This one's probably gonna be, I would say, a little bit different
Speaker:to how we've done in some podcasts.
Speaker:It's just gonna be us two chatting.
Speaker:about a previous experience that you've had,
Speaker:Yeah, so I think the disclaimer on this one is that I do
Speaker:talk about, uh, child loss.
Speaker:you know, I recognize that these things may be triggering for some people,
Speaker:and I guess I just want everyone to know who's listening to this, that.
Speaker:I've actually done a lot of work with a couple of different psychologists,
Speaker:and I also have the blessing of my wife to talk about our experience, I
Speaker:guess with our journey with pregnancy.
Speaker:And I understand, you know, people who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant
Speaker:or have been in a situation where they have, um, pregnancy hasn't haven't gone to
Speaker:term, uh, that some of these conversations could be triggering, however.
Speaker:I feel that as men, we don't talk about this stuff a lot enough.
Speaker:I think generally speaking, we probably don't talk about this enough.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And um, yeah, this is my story and you know, I might cry.
Speaker:I do get quite emotional when I do talk about this, but I guess I just want
Speaker:everybody to know that I am in a good
Speaker:place and you make a good point knowing your story.
Speaker:Before we get to it, and I've written down here how this relates to building, I
Speaker:think you summed it up when you said that.
Speaker:Pretty much men don't talk about it.
Speaker:And our industry is predominantly men.
Speaker:And while it's not, we're not talking about a membrane or a window or
Speaker:building science, say, this still is just important as our industry.
Speaker:And we've, I think that you've, you're definitely a leader in this industry.
Speaker:So to be able to get this stuff out of, out there, um, and say
Speaker:it's okay, and you can continue on, um, I think it's really important.
Speaker:So, Hamish, tell me, tell me about your story.
Speaker:You start where you wanna start.
Speaker:So in about 2019, the start of 2019, we got pregnant.
Speaker:Now we already had a, we already had Darcy.
Speaker:Darcy was I think two, two and a half years old.
Speaker:And, um, you know, it seemed like the right time for us to have a baby.
Speaker:We had had a miscarriage before we got pregnant, uh, or the second time and.
Speaker:There was some things that weren't quite feeling right
Speaker:for Lucy when she was pregnant.
Speaker:She'd already been pregnant before and she's like, oh, something
Speaker:just doesn't feel quite right.
Speaker:And, you know, I guess I was just expecting, you know, that when she went
Speaker:in for a checkup that, you know, we'd, we'd had another miscarriage and I,
Speaker:and I distinctly remember sitting in.
Speaker:The IGA car park and I was staring at the bakery.
Speaker:I just, all of this is crystal clear in my head and um, I remember
Speaker:Lucy saying There's two heartbeats, and for a second I'm like, what do
Speaker:you mean there's two heartbeats?
Speaker:Like I just, you know, you don't expect.
Speaker:That to happen.
Speaker:And uh, as it turned out, we were pregnant with twins and this was
Speaker:at about seven or eight weeks.
Speaker:So at that stage, you know, there were, they both had their own sack.
Speaker:That in itself was like a massive thing.
Speaker:It's like, holy shit, you know, we've got one, we're about to have three.
Speaker:And like for me, as the problem solver that I am, like my brain's going.
Speaker:Every different direction of, oh, we gotta get a new car.
Speaker:Is the house gonna be big enough?
Speaker:We've gotta get an extension.
Speaker:And I remember the time, um, from Maxo had started the design of our home.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And, uh, I'm like, mate, you better hurry up because shit's about to get real.
Speaker:So,
Speaker:so just where you're at, you with your business at that point, where are you at?
Speaker:Like, wh what, what does your business look like at that point?
Speaker:Uh, so I think we've got like four or five, you know, four or five
Speaker:people working in the business.
Speaker:We had an admin staff, we had an office.
Speaker:Uh, we probably had three projects on the go at, at, at that moment.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, you know, kind of starting that trajectory of, of building the business.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we'd.
Speaker:Would just literally switch the business to, you know, focusing on
Speaker:high performance and passive house.
Speaker:So like lots and lots going on at that particular
Speaker:time.
Speaker:And this is pre Covid too?
Speaker:Pre covid.
Speaker:So, and did you say 2019?
