anyway, this thing had arrived in the post and
Speaker 1: I'd ripped it open. I was so excited. I'm reading
Speaker 1: about all these lovely triplet families. And then I got
Speaker 1: to this page in the magazine and it said in
Speaker 1: memory and There was a page where I was reading
Speaker 1: about people who's who were pregnant with triplets and their
Speaker 1: babies had died. And I sat there as I was
Speaker 1: reading this page, and I wept for these women somewhere
Speaker 1: in America who had lost whose babies had been born
Speaker 1: prematurely and they had died. And not for one second
Speaker 1: had I thought, did I think at that stage, Oh,
Speaker 1: I hope that doesn't happen to me. It was just
Speaker 1: somebody else's tragedy. And there was one story where I
Speaker 1: read that somebody had had their three babies and one
Speaker 1: had died at birth, one had died a few days later,
Speaker 1: and one had died a few days after that. And
Speaker 1: I cried so many tears for this woman, and I
Speaker 1: remember thinking, how did she survive?
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't survive if any you know, I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't survive that. But I wasn't then scared for myself,
Speaker 1: because that was just somebody else's story. In my story.
Speaker 1: I was pregnant, I was fit, I was healthy, I
Speaker 1: was you know, I was so proud about being pregnant
Speaker 1: with triplets. And I was off doing you know, I
Speaker 1: was working, and I was going to the supermarket, and
Speaker 1: I was doing my thing, and in my mind, naive,
Speaker 1: call me naive. I just thought, you know, I knew
Speaker 1: that the babies would be born prematurely. I've been worn.
Speaker 1: You know, you're having triplets born early. I thought that
Speaker 1: just meant, you know, maybe five or six weeks early.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'd have to spend a couple of weeks in
Speaker 1: hospitals to fatten up. But this, you know, I never
Speaker 1: considered that this was going to happen to me. And
Speaker 1: so when I was told suddenly, it was like being
Speaker 1: hit by a truck. I was suddenly told, your babies
Speaker 1: are going to die. And I could I just remember.
Speaker 1: I remember the doctor leaving the room, and I was
Speaker 1: on my own in just I mean, it was I
Speaker 1: can't even there aren't even anyways to describe. And I
Speaker 1: rang ash and said you have to come quickly. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they told us, you know, twenty four hours the babies
Speaker 1: are coming. And then that didn't actually happen, and so
Speaker 1: we were kept in that thinking the livery suitet and
Speaker 1: or maybe we were taken to the antenata ward. But anyway,
Speaker 1: they took us to some water, some bed somewhere and
Speaker 1: said okay, you know, you'll start to have contractions at
Speaker 1: some stage. Anyway, that day came and went, and the
Speaker 1: next day came and went, and by this stage that
Speaker 1: had stopped leaking as well. There was no more water
Speaker 1: coming out, and so they took me for a scan
Speaker 1: and that was also I remember. We went for this scan,
Speaker 1: you know, in the department of the hospital, and there
Speaker 1: they were the three little babies on the screen of
Speaker 1: the scan and you could see them. They each had
Speaker 1: their own sack. They weren't identified, so they each had
Speaker 1: which meant they were less complicated. It was less less
Speaker 1: of a complicated pregnancy because the each had their own placenta,
Speaker 1: they each had their own sack. And there they were,
Speaker 1: these three little sweet little things kicking about in their sacks.
Speaker 1: And even Henry. We didn't Henry whose waters had broken.
Speaker 1: He had somehow, I don't know, his bottom or his
Speaker 1: foot or something. It seemed to have plugged the hole.
Speaker 1: And so there was still a little bit of water
Speaker 1: in his sack. And they told me that water is
Speaker 1: actually it will replenish because it's actually the baby's wi
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not a very logical way to put it,
Speaker 1: but the baby weeze and that's what the water is
Speaker 1: inside the sack. And I remember asking the doctor are saying, look,
Speaker 1: look at them, they're fine. They're all fine, Like, so
Speaker 1: does this mean does this mean they're all going to
Speaker 1: be okay? And the doctor looked in and looked really
Speaker 1: grim and he said, well, there's probably like a one
Speaker 1: percent chance that they'll all be that, you know, you're
Speaker 1: going to remain pregnant. And I think he thought I
Speaker 1: was mad because for the last two days we were
Speaker 1: told you are going to deliver these babies, they are
Speaker 1: going to die. And suddenly somebody was telling me there
Speaker 1: was one chance they were all going to be fine.
Speaker 2: Right, so you had one percent more than you had before.
Speaker 1: We've got one percent. I'll take one percent. One percent.
Speaker 1: That's great, you know, yeah, let's let's do it. We'll
Speaker 1: be the one percent, thank you very much. And so
Speaker 1: so I just clung to that, you know that that
Speaker 1: But but that didn't happen, and five days later, my
Speaker 1: contraction started and we were wheeled back down to the
Speaker 1: delivery suite and Henry was born.
Speaker 2: Little Henry, yeah, tiny, little Henry.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He was how heavy when he was born?
Speaker 1: He was four hundred and fifty grams.
Speaker 2: He was a.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was born alive. And I was in
Speaker 1: great distress just before his birth. But Ash, he was
Speaker 1: just so wonderful because when Henry was born, Ash said
Speaker 1: to me, he's he's a like we didn't. We were
Speaker 1: told that they probably he probably wouldn't be born alive,
Speaker 1: he probably wouldn't survive the birth, and Ash said, he's alive.
Speaker 1: He actually even gave a tiny, tiny cry, like the
Speaker 1: tiniest little little squeak, and they put him up on
Speaker 1: my chest and Ash said, we have to give him
Speaker 1: a good life.
Speaker 2: And even though he knew that that life was going
Speaker 2: to be very short.
Speaker 1: So I'm so grateful for Ash for saying that, because
Speaker 1: when he said we have to give him a good life,
Speaker 1: I suddenly realized, you know, he's here with us now,
Speaker 1: this is his life. And we had one hour with him,
Speaker 1: one hour before he died, and in that hour I
Speaker 1: even and looking back actually over the lives of my
Speaker 1: three boys, I do feel like Henry's life was the
Speaker 1: best life. He had the most all he spent his
Speaker 1: whole life in my arms, and all he knew was love.
Speaker 1: And we spent the hour talking to him and telling
Speaker 1: him how loved he was. I remember Ash holding me
Speaker 1: as I was holding Henry, and Ash said, I can't
Speaker 1: believe how much I love him.
Speaker 2: And yeah, when when you gave birth to Henry, was
Speaker 2: that they did a cesarean? No, it was natural. I
Speaker 2: understand that the physiology of health. Yeah, works for you
Speaker 2: or for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I gave birth to Henry. I actually didn't
Speaker 1: even know. I don't know if it's too much information
Speaker 1: for your listeners, but I didn't even really know that
Speaker 1: he was so close to being born. I'd been in
Speaker 1: labor for hours, but I didn't know. And I actually
Speaker 1: thought that I needed to do a pooh when I
Speaker 1: went to the loo, and he was actually born when
Speaker 1: I was on the loo, and it was it was
Speaker 1: a horrible shock. But what happened was I gave birth
Speaker 1: to Henry, but my body did not birth his placenta right,
Speaker 1: and because his placenta hadn't, my labor stopped. Because after
Speaker 1: Henry was born, I was told, oh, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: just keep you here because obviously there's more babies coming.
Speaker 1: And then the labor just stopped, and so they moved
Speaker 1: him back to Anti NATO at that stage and just said, look,
Speaker 1: we just got to wait. But at that stage it
Speaker 1: was twenty one and a half weeks, and back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, babies born before twenty four weeks
Speaker 1: were not viable. Not viable, yes, exactly, and so we
Speaker 1: were told, it's very unlikely that your body is going
Speaker 1: to hold on to your other two babies for another
Speaker 1: three and a half two and a half weeks, but
Speaker 1: we'll just it's just await. Then we just wait and see.
Speaker 1: And then I don't think anyone thought we would make
Speaker 1: it twenty four weeks. And then every day that passed,
Speaker 1: Ash and I sort of, you know, had our hopes grew.
Speaker 1: I was very high risk of getting an infection, and
Speaker 1: they told me if I had any sign of infection,
Speaker 1: they would just induced me because that would be dangerous
Speaker 1: of my life. And so the next two and a
Speaker 1: half weeks I just lay in bed rest on bed
Speaker 1: rest in hospital and I did not want to move.
Speaker 1: I remember, you know, even that I had to get
Speaker 1: up to go to the loo, and I was asking
Speaker 1: the please, can't you just give me a catheter or something.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get up to go to the loo,
Speaker 1: and they said, no, that's a infection risk. We can't
Speaker 1: do that. You're fine to go to the loo. But then,
Speaker 1: you know, as I remember, as the days passed, the
Speaker 1: nurses were encouraging me to go in the wheelchair and
Speaker 1: just going go outside and get some fresh air, and
Speaker 1: I said, no, thanks, I don't want to go anywhere.
