301: Katie Craig’s Incredible Journey Raising Her Son After Becoming a Widow at 29

Katie Craig thought she knew what motherhood might look like. She and her husband Lachy were building a life together in Biloela, Central Queensland, and after years of worrying endometriosis might affect fertility, they were overjoyed to be expecting their little boy, Dougy. But at just 27 weeks pregnant, Katie went into labour. Dougy weighed only 1.1 kilograms at birth, and Katie was then separated from him for the first seven days of his life after testing positive to COVID. What followed was months in NICU, brain surgery, hearing loss investigations, and years navigating medical trauma in rural Australia. Then, just as life was beginning to stabilise, Lachy was diagnosed with terminal cancer at just 34 years old. Today, Katie shares the unimaginable reality of becoming a widow at 29, raising a medically complex child through grief, and why she still feels incredibly hopeful about the future.

Pop Family Speech Pathologists is Australia’s largest online speech pathology practice, delivering flexible telehealth support to rural and regional families nationwide, with no waitlist. Head to: https://popfamily.au/ 

The Victorian Farmers Federation is delivering the Making Our Farms Safer project, offering free, confidential farm safety visits to help producers reduce risks and build safer farming businesses and families. Head to: https://vff.org.au/project/making-our-farms-safer/

https://www.instagram.com/motherlandaustralia

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

For many rural and regional families, accessing the right support for your child isn't always simple. That's why Pop Family Speech Pathologists was created. Founded by Heidi Trussler, who grew up in Outback Queensland and experienced firsthand the challenges of accessing speech support, Pop has been telehealth first from day one. Today, they're Australia's largest online speech pathology practice with more than 85 speech pathologists supporting families nationwide and no wait list. Every session is delivered online via Zoom at a time that suits your family, making expert support more accessible for parents no matter where they live. For more information, head to the link in today's show notes. And farming is more than a job. It's family, community, and a way of life. And at the end of every day, everyone deserves to get home safely. That's why the Victorian Farmers Federation is delivering the Making Our Farms Safer project, helping farming families take practical steps to improve safety on farm. Through free, confidential farm safety visits, producers can get personalised advice to reduce risks around machinery, vehicles, livestock, quad bikes, and more. The visits are confidential, practical, and designed to support safer, healthier farming businesses and families. To book your free safety visit or learn more, head to the Victorian Farmers Federation website and search Making Our Farms Safer Today. Hi, I'm Stephanie Trithiewe, the founder of Motherland, a national charity that supports rural mums across Australia. Welcome to the Motherland Podcast, where each week I share with you real and raw stories of motherhood told by women on the land. I certainly didn't expect to be widowed twice by age 51.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

I was so scared when he was born. I felt so alone.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

And I remember sobbing to her as I just said, what have I done? It's a wild roller coaster we're all on. So no matter where you live or what you do, remember we're in this together and you're not alone. So what's it like to raise kids on the land? This is Motherland. Katie Craig thought she knew what motherhood might look like. She and her husband Lockie were building a life together in Billawheeler, Central Queensland. They'd bought a farm, gotten married, and after years of worrying that endometriosis might make falling pregnant difficult, they were overjoyed to be expecting their little boy Dougie. But at just 27 weeks pregnant, Katie went into labour. Within hours, she was having an emergency C-section in her local hospital while doctors fought to save her baby's life. Dougie weighed just 1.1 kilograms at birth. Then Katie tested positive to COVID and was separated from her newborn son for the first seven days of his life. What followed was months in NICU, brain surgery, ongoing hearing loss investigations, and years of living in survival mode as a mum navigating medical trauma in rural Australia. And then, just as life was beginning to stabilize, Katie's husband Lockie was diagnosed with terminal cancer at just 34 years old. On this episode of Motherland, Katie shares the unimaginable reality of becoming a widow at 29, raising a medically complex child through grief, and why, despite everything she's endured, she still feels so hopeful about the future. This is Katie's unbelievable story. Katie, welcome to Motherland. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for saying yes. We're in May now, and very soon we're going to meet each other face to face at our Rocky event. I'm so excited to have you there.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to um sharing my story and hopefully helping some other mothers to feel heard and seen in some of the things they're experiencing too.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Do you want to introduce yourself to everyone listening? Just a little bit about yourself, where you're based, um, who's in your family, and a bit about where you're at?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, so um I'm Katie Craig and I'm from a small town in central Queensland called Billawheeler. I have lived here my whole life other than going away for university. I became a mother in 2022 to my son Dougie, and I had quite a rough journey into motherhood, and things have still been turbulent since then. Um, yeah, recently becoming a widow uh at 29 years of age.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So and Katie, you mentioned Billawheeler is home for you. Tell me a bit about your hometown and your childhood. Like what was it like growing up there?