Speaker:2019. So everything was about to just like the whole world was
Speaker:about to be thrown on its head.
Speaker:Not just this, but also.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That time is covid your, your business is about to explode.
Speaker:And, and maybe I'll tell the story first.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But
Speaker:Covid was actually an interesting time and I, and I think almost
Speaker:a blessing in some ways for us.
Speaker:Um, so yeah, we, uh, were pregnant with twins.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, um, you know, I'd like, I could have get in new car, I gotta start looking
Speaker:at cars and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And then I think in about 15 weeks loose was starting to feel a bit.
Speaker:Funny.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And no one really knew what was happening.
Speaker:Like they were testing, you know, the, you know, measuring the fluid inside
Speaker:the facts and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker:And then, um, I think at about, I. 16 weeks or 17 weeks, Lucy had some pain.
Speaker:So we actually ended up going into the er, like the emergency room.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And um, I remember again, you know, all, all of these moments
Speaker:for me are like so crystal clear, like as if they just happened.
Speaker:Excuse me, guys, we're about to get a little bit, you know, gory, but
Speaker:you know, they actually do a swab and they test for amniotic fluid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you know, it's not something that we thought about.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And obviously amniotic fluid is what sits inside.
Speaker:The, it kind of keeps them floating.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's what's inside the s the baby, I think.
Speaker:So they test for that to see if there's a, a leak.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Did doctors or anything seem concerned at the time, or is it kind of feeling you?
Speaker:No, we had a checkup, had ultrasound, um, and everything seemed right and they
Speaker:go, look, we're just gonna do this check.
Speaker:And I, and I remember Lucia and I were having a chat about something
Speaker:random, and then the nurse came in and sort of dropped the news that.
Speaker:Um, we've found amniotic foot.
Speaker:Amniotic foot, and um, you know, your heart just sinks, like just that.
Speaker:Now what?
Speaker:Unknown.
Speaker:Now what?
Speaker:Unknown.
Speaker:And you know, I've, we'd both sort of gone through this mental
Speaker:transition of, you know, our life is gonna drastically change.
Speaker:And you know, at that time when you were having two, another two boys and I.
Speaker:We'd started even thinking about going to Costa Rica and taking the boys Yeah.
Speaker:To go for three or four months and you know, hang out on the beach and whatever.
Speaker:You know, these are all the things that you kinda gee yourself up for.
Speaker:Uh, maybe it's a way of sort of getting through it and seeing
Speaker:positives in then obviously twinge is incredibly positive after I kind
Speaker:of got over that initial shock.
Speaker:Did you know at that point that that was a bad thing or did you Yeah.
Speaker:Oh, what's that mean?
Speaker:We were told Lucy knew straight away.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And then she explained to me, yeah.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:It was like, fuck uh, what does all this mean?
Speaker:And how many weeks were you at this time?
Speaker:15 or 16 weeks.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:We ended up going home that night 'cause they couldn't do anything.
Speaker:We, we went in for more ultrasounds and they were measuring the fluid
Speaker:inside, but, and both sack had enough fluid, like wasn't abnormal.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So nothing was abnormal.
Speaker:It was just a leak somewhere.
Speaker:It was a leak, yeah.
Speaker:We went through this dance for about a month and that's scary.
Speaker:I. Like we didn't know what was going on.
Speaker:Like, you know, test every week where Lucy was getting blood, constant blood tests.
Speaker:She was, 'cause what they, what they do is they test for infection.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So constantly getting her bloods checked and like, this is
Speaker:obviously incredibly stressful 'cause you, at any time you dunno.
Speaker:Every, every
Speaker:swab is like, uh, are we gonna, is this good?
Speaker:Is this bad?
Speaker:This is this day by day.
Speaker:Well, I mean,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:And that's the interesting thing because like they kept measuring
Speaker:the fluid and, and that was 'cause fluid rejuvenates, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we were told that
Speaker:babies are viable at 26 weeks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You know, and quite often twins are born early.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:So we're just like.
Speaker:We gotta make it to 26 weeks, we're gonna do this.
Speaker:So it's nine
Speaker:weeks
Speaker:you are looking, how do we get there?
Speaker:We're gonna do this right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think about eight or nine weeks, everything was still looking okay.
Speaker:And everyone was like, look, we dunno what's gonna happen here.