Speaker 1: I don't want to I'm going to wait. I can't.
Speaker 1: I just have to make it to twenty four weeks.
Speaker 2: You were straddling too world scene because you'd had that
Speaker 2: heartbreaking loss, the one hour with Henry, with darling little Henry,
Speaker 2: who is on the cover of your book, exactly.
Speaker 1: That it is. I'm so I'm so happy that Henry,
Speaker 1: that that photo was able to be on the cover
Speaker 1: of my book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yet as a mother, the rest of every
Speaker 2: ounce of your energy was going towards growing the two
Speaker 2: boys that were still inside you and getting them to
Speaker 2: that twenty four week period, which you did. Yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Had to be after Henry. We kept Henry with us
Speaker 1: for about two days I think, and then we had
Speaker 1: to say goodbye, which was really hard. But I remember
Speaker 1: thinking that the most important thing now was I've had
Speaker 1: to I had to keep had to look after Evan
Speaker 1: and Jasper, and I had to remain as calm as
Speaker 1: possible because I thought that if I was very distressed,
Speaker 1: I might, you know, even spike a fever and then
Speaker 1: they think I had an infection, then they'd be inducing.
Speaker 1: So I didn't want to even I didn't want to
Speaker 1: even be sad, because I just and I wanted to
Speaker 1: just be calm. And Ash was amazing. He did not
Speaker 1: leave the hospital. There was no bed for him, and
Speaker 1: he slept on the floor next to my bed for
Speaker 1: three weeks. He never even didn't ever leave the hospital
Speaker 1: because he also knew that if anything was to happen,
Speaker 1: he didn't want to miss, you know, the birth of
Speaker 1: his children. And he knew that I needed him, so
Speaker 1: he stayed with me, and actually we got into a
Speaker 1: little rhythm and we used to he used to read
Speaker 1: to me, and we'd play scrabble and we'd we'd just
Speaker 1: you know, hope and we and I think as we
Speaker 1: got closer to twenty four weeks, that was a scary
Speaker 1: time because I'd had a conversation with the neonatologists from
Speaker 1: the Naracy Attensive Care unit and they told me, you
Speaker 1: have to be twenty four weeks before we can consider
Speaker 1: you know, saving your babies. And as when I got
Speaker 1: to twenty three weeks, I was really scared because I
Speaker 1: kept thinking was so close, were so close if anything
Speaker 1: goes wrong before I'm twenty four weeks, you know, were
Speaker 1: going from zero, you know, no chance of survival to
Speaker 1: twenty four weeks. They had told me that if I was,
Speaker 1: if my babies were born at twenty four weeks, they'd
Speaker 1: be a fifty percent chance of survival. Well, we made
Speaker 1: it to twenty four weeks, and on that day, we
Speaker 1: we just were so relieved. We were just like, yes,
Speaker 1: we're here. We've been twenty four weeks, so they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: then we're in here for the long haul. Will stay
Speaker 1: on beddress for another sixteen weeks, my babies can come
Speaker 1: on time. You know they're going to be fine, and
Speaker 1: that Henry will always be I remember saying to Ash,
Speaker 1: We're always going to call them triplets ever than Jasper
Speaker 1: are always going to be triplets, and they will know
Speaker 1: that about their brother Henry, and Henry will always be
Speaker 1: a part of our our our family.
Speaker 2: And almost in a way, did you think that Henry
Speaker 2: had maybe sacrificed himself exactly?
Speaker 1: I thought that you know, that's exactly right, that Henry
Speaker 1: had had had come so that Jasper and Evan could live,
Speaker 1: and you know, and I could tell them in years
Speaker 1: to come about their incredible brother Henry and what a
Speaker 1: you know, what a beautiful little boy he was, and
Speaker 1: how much he was loved and wanted. Actually, what happened
Speaker 1: next is interesting. You say that that in talk about
Speaker 1: sacrificing himself, I actually think that Evan. I feel that
Speaker 1: about Evan as well, right number two years, because my
Speaker 1: waters actually ended up breaking on the very day we
Speaker 1: turned twenty four weeks, which at the time I thought
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how lucky we were. There had been
Speaker 1: twenty four you know, here we were officially at twenty
Speaker 1: four weeks. It was a huge disappointment, of course, and
Speaker 1: who's shock moment waters broke again, because we knew that
Speaker 1: every day beyond twenty four weeks was going to increase
Speaker 1: their chances of survival. But I also knew that this
Speaker 1: could have been yesterday, in which case my babies would
Speaker 1: have no chance. And so my waters broke. We were
Speaker 1: but we've been in hospital by this stage for what
Speaker 1: three weeks, And when after my waters had broken, there
Speaker 1: was Suddenly a whole flurry of sort of toing and
Speaker 1: throwing from the doctors and stuff.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: Then a doctor came over and said, okay, we're just
Speaker 1: organizing an ambulance for you because there aren't any beds
Speaker 1: available in the neonatal intensive care unit here at the
Speaker 1: Royal Hospital for Women, and we've called around all the
Speaker 1: hospitals in Sydney and there's a critical shortage of neonatal
Speaker 1: intensive care beds tonight. So we're going to have to
Speaker 1: take you up to Newcastle and your babies will be
Speaker 1: cared for up there, and they've got a wonderful hospital
Speaker 1: up there. So we were like, oh, all right, this
Speaker 1: doesn't sound ideal, but okay, let's get going then. And
Speaker 1: then an hour or so passed and I started to
Speaker 1: get quite anxious and say, what are we waiting for?
Speaker 1: You know, my babies might be delivered en route. That's
Speaker 1: going to be no good. Can we go now please?
Speaker 1: And then they said, oh, we're really so sorry. There's
Speaker 1: another plan. See, Newcastle doesn't have any beds available, so
Speaker 1: we're going to deliver your babies here in Sydney, will
Speaker 1: airlift them to Brisbane or Melbourne. And then they said
Speaker 1: we just have to warn you that there is a
Speaker 1: possibility that we might have to take one to Brisbane
Speaker 1: and one to Helven. And that was just, you know,
Speaker 1: like a terrible moment because I suddenly thought, but we've
Speaker 1: just achieved the impossible here, We've just made it to
Speaker 1: twenty four weeks. We've just done the hard bit. What's
Speaker 1: happening now? How can I Anyway? Luckily, thankfully my labor,
Speaker 1: my waters had broken, but my labor didn't progress against no,
Speaker 1: because the boys, the.
Speaker 2: Boys were on your side. We've got on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it was actually I think three days later.
Speaker 1: By that stage, I mean, they were amazing at the hospital.
Speaker 1: And by that stage one of the inetologists had come
Speaker 1: up to see me and he had said, I want
Speaker 1: to let you know, we have two beds available at
Speaker 1: the role here in the nicqu We're saving them for
Speaker 1: your babies. Nobody is going to use those beds and
Speaker 1: we're going to keep them for you. So whenever your
Speaker 1: babies are born, that's where they'll be. So that was
Speaker 1: a big relief. And then but the next day, yeah,
Speaker 1: there was I had to have an emergency sitch as
Speaker 1: zesarean because it was Jasper whose waters had broken the
Speaker 1: second time, and it was something called I've never heard
Speaker 1: of this before. It's called the footling breach. Have you
Speaker 1: ever heard of that. That's when the leg So Jasper's
Speaker 1: waters had broken and his leg had come out of
Speaker 1: his sack and his leg was stuck, so his leg
Speaker 1: was coming out, but the rest of him was inside,
Speaker 1: and that's very dangerous. So they said, okay, we've got
Speaker 1: a problem here. We need to give you an emergency
Speaker 1: Caesar and get these babies out. And the reason why
Speaker 1: I said Evan was I felt like Evan had sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, sacrifice given to sacrifice himself. Is that Evan
Speaker 1: was born intact in his sack. So Evan could have stayed,
Speaker 1: but for Jasper to give Jasper a chance, Evan had
Speaker 1: to be born too. And so Evan and Jasper were born,
Speaker 1: and their birth went really well, and they handled the
Speaker 1: birth really well, and they were whisked off to the NICKU.
Speaker 1: I it was as complicated cesarean, and there was a
Speaker 1: few complications, so I had to be taken to the
Speaker 1: critical care and I was a bit out of it
Speaker 1: for a couple of days. Ash was able to go
Speaker 1: down and see the babies in the nicque, and then
Speaker 1: he came back to me and he just said, oh,
Speaker 1: he came back saw me. I hadn't met them. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I think it was two days before I get Scott's
Speaker 1: sort to see them, and Ash came back just saying, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, they are so perfect. They're the perfect little babies.
Speaker 1: I've never seen such beautiful babies. And of course, you
Speaker 1: know they actually they were extremely premature. You know, they
Speaker 1: had even their skin hadn't finished developing. Their eyes were
Speaker 1: sealed shut, they were you know, their lungs, their brains,
Speaker 1: at their hearts, everything was underdeveloped. And they they were
Speaker 1: looked after in the nic queue, and I remember somebody
Speaker 1: saying that if they got could get through the first
Speaker 1: four days without any complications, and their chances of survival
Speaker 1: significantly rise. And four days later, everything was going so
Speaker 1: well and they were taking my breast milk through a
Speaker 1: tube straight into their drop. They were literally given one
Speaker 1: drop at a time.
Speaker 2: Or something that's yeah, your colostrum.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so that was really you know, I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to touch them at all, but at this stage
Speaker 1: and for me, it was really it was an amazing
Speaker 1: thing that I was able to produce this colostrum and
Speaker 1: then some milk that was all being frozen for them
Speaker 1: and given to them drop by drop, And I could
Speaker 1: feel like I was doing something as their mum because
Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything. I wasn't even allowed to touch them.
Speaker 2: How is that when you're looking at your little your
Speaker 2: tiny little skun rabbits in humid crebs and you can't
Speaker 2: you can't touch them, how is that? Oh?
Speaker 1: I just wanted to rip them out and hold them
Speaker 1: to my chest, and you know, but I also knew
Speaker 1: that they were in the very best care, and I
Speaker 1: knew that that holding I al. I wanted to just
Speaker 1: wanted to hold them, but I also knew that that
Speaker 1: was going to be for me and not for them
Speaker 1: at this stage. And even when I was finally allowed
Speaker 1: to hold Jasper, which was a couple of weeks later,
Speaker 1: actually after after Evan had passed away, But I remember
Speaker 1: when they offered for me to hold Jasper, and I
Speaker 1: actually was. I was scared that it wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be It would hurt him, you know, he and I
Speaker 1: would rather wait, you know, I would rather wait until
Speaker 1: it was nice for him to be held too. But
Speaker 1: we got very used to just sitting by their beds
Speaker 1: and we would, you know, talk to them and at
Speaker 1: this stage their eyes hadn't opened, so they were just
Speaker 1: in their humidity crib. But yeah, it was We had
Speaker 1: a really good week.
Speaker 2: And then things went awry for Evan. Was it his lungs, No.
Speaker 1: It wasn't his lungs, it was his brain. So well,
Speaker 1: he first of all, seven days old, he just became
Speaker 1: really ill and the doctors were very worried. And actually
Speaker 1: it was the day that I was let home from
Speaker 1: hospital after seven days. They said to me, okay, time
Speaker 1: for you to go home, and I didn't want to go,
Speaker 1: and they luckily we lived. We were lucky we lived
Speaker 1: near the hospital. But we went home and that night,
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, the phone rang and
Speaker 1: they said come back quick, and so we went in
Speaker 1: and Evan was really ill and it turned out that
Speaker 1: he had a he had a very severe brain hemorrhage,
Speaker 1: which is which is very common in premature babies. And
Speaker 1: so at ten days old, they told us that his
Speaker 1: brain hemorrhage was so severe that their advice was that
Speaker 1: we should turn off his life support and let him
Speaker 1: let him go. And so that was the first time
Speaker 1: that I held Evan was when we took him out
Speaker 1: of his of his humidity crib, and I held him
Speaker 1: as they as he passed away.
Speaker 2: So that was the decision that you had to make.
Speaker 2: That decision was left to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it do you know. It's something that I have
Speaker 1: struggled with. I struggled with for a long time because
Speaker 1: I wanted my boys to be here and I didn't
Speaker 1: even even actually at their birth. At twenty four weeks,
Speaker 1: we were asked, would you like us to resuscitate your
Speaker 1: babies because at this early gestation we don't have to.
Speaker 1: We can, you know, you might choose it might be
Speaker 1: fairer to let them go. And I remember asking the
Speaker 1: doctors about disabilities and saying, I, I you know, please
Speaker 1: do everything you can to save my babies. Whatever disabilities
Speaker 1: they end up having, we will deal with. We will
Speaker 1: give these boys a great life, we'll care for them.
Speaker 1: We don't you know, if there are disabilities as a
Speaker 1: result of their prematurity. Whilst that's just you know, that's
Speaker 1: just what we'll deal with. That, that's fine, that's okay.
Speaker 1: But at this stage the doctors were saying, this is
Speaker 1: beyond that, this is severe.
Speaker 2: I'll be back with Sophie after this short break. It
Speaker 2: was a template of both you and Ash that even
Speaker 2: when you were found to be having a multiple pregnancy,
Speaker 2: that you were offered the option of selectively. I don't
Speaker 2: know what the term is, but toy.
Speaker 1: They call it a reduction, which they advise with a
Speaker 1: multiple the higher order multiple birth, which is anything three
Speaker 1: or over that you reduce. But to us, and I've
Speaker 1: never regretted my decision not to we there was no
Speaker 1: that was just not a possibility for us. Well, these
Speaker 1: three babies were, you know, everything to us, and I've
Speaker 1: never actually never regretted that.
Speaker 2: So you've got little Evan now you're holding him for
Speaker 2: the first.
Speaker 1: Time, and I wish I could say that I gave
Speaker 1: him a good stend off like we did with Henry.
Speaker 1: But poor little Evan, it was very I've always felt
Speaker 1: guilty about that as well, that I was in such.
Speaker 2: Distress and Evan was said, which it's always the fate
Speaker 2: of the middle child.
Speaker 1: I always to actually think of Evan. I always think, oh,
Speaker 1: little Evan was a real middle child because he didn't
Speaker 1: get his special time. You know, he came and went
Speaker 1: in the middle of it all in this blur of
Speaker 1: ten days. When after Evan died, I actually never saw
Speaker 1: I didn't have any special time with him. We never
Speaker 1: saw him again, whereas with Henry, we spent two days
Speaker 1: with him after he passed, and I I was obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, throwing everything into Jasper as well. So Evan's
Speaker 1: passing was very well. Obviously they're all really sad, but
Speaker 1: I feel great sadness over Evan. But after ever, after
Speaker 1: Evan died the next day, we came back into the
Speaker 1: hospital and there was just and I have to say
Speaker 1: that when Evan was sick for three days before he passed,
Speaker 1: little Jasper was doing brilliantly. And again I was so
Speaker 1: happy that, you know, Jasper gave us that time. With that,
Speaker 1: we didn't take any attention away at that stage. We
Speaker 1: sort of ignored him for three days and spent you know,
Speaker 1: looked after we're worrying about Evan, and then Jasper did brilliantly.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, even after Evan died, I
Speaker 1: one hundred percent believed that Jasper would be fine. M
Speaker 1: Jasper was strong. Jasper was the biggest as well, and
Speaker 1: he was not thing was wrong with Jasper. His his
Speaker 1: heart was perfect, his brain was perfect, his his his
Speaker 1: guts were doing, you know, taking he was taking my
Speaker 1: milk and all the digestion was all fine. He was
Speaker 1: poing and we we were changing his nappy and there
Speaker 1: was nothing sweeter than like changing going, oh, just.
Speaker 2: Ha's done a poo.
Speaker 1: We can change his nappy because after Evan died, I
Speaker 1: was able to then because Jasper was stronger. We were
Speaker 1: we weren't able to hold him, but we were able
Speaker 1: to to do the care. So the changes. He wash
Speaker 1: his face, and.
Speaker 2: He and cradle his heat and his little his tiny
Speaker 2: little toes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, there were times when it was
Speaker 1: amazing because we felt like he really knew us. And
Speaker 1: there were times when things were going badly or you know,
Speaker 1: the doctors be worried because all his numbers would have
Speaker 1: crashed and they were fiddling around trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, change things in his in his treatment,
Speaker 1: and everyone be worried because the numbers were wrong. And
Speaker 1: then one day Ash just putting his hand in to
Speaker 1: the humid crib as they were dealing with him, and
Speaker 1: just just stroked his head. And as he stroked his head,
Speaker 1: we all looked at the numbers and saw them all
Speaker 1: even out and his heart rate came back to normal
Speaker 1: and it was like he really you know, that was
Speaker 1: actually helping him. So we used to Yeah, we were
Speaker 1: there and did what we could, even like the first
Speaker 1: hold was within his humidity crib through the windows. The
Speaker 1: nurse said, look, I've just got to change his sheets.
Speaker 1: Just put your hands in and just hold him. So
Speaker 1: I literally was hard on him like this, a little
Speaker 1: bit up just as they were changing his sheets, and
Speaker 1: it was just so wonderful to feel his weight and around.