Speaker:And, and we, we actually ended up going into the doctor's, um, one
Speaker:Friday and um, there was another scan and I remember, so I wasn't there.
Speaker:Lucy was there.
Speaker:And I remember getting a phone call saying, uh.
Speaker:One of the, so Zach and Seb, so, um, Zach's amniotic fluid sac,
Speaker:like, had drastically decreased.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So obviously we're seeing a loss of fluid in that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And something has to happen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we both went into the hospital.
Speaker:I, I, I left work and went in and met Lucy in the hospital.
Speaker:And we were, um, we're essentially, we are faced with.
Speaker:Like a pretty, this is 19 weeks and five or six days or
Speaker:something at this point in time.
Speaker:So, and uh, 20 weeks is classified as stillborn.
Speaker:20 weeks before is discouraged.
Speaker:So, so anything before 20 weeks, and I'm gonna touch on this
Speaker:too, because everyone's response to these things differently.
Speaker:Someone could have an horrible experience and lose a child at three weeks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And have an incredibly.
Speaker:Terrible response to that.
Speaker:And look, I will tell our story as we go along of, of, of when we lost
Speaker:the twins because unfortunately, you know, um, that's what happened with us.
Speaker:I will sort of, you know, break that story now.
Speaker:Um, so we, we were actually faced with our options were we could terminate Yeah.
Speaker:One child and then have the opportunity I. For the other one to be.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we went home with that on that Friday.
Speaker:And with, with that question, were they, were they giving you a option of
Speaker:like, it will probably terminate itself.
Speaker:'cause doctors are very matter of fact.
Speaker:They don't, they, they're all about the
Speaker:risk.
Speaker:So we, so just a massive shout out.
Speaker:Like we had incredible doctors throughout this whole, uh, journey and, you
Speaker:know, in a really shitty situation.
Speaker:Like the care that we got was incredible.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So basically they're like, this twin won't survive.
Speaker:So your options are like he, he might just stay there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The problem is if he keeps growing and then your waters break, then you've
Speaker:got much higher risk of infection and you've got a greater chance of the
Speaker:other one coming out at the same time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we went home with that like decision that we were gonna make over the weekend.
Speaker:'cause look, all these things, right, these are so unpredictable.
Speaker:You never know what's gonna happen in this situation.
Speaker:And that's where we kept getting told, we're like, we
Speaker:don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker:We don't know what's gonna happen.
Speaker:Every case is different.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Heavy conversations to have over that weekend.
Speaker:I think we'd almost landed on like, I know I landed on it really quickly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like I know what I'd want.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Mine is better than none.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you've also got Lucy to worry about
Speaker:too.
Speaker:Oh, Lucy to worry about too.
Speaker:And I'll get to that.
Speaker:Yeah, because that gets pretty heavy too.
Speaker:Um, and also bearing in mind that we have a two and a half year old at home.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, that, that is sort of wondering what's happening.
Speaker:He knows that we're pregnant.
Speaker:He knows that there's twins coming.
Speaker:He knows that there's, his brothers are there.
Speaker:Like, you know, Darcy's always been a pretty aware kid and even
Speaker:at two and a half, like he knew.
Speaker:Shit was going on.
Speaker:He knew that something was up.
Speaker:And I remember Lucy coming out was at nighttime.
Speaker:I remember Lucy coming out and she's like, I don't feel well.
Speaker:Something's wrong.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And I just remember my heart like sinking.
Speaker:And we ended up going into the hospital and Lucy got checked in.
Speaker:And, you know, everything was kind of stable, right?
Speaker:So they're doing ultrasounds and they're checking nothing.
Speaker:Not much has changed.
Speaker:And um, I ended up going home 'cause I didn't go home and look after Darcy.
Speaker:And um, I remember waking up to a phone call from the nurses being
Speaker:really calm and basically say.
Speaker:Uh,
Speaker:just take your time coming in, um, because there's been, so, something's
Speaker:happened and, um, Lucy's okay, but we really need you to come in, but just
Speaker:drive slowly and, um, and, and come in.
Speaker:I remember walking into the hallway and I was outside the hall and I was told that
Speaker:Lucy had given birth to one of the boys.
Speaker:And I won't go into the detail of, of what happened 'cause it is quite triggering.