Speaker 1: Oh he was so he was such a sweet little boy.
Speaker 1: He was so sweet and he had such spirit. You know.
Speaker 1: He opened his eyes two days after Evan died. We
Speaker 1: were in and we were sitting by his crib and
Speaker 1: he had his little face down and then he moved
Speaker 1: his or I think the nurse moved his head, and
Speaker 1: suddenly we saw this big, black, beady eye wide open,
Speaker 1: and both Ash and I went on. I remember as
Speaker 1: saying hello, darling, just and we felt like we could
Speaker 1: connect with him on a whole new level once his
Speaker 1: eyes opened, and then he got to you know, we
Speaker 1: felt like he could even hear our, he could recognize
Speaker 1: our voice, and he'd try and move his head to
Speaker 1: see us, and he'd look at us with any had
Speaker 1: these amazing expressions on his face like he was this
Speaker 1: real little boy that was, you know, trying so hard,
Speaker 1: and and he did really well. He doubled his birth weight,
Speaker 1: doubled his birthway. He was quite you know, comparatively a
Speaker 1: big boy after fifty eight days.
Speaker 2: And then after fifty eight days, he was the one
Speaker 2: who had lung Yeah.
Speaker 1: His lungs. He had a really good few weeks where
Speaker 1: they were able to take him off the ventilator probably
Speaker 1: for a week. And in that time we were allowed
Speaker 1: to take him out of his crib hamidia crib and
Speaker 1: actually hold him, which was just incredible.
Speaker 2: How was that.
Speaker 1: It was? Yeah, it was just it was amazing. And
Speaker 1: when I there was one time, the only time I
Speaker 1: was allowed skin to skin. The other times he was
Speaker 1: all wrapped up with blankets and tubes and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it. But one time they said, okay, we'll
Speaker 1: do skin to skin where they just place him on
Speaker 1: my chest like this. Now he was fed through a
Speaker 1: tube into his stomach. He didn't have you know, he
Speaker 1: wasn't actually taking milk and he had it was I
Speaker 1: don't think he was intubated at that stage. But anyway,
Speaker 1: they put him on my chest and I couldn't believe
Speaker 1: it because I put him sort of on my boot,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't meaning to like feed him, and he
Speaker 1: actually latched on to my nipple and he took one
Speaker 1: little suck and then he fell fast asleep, and it
Speaker 1: was just such an amazing moment to think, oh, that
Speaker 1: he even knows to do that and and that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that we had some really special special times with
Speaker 1: Jasper and even you know, when he hit one kilo
Speaker 1: in weight and Ash bought a kilo of chocolate and
Speaker 1: brought it in and shared it around with all the
Speaker 1: nurses to celebrate, and we had you know, the West
Speaker 1: Ash was a big West Coast Eagles AFL supporter, and
Speaker 1: it was the it was the Grand Final and it
Speaker 1: was the Eagles versus the Swans that year and the
Speaker 1: Eagles won and Ash came into the hospital with all
Speaker 1: his Eagles dcorated, decorated the Humidi crew and all the
Speaker 1: nurses were joking about this being absolutely terrible. So we
Speaker 1: had this, you know, we had some really you know,
Speaker 1: some good times within the but then just started to
Speaker 1: struggle with his lungs, and there were many difficult There
Speaker 1: were many times when we were called back to the
Speaker 1: hospital in the middle of the night in a you know,
Speaker 1: we would get that awful phone call where the phone
Speaker 1: would ring in the middle of the night and they
Speaker 1: would just say come quickly, and we would literally we
Speaker 1: wouldn't even say a word to each other. We would
Speaker 1: be from a being fast asleep to being in the
Speaker 1: carnt within a minute. We just and then getting to
Speaker 1: the hospital and rushing in and trying to you know,
Speaker 1: waiting for the lift and rushing in and not knowing
Speaker 1: what we were going to be met with when we
Speaker 1: got there. And there were so many times when he
Speaker 1: would get in and they'd say, oh, we we're not sure.
Speaker 1: We think this this be it, and then Jasper would
Speaker 1: rarely saying that I'm not going you know, I'm still here.
Speaker 2: And along the way, the narrative that you and Ash
Speaker 2: had very much with each other was one day, this
Speaker 2: will be a great story to tell our boy, the
Speaker 2: boy who lived what he did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we thought, we'll always tell him about the time that,
Speaker 1: you know, the times we had to rush in and
Speaker 1: and we thought that that he was going to die.
Speaker 1: And then he he didn't. He proved everybody wrong and
Speaker 1: there he was. And so this happened probably three or
Speaker 1: four times. And then when he was fifty eight days
Speaker 1: old and was always his lungs. It was always his lungs,
Speaker 1: and he suffered from chronic lung disease, again a very
Speaker 1: common common thing for premature babies, and the ventilators weren't able,
Speaker 1: were actually damaging his lungs. They weren't able to support
Speaker 1: him and.
Speaker 2: Because they were too strong, is the strivees.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when he was fifty eight days old, we've
Speaker 1: received in our court another call. It was early in
Speaker 1: the morning, and we went rushing in and and I
Speaker 1: remember going in and the team was so amazing at
Speaker 1: the hospital. But I do remember seeing one of the
Speaker 1: doctors working on Jasper and I saw a tear roll
Speaker 1: down her face and and I thought, this is anyway again.
Speaker 1: I just thought, you know, he's going to right up
Speaker 1: until the last moment, I held out hope until there
Speaker 1: wasnte And in the end they said there's nothing more
Speaker 1: we can do. You know, would you like us to
Speaker 1: you know, would you like to hold him? And the
Speaker 1: most amazing thing was that when we got into the
Speaker 1: hospital that day he was knocked out. He was fast
Speaker 1: asleep because they'd knocked him out with something, because they
Speaker 1: were having to do things to him that were going
Speaker 1: to hurt, and so they you know, they knocked him out.
Speaker 1: And I was so as I was holding him, and
Speaker 1: this is like such a busy like afterwards, I had
Speaker 1: to ask Ash, is this really? Did this really happen?
Speaker 1: Why am I making this up? But this really happened.
Speaker 1: I was holding him and I was thinking, oh, I
Speaker 1: think I was even saying, I'm sorry. I wasn't here
Speaker 1: for you. I wasn't here for you. And I was
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, the poor little boy. The last people
Speaker 1: he saw with the staff, you know, the doctors and
Speaker 1: nurses obviously and wonderful people, but it should have been
Speaker 1: his mum, and he would have been scared. And I
Speaker 1: wasn't here for him. And I was holding him and thinking,
Speaker 1: I wish that you know, I'm so sorry. And as
Speaker 1: I was holding him, I looked down. His eyes were closed.
Speaker 1: I looked down and he opened his eyes and he
Speaker 1: looked in my eyes and he closed his eyes. And
Speaker 1: at that moment, Ash was looking away, looking at his
Speaker 1: at the machines that he was still hooked up to
Speaker 1: look at his numbers, and I said, Ash, he's opened
Speaker 1: his eyes. He looked at me. He looked at me,
Speaker 1: and then I actually even questioned myself because Ash looked
Speaker 1: back and there he was with his eyes closed again,
Speaker 1: and I thought, maybe I'm making this up. And he
Speaker 1: did it again. He opened his eyes and a saw
Speaker 1: and then he closed his eyes and he died.
Speaker 2: A side. So you've had you're three little ones taken
Speaker 2: from you. How do you? How do you go home
Speaker 2: from there? How is going home? What is home?
Speaker 1: We spent the day and the night at the hospital,
Speaker 1: and we spent the night in a room which is
Speaker 1: a room which I was really looking forward. It's a
Speaker 1: room where you stay with your baby or your babies
Speaker 1: the night before you go home, so you can have
Speaker 1: a night to practice being on your own with your baby,
Speaker 1: because after your baby's been in the hospital for a
Speaker 1: long time, it's scary to take your baby home, you know,
Speaker 1: from suddenly going from other people caring for your sick
Speaker 1: baby to you caring for your very fragile baby. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I remember this room and I thought to myself, I
Speaker 1: wanted to spend Christmas in that room because by this stage.
Speaker 1: It was October sixteenth of October that Jasper died, and
Speaker 1: I worked out his due date was on the tenth
Speaker 1: of December, and I was thinking, oh, I wonder if
Speaker 1: we can spend Christmas in the room before we come out,
Speaker 1: or you know, it's Christmas Eve, and kept bring him
Speaker 1: home for Christmas. Anyway, they let us stay in that
Speaker 1: room with Jasper that night, and that was actually a
Speaker 1: very very beautiful time that we had with him. But
Speaker 1: going home after that was very hard because Ash had
Speaker 1: to go back to work. He was already back at work.
Speaker 1: Actually he went back to work after Evan and Jasper
Speaker 1: were born, and he used to come into the hospital
Speaker 1: before work and after work, and then I would spend
Speaker 1: all day at the hospital. And so going home, I
Speaker 1: mean once, you know, I was busy organizing Jasper's funeral.
Speaker 1: We'd had a funeral for Evan and Henry together, and
Speaker 1: then we'd had a funeral for Jasper. So I was
Speaker 1: busy organizing Justper's funeral. And so that was good because
Speaker 1: I had a lot to do and I wanted to
Speaker 1: give him a beautiful funeral. And then and then it
Speaker 1: was as the weeks passed and I was on maternity
Speaker 1: leave and sitting at home in this house that was
Speaker 1: like definitely quiet. And I remember we still had the buggy,
Speaker 1: the triplet buggy, sitting in the hallway, and we had
Speaker 1: a cot that we'd already set up in the spare room.
Speaker 1: We had two bedrooms. The spare room was going to
Speaker 1: be the baby's room, and we'd heard that you could
Speaker 1: put triplets in the same cot for the first few months,
Speaker 1: set up a cop. So there was a cot and
Speaker 1: there was a buggy. And I used to do something
Speaker 1: which was really like weird sometimes when I was at
Speaker 1: home and it was quiet, because it was just I
Speaker 1: used to actually pretend makes me sound really odd. I
Speaker 1: used to pretend sometimes I'd sit down on the sofa
Speaker 1: with a cup of tea and I'd listen to the silence,
Speaker 1: and I actually would pretend that Henry, Jasper and Evan
Speaker 1: had just fallen asleep in the cot next door, and
Speaker 1: I was finally going to get just a few moments
Speaker 1: of peace before they woke up.
Speaker 2: And that's why it was so quiet, And.
Speaker 1: That's why it was so quiet, an oh, a bit
Speaker 1: of silence. It was such a sort of mad thing.
Speaker 1: And then and then I would realize. Obviously I knew
Speaker 1: I was just pretending. And then I'd kind of realize,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that I was never going to
Speaker 1: know the exhaustion of looking after three babies. I was
Speaker 1: never going to hear three babies screaming for a feed.
Speaker 1: I was never going to know the challenges of I
Speaker 1: was never going to take them for a walk around
Speaker 1: the park. And and and I knew that I couldn't
Speaker 1: keep pretending, and that I couldn't change what had happened.
Speaker 1: There was nothing in my power to change what had happened,
Speaker 1: but there was everything in my power to decide what
Speaker 1: to do next. And that was a turning point.
Speaker 2: And how did that turning point come? Well?
Speaker 1: Ash, I didn't know how, but Ash and I would
Speaker 1: talk about them all the time we talked about Ash
Speaker 1: was amazing. He held every day we spoke and every
Speaker 1: day forever, Ash, the last thing he would say to
Speaker 1: me at night was Henry Jasper and ever he would
Speaker 1: always the last the last thing he'd say to me
Speaker 1: before we went to sleep was he would speak their names.
Speaker 1: And so he was amazing, and he helped support me.
Speaker 1: Obviously he was grieving, but he was an incredible support
Speaker 1: for me, and we were always talked about the fact
Speaker 1: that we were still Henry, Jasper and Evans parents. They
Speaker 1: had gone, but that didn't change the fact that we
Speaker 1: were here and we were their parents, and we would
Speaker 1: always be their parents. And so I felt I had
Speaker 1: a job to do to ensure their lives mattered, and
Speaker 1: that's I wanted to find a way to make their lives,
Speaker 1: to bring something good from them. And Ash one day said,
Speaker 1: I've had an idea. What about let's run a half
Speaker 1: marathon and let's raise a bit of money for the
Speaker 1: hospital in memory of Henry, Jesper and Evan.
Speaker 3: Because he was a runner. Ash was, but you wouldn't, well,
Speaker 3: not really. I'd run a little bit with Ash. We've
Speaker 3: done a couple of little events together, but I wasn't.
Speaker 3: I certainly wasn't a half marathon runner. And and Ash
Speaker 3: was a good runner, but he hadn't done a half
Speaker 3: marathon either.
Speaker 1: But he liked to run. He used to run at
Speaker 1: lunch time at work and stuff. And he said, look,
Speaker 1: come on, there's a half marathon in a few months time.
Speaker 1: Let's do it. And then I found out that the
Speaker 1: hospital I'd realized, we had realized when our boys were
Speaker 1: in hospital that a lot of the equipment that was
Speaker 1: helping our boys was donated equipment. And we learned that
Speaker 1: the hospital relies on seventy percent of its equipment is
Speaker 1: from donations. And this was something I had had didn't
Speaker 1: have any idea about before, And so I knew also
Speaker 1: that the hospital was in need of more equipment. And
Speaker 1: also I'd remembered the shortage of if he made a
Speaker 1: cribs yes in the before the and so I thought,
Speaker 1: great idea. A very basic humidity crip was twenty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and they needed one. So I thought, well, that's great,
Speaker 1: let's run the half marathon. Let's raise twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Let's do this in memory of Henry just whenever, And
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I need people to help me. I'm
Speaker 1: not I can't insult my own. I asked all my friends,
Speaker 1: said please, can you come and run with us? And
Speaker 1: most of them had never run before, and they all
Speaker 1: said yes, and even though none of them what liked
Speaker 1: running or wanted to run. And then and then I
Speaker 1: made a little flyer and I put it. And at
Speaker 1: this stage I remember ash getting a little worried because
Speaker 1: I had this new sense of purpose and he wasn't
Speaker 1: worried about that, but he was worried I was going
Speaker 1: to be disappointed when I told him I'm making a flyer.
Speaker 1: I'm going to print it. I'm going to put it
Speaker 1: in playgrounds and cafes around my around Randwick and where
Speaker 1: we live, and I'm going to ask people to come
Speaker 1: and join. And he was worried that I was going
Speaker 1: to be terribly disappointed because nobody was. This was before
Speaker 1: the days of like social media and stuff. So I
Speaker 1: just literally put my phone number on there, said call
Speaker 1: me if you want to come I run this half
Speaker 1: marathon with me. And he said, so if no one's
Speaker 1: going to no one's going to call. And I'm worried
Speaker 1: that you're gonna you know, you're going to crash. You're
Speaker 1: going to be really upset. And I said, no, I
Speaker 1: promise I won't. I just want to try. And so
Speaker 1: I put these flyers out. And the very first day
Speaker 1: I've put the flyers out, my phone rang and this
Speaker 1: woman called Hailey was on the phone and she said,
Speaker 1: I've just picked up your flyer. She said, ten years ago,
Speaker 1: I had twins that died at their birth prematurely. They
Speaker 1: were called Olivia and Maizie and she said it's their
Speaker 1: tenure anniversary coming up, and I've always wanted to do
Speaker 1: something good in their name, and I never have. And
Speaker 1: I've just picked up your flyer and would you mind
Speaker 1: if I came along and did it for Olivia Amaze?
Speaker 1: And I couldn't believe it. This was just, you know, incredible.
Speaker 1: I'm so sad to hear about Olivia Amaze, but I
Speaker 1: was so happy to hear that she could also do
Speaker 1: it for her babies. And so then other people were
Speaker 1: ringing and saying, oh, I have a child born prematurely.
Speaker 1: I know how lucky I am. I'd love to come
Speaker 1: and help.
Speaker 2: Stay with us. My conversation with Sophie continues after this break.
Speaker 2: So you ended up raising eighty thousand dollars the first year?
Speaker 2: How much of you raised so far? Because I know
Speaker 2: you got you got an OIM is that an Order
Speaker 2: of Australia.
Speaker 1: Or oh Australia into twenty one?
Speaker 2: How much how much of you raised with your for
Speaker 2: premiature It's not me.
Speaker 1: It's running for premature babies. So we called it running
Speaker 1: for Premature Babies. Lots of people came and ran with me.
Speaker 1: And they have now we've been this is now twenty
Speaker 1: years later. We've now raised over twelve million dollars and
Speaker 1: we've provided equipment hospitals all over Australia, every state and territory,
Speaker 1: regional remote hospitals through to hospitals in our major cities
Speaker 1: with big neonatal intensive care units, maternity units in the
Speaker 1: Northern Territory and far far from major hospitals. We've also
Speaker 1: funded neonatal transfer services. We've donated three ambulance a neonatal ambulances,
Speaker 1: some equipment to take onto flights in the Northern Territory
Speaker 1: with care Flight so that they can retrieve babies from
Speaker 1: very remote locations and bring them for neonacal intensive care.