Speaker:I.
Speaker:But Lucy had given birth to Zach by the time that I had got in there and um, and
Speaker:Zach was the one that had the lower fluid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So Zach, Zach decided that, you know, he wasn't gonna, he wasn't gonna make it.
Speaker:So he, um, yeah, he was born, um, obviously didn't survive.
Speaker:Uh, and you just bear in mind that we're at 19 weeks and five days.
Speaker:It's just
Speaker:brutal in itself.
Speaker:It's really brutal in itself.
Speaker:And I, and I'll get to why that's brutal in itself in a second.
Speaker:Um, and this is probably some of the, the, the really tough things that, you
Speaker:know, Lucy and I have kind of navigated over, you know, particularly in that
Speaker:early time, you know, that happened and then Lucy is recovering and, um, but
Speaker:Lucy is okay at this time and there's really great support from all the, for
Speaker:all the doctors and nurses and, um, you know, again, at this point in time.
Speaker:Everything else is fine.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:With the other one, with Seb, there was still a chance, still
Speaker:a chance that he could be.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And were they saying that most likely he'd be okay or he's still at risk?
Speaker:No, highly risk.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Huge risk.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And, and, and you know what, statistically quite unlikely, but you hold onto hope.
Speaker:There's always, there's always been.
Speaker:There's always been, um, the problem is when you give birth right, you're
Speaker:obviously opening up a lot of, like a pathway for germs and stuff Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:To get in.
Speaker:So there's a much higher risk of infection during that time.
Speaker:Uh, so I spent the day with loose, obviously it's pretty horrific.
Speaker:And, you know, Lucy's parents were, were down and my parents are here
Speaker:as well, helping look after Daron.
Speaker:Like I remember going home, you know.
Speaker:Tom, Julie's husband was at Mom and Dad's place.
Speaker:And, you know, just, just the support around us, you know,
Speaker:all, all along through the whole thing was really incredible.
Speaker:So I went home and Luc was in the hospital 'cause there's not
Speaker:much, much, much I could do.
Speaker:And ended up getting a phone call at about one 30 in the morning from, from,
Speaker:so it's like 24 hours after Almost.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:From Lucy saying, oh, I just wanna let you know that my waters have just broken.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Uh, and she said, look, there's no point coming in.
Speaker:Everything's really stable at the moment.
Speaker:There's nothing you can do.
Speaker:So stay home with Darcy for now and just come in in the morning.
Speaker:So I did come in the morning and, you know, just chatting with the,
Speaker:with the midwife who was incredible.
Speaker:I can't remember her name, but she was unbelievable, you
Speaker:know, unbelievable support.
Speaker:We actually made the decision.
Speaker:This was a lot easier for me being quite pragmatic about things and
Speaker:knowing where things are gonna end.
Speaker:But we actually made the decision at that point after Lucy's
Speaker:waters had broken to induce.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because it was not happening naturally.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And at that point, did you, were you still holding onto hope or you, you knew
Speaker:like, as think that was termination?
Speaker:Nah,
Speaker:that, that was as soon as the, soon as the waters broke,
Speaker:there's no, there's no chance.
Speaker:Like we're at 20 weeks.
Speaker:Yeah, she six weeks left.
Speaker:So, like I heard of some babies surviving at 2324.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But I knew then, uh, probably sooner than Lucy, that that was it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think the most horrific part of this is that, you know, you see your wife who you
Speaker:love dearly going through labor, which.
Speaker:Gen, like it's fucking stressful for anyone who's got, like, I'll buy.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm super
Speaker:excited, super pumped.
Speaker:Labor is stressful, man.
Speaker:There's nothing you can do except be a punching bag or a someone to support
Speaker:or whatever, like, and we're watching a TV Obvious just off track with a TV
Speaker:show called The Pit at the moment, and it's, it's practically like 24 hours.
Speaker:Like it's a, it's fictitious.
Speaker:The, um, last episode was on about childbirth.
Speaker:And I, yeah, like they were very graphic from that end.
Speaker:I was like, no chance.
Speaker:I'm down that end.
Speaker:Nicole.
Speaker:I'll tell you what, um, I've been through all of the stuff
Speaker:and it's fucking incredible.
Speaker:Oh, human body's insane.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:Um, insane.
Speaker:Um, I know that's a bit off track, but No, that's okay.
Speaker:Going, now going.
Speaker:So back to, so Lucy has been induced and is in labor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So it actually comes on pretty quickly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So we also gotta remember that her body is, this is not at the time where
Speaker:her body wants to, it's kind of wild.
Speaker:So have a baby.
Speaker:Why am I in labor while labor?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:We have labor, we have, he's born obviously doesn't survive.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because we, and we expected that, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's pretty fucking traumatic.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And it was almost, I dunno, from my side, this kind of relief at that
Speaker:point in time that, okay, this is over.
Speaker:Now we start, now we move on.
Speaker:Did you feel prepared because you, um, we constantly talking about.
Speaker:Going, looking off, uh, past experiences to, to be better.
Speaker:I know it was only probably 24 hours before that you've had the experience.
Speaker:Did you feel more prepared because of that?
Speaker:I think the fact that it was building up for five or six weeks, you
Speaker:know, you're kind of, you knew the, statistically the chances were quite low.
Speaker:Um, so you're kind of preparing yourself for whatever, but
Speaker:you're still holding on for hope.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, um, just probably getting back to the point of when Lucy gave birth.
Speaker:Now there's two births that happen, Matt.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So there's birth and then there's a birth of the Yeah.
Speaker:Right now, because Lucy wasn't, her body wasn't ready for this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Peter was shut.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:Uh, and didn't give birth to the placenta.
Speaker:Now you plant an organ, it has blood pumping to it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you know, at that point in time, you know, it's fine.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, uh, I won't go into too much traffic detail of, of all the things that, you
Speaker:know, they sort of try to do, but, um, I remember looking at loose and, you know,
Speaker:all of a sudden she's sort of starting to look really sleepy and she's like, white.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So you do remember like.
Speaker:Blood's still pumping to the uterus.
Speaker:Uh, to the placenta.
Speaker:Um, that's now shut.
Speaker:It's now shut.
Speaker:So essentially her uterus is filling up with blood.
Speaker:She's essentially bleeding to death.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And um, I called the midwife in and she's like, oh, okay.
Speaker:Shit.
Speaker:And then at outta nowhere it was as if someone got a bucket,
Speaker:and this is quite graphic.
Speaker:Someone got a bucket and just threw a bucket of blood on the floor.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So Lucy Hemorrhaged.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then, uh, I don't know if you've been in a hospital room
Speaker:before, but if you pull the.
Speaker:Phone out of the hook.
Speaker:It sets off everything.
Speaker:An alarm.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now the reason why Lucy got to that point is 'cause someone had actually
Speaker:gone into theater before her with the same kind of thing to remove the percent.
Speaker:It's not uncommon for this to happen.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So Lucy had to wait.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we're like 10, 15 minutes, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Or no?
Speaker:Fuck.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I dunno how long it was, but, and next thing I know, there's
Speaker:like 10 people in the room.
Speaker:Yeah, right.
Speaker:There's blood all over the floor and I'm getting pushed to the side
Speaker:'cause there's doctors everywhere.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then Lucy just gets taken away.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And I'm left in this room with the midwife and there's blood everywhere.
Speaker:I'm literally thinking to myself, I can't not go home with her.
Speaker:And when and when?
Speaker:Doctors, I. Doctors and nurses, they're usually really calm and
Speaker:when you see panic on them, you know, fucking shit's not right.
Speaker:Do you know what
Speaker:everyone just, you know, they go into their job.
Speaker:They go into their job, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So they go into their job mode and everyone was really quite calm, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, but there are lots of people in there and I, I do remember some people
Speaker:saying, it's all good, you know, we've got analysis's going into theater.
Speaker:It's everything fine.
Speaker:And then I remember being taken out into the waiting room.
Speaker:Remember, like, uh, this is like 24 hours of pretty traumatic shit.
Speaker:And I remember having a chat with the midwife and you know, we're just
Speaker:trying to have small talk and whatever.
Speaker:And then I hear this like, code white, code white to the theater
Speaker:code, white to the theater.
Speaker:I remember seeing like a look on her face that wasn't great.
Speaker:Yes, that's when you saw the panic.
Speaker:And I said to her, what the fuck is going on?
Speaker:Don't lie to me.
Speaker:Tell me what's going on right now.