Speaker 1: And it's estimated that over twenty thousand babies have now
Speaker 1: benefited from running for premature babies.
Speaker 2: So it seems that in the running that Ash had suggested,
Speaker 2: and in the finding a purpose outside motivated by but
Speaker 2: outside of your loss, that you gained in lace of
Speaker 2: life yourself, as exemplified by the fact that you then
Speaker 2: became pregnant again.
Speaker 1: Yes, So the first year we ran the first half marathon,
Speaker 1: I loved it and we had shirts printed and I
Speaker 1: put Henry, Jasper Andevan's handprints on the back and I
Speaker 1: told everybody to remember that, you know, they can give
Speaker 1: you a push in the race, and it was just wonderful. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we ran that first race, that was fantastic, and then
Speaker 1: the second year we did it all over again. But
Speaker 1: that then I was pregnant with Owen, so that was yeah,
Speaker 1: we were That was just amazing. Owen he was born
Speaker 1: two years after Jasper died, just under two years later,
Speaker 1: And yeah, Owen brought this inredible joy into our lives.
Speaker 2: How was it leaving the hospital?
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, it was just incredible. Well, having Owen and
Speaker 1: being allowed to hold my baby whenever I wanted, being
Speaker 1: allowed to feed my baby whenever I want, It was
Speaker 1: just so incredible. And also I'd again a slightly sort
Speaker 1: of you know, maybe unusual thing, but I'd made a
Speaker 1: promise to myself after Jasper died that I did not
Speaker 1: want to hold another baby until I held my own baby.
Speaker 1: So my next baby I was going to hold be
Speaker 1: my own. So I didn't touch another baby for two years.
Speaker 1: I managed to just avoid babies, or if a baby
Speaker 1: was being handed around, i'd just say, oh, I've got
Speaker 1: a colder, I won't thanks. And so holding Owen and
Speaker 1: being allowed to you know, not being told to put
Speaker 1: him back, and and you know, being able to feed.
Speaker 1: It was just incredible. But one and I'd thought about
Speaker 1: that when I was pregnant. I thought about, Gosh, it's
Speaker 1: going to be incredible being allowed to hold my baby.
Speaker 1: But the thing I hadn't thought about was what it
Speaker 1: was going to feel like to walk out of the
Speaker 1: hospital doors with my baby. And it was so my god.
Speaker 1: We I remember the day that we left the hospital,
Speaker 1: you know, we collexed him all up. They said okay, bye,
Speaker 1: and I started walking down the corridor holding him, and
Speaker 1: I just kept thinking, I felt like I was stealing him.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was. I felt like there was
Speaker 1: something and hang on, can you put the baby back?
Speaker 1: And then we got outside and we obviously they got
Speaker 1: the baby's captle in the car and I sat next
Speaker 1: to him in the car, so in the back seat,
Speaker 1: and she was driving, and as we drove out, I
Speaker 1: hadn't even you know, it was just just I literally
Speaker 1: had tears pouring down my face and I was they
Speaker 1: were tears of joy for this beautiful baby that we
Speaker 1: were taking home. And they were also tears of grief
Speaker 1: for the three little boys who never came home, and
Speaker 1: that was all wrapped up into one. But Owen brought
Speaker 1: the greatest joy. He was he was an easy baby,
Speaker 1: is his and I just loved, you know that hearing
Speaker 1: him cry and the night was just amazing. And everyone
Speaker 1: told him I was gonna I was, you know, spoiling
Speaker 1: him because I fed him on demand and I carried
Speaker 1: him around with me. He was always with me, and
Speaker 1: he was in a little sling and I pretty much
Speaker 1: didn't put him down for six months.
Speaker 2: And Ash was equally besotted.
Speaker 1: He was besotted, absolutely besotted. He would, you know, rush
Speaker 1: home from work and say, don't give him a bath
Speaker 1: until I'm home, don't. I'm going to read him the story.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say. He was literally reading him stories
Speaker 1: from day one. And yeah, just so you know, just
Speaker 1: just we were both besotted.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was a very wonderful time, actually, yes.
Speaker 2: A very sweet spot. And then you had Harvey.
Speaker 1: We had Harvey. Yeah, Harvey two and a half years later,
Speaker 1: but it was Yeah, it was when Owen was six
Speaker 1: months that Ash was diagnosed, actually diagnosed.
Speaker 2: That sweet spot was not allowed to linger longer. So
Speaker 2: ash started having headaches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he started having bad headaches. He was very fit.
Speaker 1: He'd actually just run the half marathon in a he'd
Speaker 1: done a PB of ninety nine minutes and so and
Speaker 1: he was what thirty five, and he loved the water.
Speaker 1: He was a good surfer.
Speaker 2: He is fit.
Speaker 1: He was, Yeah, he was. He was a fit and
Speaker 1: healthy young man. And he's just started having headaches and
Speaker 1: and eventually, you know, he got checked out and he
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with a seven centimeter grade four GBM brand
Speaker 1: humor when he was six months old.
Speaker 2: How did you feel? Because you don't strike me as
Speaker 2: a why me person? But how many things happened to
Speaker 2: you before you say why me? Or whatever?
Speaker 1: Like, I personally find why me very unhelpful. I don't
Speaker 1: think that God or the universe is pointing at me
Speaker 1: and saying, here, you know you there's a reason for this.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, adversity as part and part of
Speaker 1: the parcel of being humor everybody, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's just life, and there's nothing you know, there's I
Speaker 1: just don't find why me helpful, And I find you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes people have said to me, I always find
Speaker 1: this quite strange, but I have had people say to me, gosh,
Speaker 1: you must have done something really bad in a past
Speaker 1: life for this, for all these bad things to happen,
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, not helpful. I don't find that
Speaker 1: helpful at all to think that I've somehow deserve it.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I've done something to deserve it.
Speaker 1: But I also don't think that, you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Just it is what it is. And and Ash was
Speaker 2: of a similar resolve because he went he was in
Speaker 2: fact operated on by doctor Charlie Tao and it was
Speaker 2: successfully removed the tumor, and Ash was like, we've got this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: even though he was initially given one one year to leave.
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, he was. He was given after the
Speaker 1: operation which was successful, but when we discovered what kind
Speaker 1: of cancer it was, we were told that with chemo
Speaker 1: and radiotherapy, we were looking at one year. And he
Speaker 1: was really he helped me actually to towards you know,
Speaker 1: he was the one that kind of drove it when
Speaker 1: he was first diagnosed. He was so lovely when he
Speaker 1: was first diagnosed. When we got walked out of the
Speaker 1: doctor's office, the first thing he said to me was, so,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that you're having that I'm putting you
Speaker 1: through this. So he immediately thought of me, which is
Speaker 1: just incredible seeing as it was him that was losing
Speaker 1: his life. But he said, I never want to hear that,
Speaker 1: and I'm never gonna to even think about that. We are,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm here, I'm going to I'm going to live.
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad that he did say to unt
Speaker 1: to be let's, you know, let's focus on living. Let's
Speaker 1: focus on today rather than worrying about tomorrow. And I'm
Speaker 1: so glad we did because instead of one year, we
Speaker 1: got seven years, and we got Harvey and and they
Speaker 1: were so you know, even Ash's treatment was not he
Speaker 1: tolerated it fine. He had a whole year off work
Speaker 1: and in that year we had so much fun together
Speaker 1: with Owen as a six month old. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't sit around feeling sorry for yourself when you've got
Speaker 1: a six year old, a six month of the whole
Speaker 1: crawling around and causing havoc. And we just we were
Speaker 1: like a little unit and we got on with stuff
Speaker 1: and we had fun and we focused on on on
Speaker 1: living and Ash felt well again. In fact, sometimes he'd
Speaker 1: say to me, oh, maybe that I'm sure, Like I
Speaker 1: feel like a real fraud, Like have I really had
Speaker 1: brain cans? I'm fine. And he was lucky that, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, Charlie did an amazing job with his operation
Speaker 1: and we had five years Harvey was born. When Harvey
Speaker 1: was born, we had to have IVF for Harvey and
Speaker 1: because of Ash's treatment, and we wanted to get straight
Speaker 1: on and get cracking with IVF because even though Ash
Speaker 1: said he was going to live, at the back of
Speaker 1: my mind, I knew he had a diagnosis of a
Speaker 1: prognosis of a year and I wanted him to be
Speaker 1: around when his child was born. But it took a while,
Speaker 1: and it took two years. Two years later, Harvey was born,
Speaker 1: and Ash was in remission, well as much as remission
Speaker 1: you can be in with that kind of cancer, but
Speaker 1: he was well and having six monthly scans, and Harvey
Speaker 1: was just, oh my goodness, Harvey was such just it
Speaker 1: was so wonderful, you know. He was a big, healthy,
Speaker 1: full term bouncing boy. And Owen was a doting big brother.
Speaker 1: And the four of us, yeah, just lived life.
Speaker 2: When you when it became apparent that the tumors had
Speaker 2: come back for the I think the third time they
Speaker 2: were inoperable, and you had to tell your boys that
Speaker 2: they were going to lose their dad. How do you
Speaker 2: do that?
Speaker 1: So we never shielded the boys from from ashes decline
Speaker 1: and over the last I guess two years before Ash passed,
Speaker 1: he had recurrent tumors. So he was going into hospital
Speaker 1: having you know, brain surgery. Then he was having to
Speaker 1: have chemo and so. But then he get well again,
Speaker 1: and so the boys and also Owen had been six
Speaker 1: months old when Ash was diagnosed. So Owen grew up
Speaker 1: with brain cancer. Because Ash said right from the beginning,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm bringing Owen to every doctor's appointment because
Speaker 1: I want the doctors to know what I'm what I
Speaker 1: have to live for. I want them to know that
Speaker 1: this is how hot, you know, how much I have
Speaker 1: to live is for this child. And then when Harvey
Speaker 1: was born, we bought Harvey along. So Owen used to
Speaker 1: you know, grew up coming to all of the appointments.
Speaker 1: He grew up around you know, chemo and surgery and
Speaker 1: hospitals and things. But they and they adored their dad.
Speaker 1: He was just such a great and he adored them,
Speaker 1: and so when he wasn't well, they knew that they
Speaker 1: had to be careful with daddy because he's not well.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that they loved, funny things
Speaker 1: he used to do was to throw them on the bed.
Speaker 1: So they wrestle, and one of the fun things they say,
Speaker 1: Daddy throw us on their bed, throw us on the bed.
Speaker 1: And then they'd say, oh, can Daddy throw us on
Speaker 1: the bed? And I have to say no, you know,
Speaker 1: he's not well enough to throw you on the bed.
Speaker 1: So that was the measure, is Daddy well enough to
Speaker 1: throw us on the bed. And then as he got
Speaker 1: really sick, and when I actually told Harvey was only small,
Speaker 1: he was only just he wasn't even five, and Owen
Speaker 1: was seven. And I remember when I told, I thought
Speaker 1: I was telling Owen because he said, when's Daddy going
Speaker 1: to be better? When's he going to be better? When
Speaker 1: could he throw us on the bed? And I said
Speaker 1: to him, I sat him down and I said, darling,
Speaker 1: Daddy's not getting better. He's not going to get better.
Speaker 1: And Owen looked at me and said, well, he's going
Speaker 1: to be sick forever. So I realized that that wasn't
Speaker 1: enough for a child that doesn't They didn't join the
Speaker 1: dots but at that stage, Owen started to realize. And
Speaker 1: I remember a few days later he said to me, Mum,
Speaker 1: would you rather be sick forever or dead? And it
Speaker 1: was the first time he talked about dying. And then
Speaker 1: when I I told, by the.
Speaker 2: Way, what's the answer to that?
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't even remember. I think we, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of talked about quality of life. But when I
Speaker 1: finally knew I needed to tell them it was it
Speaker 1: was heartbreaking because Owen he had you know, I told him, Dad,
Speaker 1: He's going to die. And you could see how like
Speaker 1: Owen was. He had a hundred questions, and he was
Speaker 1: quite he sounded quite angry, and he said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to have a dad. And I said, no,
Speaker 1: you always have a dad, Darling, you always have your
Speaker 1: dal Your Dad's always going to be your dad. And
Speaker 1: he said, what, but not a dad I can play with?
Speaker 1: And it was And anyway, Owen then asked a thousand
Speaker 1: questions of and I wasn't really prepared, you know, questions
Speaker 1: about where, you know, can his teacher come to his funeral?
Speaker 1: Am I going to get married again? Is he going
Speaker 1: to get a new dad? Here? All these other questions.
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa.
Speaker 2: And then but yeah, then there was a which I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people, you know, praise be do
Speaker 2: not know what this looks like. But when someone's dying
Speaker 2: of a brain tumor, terrible things happened to them, their
Speaker 2: personality changes. They may be prone to as Ash was,
Speaker 2: violent outbursts and frustration. And at what point did you
Speaker 2: go from hoping that he would stay to being prepared
Speaker 2: to let him go?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a that's a really big question, because yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was brain cancer is horrible and and
Speaker 1: Ash was such a beautiful man, and brain cancer took
Speaker 1: him really before he died. So it was very difficult
Speaker 1: because he the treatment as well affected his brain and
Speaker 1: in the last few months he he became very different
Speaker 1: because his brain wasn't working properly. And and that was
Speaker 1: that was really hard. So there were and it was
Speaker 1: hard trying to hold the family together, you know, because
Speaker 1: I wanted to protect the boys from Ash if he
Speaker 1: wasn't behaving himself in a you know, kind of appropriately.
Speaker 1: But I but also you know, there, Ash wasn't awful.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like he was awful all the time. He
Speaker 1: was so sweet. Even actually the last week of his
Speaker 1: life was. It was very beautiful actually in that strange way.
Speaker 1: And the boys spent a lot of time with him,
Speaker 1: coloring in and reading to him and lying in his bed,
Speaker 1: and that was very peaceful, very peaceful. But yes, when
Speaker 1: when life did get quite difficult, and then I did,
Speaker 1: there were times when I would sort of think, gosh,
Speaker 1: how long is this going to take? But that was
Speaker 1: also it's also hard to admit that, yes, because you.
Speaker 2: Know, but there comes a time if you've loved anybody
Speaker 2: who's gravely ill, there comes a time where you go
Speaker 2: from praying for them to stay to praying for them
Speaker 2: to leave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely for everybody.
Speaker 2: And that's just a part of the reality of loving
Speaker 2: somebody is that you have to love them enough to
Speaker 2: let them go.
Speaker 1: And do you know what when he did, when he
Speaker 1: did die, I had and I said to him before
Speaker 1: he'd you know, one of the probably a few days
Speaker 1: before he died, for the last thing he said, I
Speaker 1: actually took him down to Bondi and we had this
Speaker 1: amazing morning at Bondi and I took him for a
Speaker 1: swim and he seemed to suddenly be a little bit better,
Speaker 1: and we had this wonderful time and then I took
Speaker 1: him home and he was really sick, and he said
Speaker 1: it was the only time we talked about him dying.
Speaker 1: He said, so, I don't know if I can go on.
Speaker 1: And I said to him, that's okay, we'll we'll, We're
Speaker 1: going to be okay. You don't have to stay. And
Speaker 1: I said to him, you have three little boys waiting
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that actually gave me a lot of comfort, and
Speaker 1: Owen and Harvey a lot of comfort to know that
Speaker 1: Daddy was going to Henry, Jasper and ever.
Speaker 2: Because you have known such grief, but you also have
Speaker 2: such you seem position of a great amount of faith.
Speaker 2: Do you believe that you will see them again?
Speaker 1: Yeah, My faith is sort of complicated. I do, I
Speaker 1: don't have Yeah, I do, I I've I definitely believe
Speaker 1: that we'll all well, we'll see each other again. I
Speaker 1: more believe that they're they're here, you know, they're with us,
Speaker 1: and they're cheering us on, and they're you know in
Speaker 1: every wave that Harvey and Owen catch out in the
Speaker 1: you know, they're both surfers. And I always say to that,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Dad's with you in every wave. And just
Speaker 1: the other day, Harvey was saying he was in really
Speaker 1: big surf at Bondai and he said, Mum, the surf
Speaker 1: was really big, and but you know, I just I
Speaker 1: just felt really I don't know why, but when I
Speaker 1: was out in the surf, it was very big, and
Speaker 1: I felt really calm, and I said, I, reckon, that's dad,
Speaker 1: Dad with you just going come on, you can do this, Harvey.
Speaker 1: So I'm more believe that we you know, that they're
Speaker 1: all around.
Speaker 2: Us, and when we speak of them, we keep them
Speaker 2: alive for sure.
Speaker 1: For sure, And I feel like running for premature Babies
Speaker 1: has given me permission to bring Henry, Jasper and Evan
Speaker 1: along with me through the last twenty years. You know.