Speaker:'cause no way I can go home without her.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And she's like, they're just asking for more blood.
Speaker:She's obviously in a
Speaker:blood transfusion.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That happened twice.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And when you don't know about something and you wanna know everything, it's very
Speaker:hard to be in a situation where you've got you, you're outta control where
Speaker:you, you're in a lifestyle where you're in so control of everything you do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And not having control sucks.
Speaker:It sucks.
Speaker:And then, look, I, um, ended up.
Speaker:Just pacing and yeah, remember this beautiful doctor came in, like beautiful
Speaker:person came in and she took me aside.
Speaker:She said, everything's fine.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, Lucy's fine.
Speaker:We had to give her a couple of blood transfusions, but she's fine.
Speaker:She's recovery.
Speaker:You can go and see her.
Speaker:And I just remember going in and seeing her.
Speaker:And
Speaker:was that just the most like, like relaxed you to ever sort of felt?
Speaker:Oh, it was a massive relief.
Speaker:Well obviously then you, you've got that relief that your partner's fine, but then.
Speaker:The reality just kicks in again too, of like
Speaker:what you're facing.
Speaker:So did just, so to go back, did you kind of feel like you forgot
Speaker:about the twins for a second?
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you forgot like it was just a whole nother.
Speaker:Thing.
Speaker:It's hollow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's okay as well.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You know, you kind of go into like preservation mode, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You're just like, okay, so what can we control here?
Speaker:Um, can't control what happened with the twins.
Speaker:That's done now.
Speaker:We lost the twins within 24 hours of each other, and they were, one
Speaker:was 19 day, 19 weeks, and five days while it was 19 days and six days.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Technically miscarriage.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Now, I'll tell you right now that they were human beings.
Speaker:Because I saw them, Lucy held them.
Speaker:I couldn't do it because I, I just, I couldn't.
Speaker:And, and that's okay.
Speaker:I think about it now and Lucy did say, I think you might regret it.
Speaker:And I said, I don't think I will.
Speaker:And even to this day, I don't regret it.
Speaker:But I looked at them and they were human beings, you know,
Speaker:perfect little human beings.
Speaker:Five fingers, five toes, nose, eyes, whatever.
Speaker:And, um.
Speaker:That was enough for you.
Speaker:It was enough for me.
Speaker:Now, you know, I, you know, we were really fortunate that we had the most
Speaker:amazing, um, support network around us.
Speaker:And I'll, maybe I'll fast forward to a couple of things.
Speaker:As you know, Lu was in hospital for a little bit.
Speaker:We had the most amazing pastoral care nurse.
Speaker:Now, I'm not a religious person, but man, she was awesome.
Speaker:And I still tell this story.
Speaker:For to this day when she, when she explained grief to me.
Speaker:And you know, if you imagine a bookshelf, yeah.
Speaker:And there's a book on there that says grief.
Speaker:And then as you move through life, the book is still there.
Speaker:Obviously I'm quite emotional about it now.
Speaker:Still.
Speaker:But everything around it has been filled in with all these other
Speaker:things that make up your life.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think this is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about it.
Speaker:I think it's important that, you know, life is not linear.
Speaker:And you know, fast forward to Phoenix who's the most incredible
Speaker:kid and he is such a gift.
Speaker:And you know, I know that when he was born, I had the most
Speaker:amazing connection with him.
Speaker:Uh, probably more so because of the history Yeah.
Speaker:Of what had happened.
Speaker:And, you know, fast forward now to where we sit right now where we're
Speaker:actually pregnant with our third child.
Speaker:And it's a girl.
Speaker:It's a girl having a little girl, which I'm incredibly excited about.
Speaker:And, and this is all relevant.
Speaker:I'm bringing this up because, um.
Speaker:I guess I just wanted to talk about how, if you imagine that bookshelf
Speaker:and that book of grief there, we've also got all the experiences
Speaker:I've had, we've had as a family.
Speaker:I've got all the support of all the people that were around me at the time.
Speaker:I. And massive shout out to the guys from Riverview Cafe.
Speaker:Like they didn't have to do anything for me, except I did not
Speaker:pay for a thing for two weeks.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:When I went in there.
Speaker:How and how far, like, it's
Speaker:such a small thing and how it, it's like,
Speaker:yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker:But you know, like the story about.
Speaker:Uh, getting, having a girl now is that I thought we were done
Speaker:like we did IVF for Phoenix for, for a range of reasons and we
Speaker:actually had embryos left over.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:See?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, um, I thought we were done.
Speaker:And Lucy, middle of last year said, I feel that with Phoenix
Speaker:coming back, we've given one of the twins an opportunity to come back.
Speaker:To come back.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we have four embryos and I actually want to see.
Speaker:If the other twin I see, he goes, she goes, I still feel him.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I want to give him an opportunity to come back too and.
Speaker:Uh, I'm not saying how can you argue with that?
Speaker:Because I think deep down inside for me, getting pregnant with twins actually
Speaker:created space for three kids anyway.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like I never thought I would, but I was content with two,
Speaker:but it created space for three.
Speaker:So the idea of having three wasn't I. Wrong.
Speaker:It felt right.
Speaker:It, it, it feels so right now it's gonna be fucking chaos,
Speaker:but it's, you know, feel, right.
Speaker:But just getting back to the whole Covid thing where you're saying that,
Speaker:you know, the kind of world explodes, you know, that the world exploded.
Speaker:I'll tell you right now, COVID was nothing.
Speaker:You're kind of prepared.
Speaker:Covid was nothing compared to the shit that we went through the year before.
Speaker:You know, fucking bring it on because we can handle this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And you know, Lucy and I did a lot of.
Speaker:Conversa, like a lot of talking, a lot of like, it took me a while to really,
Speaker:I guess, address it from through a couple of different psychologists,
Speaker:and I feel I'm all right now.
Speaker:Lucy did an incredible amount of work with her therapist as well.
Speaker:But yeah, look, traumatic things happen in life.
Speaker:Fantastic things happen in life, and I think at the end
Speaker:of the day, that's just life.
Speaker:So I've got one question 20, 30 years from now.
Speaker:Your three children are looking at having children and having
Speaker:children and they listen to this.
Speaker:What do you want them to take away from this?
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:Life is very unpredictable.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And as much as I like to be in control of things, I think that
Speaker:unpredictability of life is probably also what makes it so beautiful.
Speaker:And I think if I think about Phoenix and you know, his name is
Speaker:pretty relevant as well, you know?
Speaker:Phoenix rising outta the ashes of a really shit situation.
Speaker:I think that you need to take a chance in life.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But don't let it hold
Speaker:you back.
Speaker:Don't let it hold you back.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Hamish, thank you very much for sharing that.
Speaker:Um, it's not often I'm left speechless and you've shared parts
Speaker:of this story with me before.
Speaker:I think that, um, for you to come from where you are, I didn't know you
Speaker:at that point to where you are now.
Speaker:Like you've done an incredible amount of work that you should be super proud of.
Speaker:I. Don't really know your wife, but I'm gonna speak on behalf of her.
Speaker:I bet you she's super proud of where you've come from to where you are now.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But your family and friends and everyone.
Speaker:Um, I've got here s support written down.
Speaker:Uh, I think people, uh, you again created that support.
Speaker:It just didn't come because, uh.
Speaker:You are lucky.
Speaker:So there are avenues, I think if people triggered by this as well.
Speaker:Just again, there are support networks out there.
Speaker:Uh, please don't be afraid to reach out to those um people.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Um, I'm sure we'll probably touch on this a little bit more.
Speaker:I've got some stuff here now about questions about this in the future and
Speaker:kids and things like that, especially, uh, since you're about to have a third.
Speaker:And I think we touched on that another time, but, um, is there
Speaker:anything else you wanna add?
Speaker:Just
Speaker:one last thing, you know, the streak, um.
Speaker:Lula Hui through this whole thing.
Speaker:I'll always be in awe
Speaker:of how she conducted herself through this whole thing.
Speaker:'cause it is so much different.
Speaker:Like I was upset at the idea of, you know, losing twins.
Speaker:She physically had them in her Okay.
Speaker:Birth to them and was connected with them on a whole different level to
Speaker:what I was, and to see her be the person that she's now and um, how
Speaker:she's navigated through that really terrible time, uh, is pretty incredible.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Ham, thank you for sharing.
Speaker:Thanks mate.
Speaker:Thank you buddy.