Speaker 1: I this year, this year is our twentieth year of
Speaker 1: running for parmat Or Babies, and it's Henry, Jasper and
Speaker 1: Evans twentieth birthday, and we are so excited that like
Speaker 1: I'm still pinching myself that it's the We've done so
Speaker 1: many events over the years, but this year this is
Speaker 1: the TCS Sydney Marathon, which is now World International World
Speaker 1: Marathon Major, so it's like the biggest marathon in the world,
Speaker 1: Sydney Marathon, and running for Premature Babies are the headline
Speaker 1: or is the headline charity of the TCS Sydney Marathon,
Speaker 1: and we have about seven hundred people running in Sydney,
Speaker 1: and coincidentally, the marathon weekend is the twenty ninth and
Speaker 1: thirtieth of August. On the twenty ninth of August they
Speaker 1: hold them and they call it the Mini Marathon. It's
Speaker 1: five kilometer fun run the day before the marathon, and
Speaker 1: the twenty ninth of August happens to be Evans anniversary
Speaker 1: of his passing, and I can think of no greater
Speaker 1: way than to mark his anniversary than to run. In fact,
Speaker 1: I've been, I've got a whole heap of people signing
Speaker 1: up for the Mini Marathon who have had who have
Speaker 1: themselves started their lives in equipment donated by Running for
Speaker 1: Premature Babies. So there's a whole heap of hoids. For sure,
Speaker 1: we have children who would not have survived if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for the equipment that Running for prom Your Babies
Speaker 1: has donated, especially ventilators. We talked before about ventilators not
Speaker 1: being able to support Jasper. The technology of ventilators is
Speaker 1: so incredible these days, but they're very expensive and a
Speaker 1: lot of the time hospitals can't afford them. So we
Speaker 1: have provided state of the art neonate or ventilators that
Speaker 1: mean that a baby like Jasper, babies smaller than Jasper
Speaker 1: are able to survive with these equipment. So we've got
Speaker 1: to children. I've got children coming along to run them
Speaker 1: an the marathon, and then we've got people running in
Speaker 1: the Sydney Marathon whose children started their lives in equipment
Speaker 1: don't need to bear. Running for premature babies, we have
Speaker 1: people who were premature babies themselves. We have people who
Speaker 1: are running in memory of their own babies who've passed away,
Speaker 1: and that is something that I have. It's been a
Speaker 1: great privilege over the years for me to be able
Speaker 1: to support in some way families who are going through
Speaker 1: the terrible tragedy of losing their own children. And because
Speaker 1: just last week, this lovely woman contacted called Katia who
Speaker 1: his little baby Enzo was in the neonatal intensive care
Speaker 1: unit and she had just received he was twenty one
Speaker 1: days old, and she knew that he was using equipment
Speaker 1: donated by Running for Premature Babies, but she'd also received
Speaker 1: the devastating news that Enzo probably wasn't going to survive,
Speaker 1: and she rang me and asked me to come up
Speaker 1: to the hospital. So last week I went up to
Speaker 1: the hospital and I met this beautiful little boy, Enzo,
Speaker 1: and I met his mum, Cartia, and I was able
Speaker 1: to support them in some way. Now, Enzo has since
Speaker 1: passed away, and Cartia has already reached out to me
Speaker 1: to say that she wants to honor Enzo's life by
Speaker 1: supporting money for premature babies. And I find it quite
Speaker 1: amazing that in her moment of heartbreak, that she's already
Speaker 1: thinking about how can Enzo's spirit help other babies? And
Speaker 1: people have told me over the years how running in
Speaker 1: their baby's name to help other babies has actually helped
Speaker 1: them heal well.
Speaker 2: Speaking of for instance, this episode's going to go out
Speaker 2: soon after Mother's Day, which is such a challenging time
Speaker 2: for anyone who's had any loss like this. How was
Speaker 2: it for you your first Mother's Day after losing the boys,
Speaker 2: and how are you now?
Speaker 1: So on Mother's Day, I like to shout from the
Speaker 1: rooftops that I am a mother of five, and right
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, I actually have a card on
Speaker 1: my bedside table. That was my first Mother's Day card actually,
Speaker 1: and Ash wrote me the most beautiful card and he
Speaker 1: always did. Every Mother's Day. Ash would write me a
Speaker 1: card from Henry, Jasper and Evan as if they had
Speaker 1: written it. And it's such a sweet card that says,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for being the very best mummy
Speaker 1: we could. We are so lucky to have you as
Speaker 1: our mom. And now Owen and Harvey when they will
Speaker 1: give me a Mother's Day card on Sunday, they will
Speaker 1: sign the Mother's Day card from them and Henry, Jasper
Speaker 1: and Evan. And so for me, it's about you know,
Speaker 1: we are still moms when our babies die. And for me,
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity to tell people I'm a mum of
Speaker 1: five boys.
Speaker 2: And I think a very lovely message contained in your
Speaker 2: book is that it's important to talk to women who
Speaker 2: have lost their babies and to acknowledge those babies and
Speaker 2: to say their names.
Speaker 1: And to speak aloud the baby's names. I found after
Speaker 1: you know, everybody nobody wants to do the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: you know, but nobody knows what to do. And so
Speaker 1: people often think, oh, we better not mention, yes, the
Speaker 1: baby that died, because we don't know what, we don't
Speaker 1: want to we don't know what to say, so we
Speaker 1: won't mention the baby. But what I would say is
Speaker 1: as a as a mother whose babies have died, is
Speaker 1: there's nothing more beautiful than hearing your baby's name spoken aloud,
Speaker 1: hearing or seeing your baby's name written down you We
Speaker 1: haven't forgotten that our babies have died. To be reminded
Speaker 1: is actually very beautiful. Even though you know, even though
Speaker 1: it's painful, even though we're sad, we still you know,
Speaker 1: we still want our babies. We still want our babies acknowledged.
Speaker 1: I guess, and I think with running for premature babies,
Speaker 1: it gives people an opportunity as well to you know,
Speaker 1: to tell to speak aloud the names and to say
Speaker 1: I'm doing this for my baby and little Enzo, you know.
Speaker 2: I Yeah, Sophie Smith, mother of sons Henry and Evan
Speaker 2: and Jasper and Owen and Harvey. Very lucky to have you,
Speaker 2: as are we England's loss was very much down again.
Speaker 2: And may the wind be at your back as you
Speaker 2: run and through the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: We have a big goal in Sydney. Can I just
Speaker 1: mention that, which is to raise one million dollars, which
Speaker 1: will be the most ever raised by any charity in
Speaker 1: a marathon in Australia's history. And we want to raise
Speaker 1: a million dollars this August. So we'd love people to
Speaker 1: come and join us.
Speaker 2: Well, if anyone will, you will. So for people listening
Speaker 2: to these who may be in the midst of their
Speaker 2: own grief and their own loss that feels unbearable, what
Speaker 2: would you like them to know?
Speaker 1: Do you know? What I would like them to know
Speaker 1: is something that I was really frightened of when my
Speaker 1: babies died, just but i'd on the sixteenth of October,
Speaker 1: I was I remember New Year's Eve that year. I
Speaker 1: it was I did not want the clock to tick
Speaker 1: over to two thousand and seven because I felt like
Speaker 1: time was separating me from my babies. I didn't you
Speaker 1: know when I could say when I could feel like
Speaker 1: last week my baby died, or last month my baby died.
Speaker 1: Somehow to say last year my baby died. And I
Speaker 1: felt like this awful passage of time was separating me
Speaker 1: and that somehow that bond, that love that I felt
Speaker 1: for them was going to just disappear with time and
Speaker 1: I and that frightened me and then going on and
Speaker 1: having future children. I was worried that the you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't want to my babies to be forgotten.
Speaker 1: I didn't want my love to fade. And what I
Speaker 1: would say to anybody who's baby has a recent died
Speaker 1: is that your love will never fade, and that grief
Speaker 1: is something which your life, just your life grows around,
Speaker 1: and grief does change, does change over the years, but
Speaker 1: what doesn't change is the core of that grief is love,
Speaker 1: and that does not change. And now I wish I'd
Speaker 1: known that twenty years ago and not feared that, because
Speaker 1: my love for my five boys is here today just
Speaker 1: as much as it was for my three boys twenty
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: Thanks Sophie, Thank.
Speaker 1: You, Thank you, Kate, thank you.
Speaker 2: After everything Sophie's endured, the loss of her three boys,
Speaker 2: the loss of her husband, Ash, and the years she's
Speaker 2: spent living alongside grief, what struck me most was not
Speaker 2: just her resilience, but her capacity to keep choosing hope,
Speaker 2: to keep finding meaning, to keep loving so deeply running
Speaker 2: for premature babies. The legacy of Henry, Evan and Jasper
Speaker 2: continues to live on in thousands of families around the country.
Speaker 2: If this conversation brought anything up for you, or if
Speaker 2: you've experienced pregnancy loss, infant loss, or grief of any kind,
Speaker 2: will leave support resources in the show notes, and if
Speaker 2: you'd like to learn more about running for premature babies
Speaker 2: or support the work Sophie and her team are doing,
Speaker 2: you can find those details there too. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for listening to No Filter. I am Kate Lanebrook
Speaker 2: and I will see you next Monday.