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah, so um I grew up on a cattle grazing property 20 minutes out of Billow. Um, I have three brothers. I'm the second oldest in my family. So mum wanted us all to play the same sports growing up because we lived out of town. So I play soccer and rugby union and boy sports generally. Um, but yeah, I think for me, right from a young age, I really enjoyed sport and the competitiveness of it. I still definitely strived really hard in my academics. Um sport was my passion. Uh so yeah, growing up, I did as much sport as mum would possibly let me, and she did a lot of kilometres driving me to all of the representative sport around in the region. And then after finishing school, I actually then went on to university in Rockhampton to study a Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science to keep going in that field of sport. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

And so what was the plan, you know, going on to study there? And and you know, afterwards, after you finished your studies, what was the job plan and what was the dream?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

I didn't have much of a plan to begin with. I just knew that sport was what I was passionate about, and there was a university degree there that was exactly that. So I thought I'll jump into this degree and see where it takes me. As I was nearing the end of the degree, I had plans to study further to become an exercise physiologist. But then at that point in time, I started dating the man who ended up being my husband, uh, and he was gambillo. Um, and so the opportunity to do a dip-ed in teaching, it was the last year they were bringing it as a one-year dip ed instead of a two-year master's course. So I thought, well, I may as well just jump in and do that and at least have teaching up my sleeve as well, because there's always jobs in that wherever you go, or moving back to Billow, I knew I'd be able to pick that up. So um, yeah, I got that done. I did my placements at a couple of the schools in Billow. Uh became a high school PE and science teacher. Always knew that teaching wasn't really for me.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Why not?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I really I really loved the kids. It was more so the planning, marking, assessing side of things. I'm the sort of person that I just put too much pressure on myself, and if the kids weren't achieving, I couldn't uh keep that separate from being uh a reflection of my teaching skills. So I ended up going into a role as the district relief teacher and teaching across all of the schools in the whole area. Um, and I really loved that because I would go from teaching prof one day to teaching year 12 the next day, all of the subjects. And I just got to know everyone in the community really well, and I just loved that. I loved being able to be around town and know all of the kids and eventually figure out who their parents were and stuff like that. And especially because I've always lived in Billow. I'm just yeah, I really love our community, and so anything that puts me into that more just makes me really happy.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

That's so special that you've got that connection to your home community, you know. A lot of not everyone does, you know, a lot of people leave or or marry and move. Speaking of marriage, how did you meet your husband?

SPEAKER_01 8:58

So Lockie was working at the local sports store when I was probably in my mid to late teens, or mid-teens, I would say. Uh, and he knew my older brother. And then I got Facebook, and as you do, you just add every person that you think you know. So I added Lockie, to which he sent me a message and said, Hey, do I know you?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

That's awkward.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Uh no, but you know my brother. Anyway, he quickly realized who I was and that he did kind of know me. Um, but he was always to try and talk to me in person for a few years there until eventually he ended up joining my touch footy team. Um, and then he had to talk to me. Uh, and I had a boyfriend at the time who was also on the touch footy team, but that didn't work out.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

And then um You're literally on the field with your current boyfriend and your future husband, like playing on the same team running around.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

As well as my three brothers. Oh my dad. And my dad occasionally. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

What a team!

SPEAKER_01 10:06

So, yeah, a small, a small world, you know. But um, yeah, so our our connection just built from there. And yeah, we started dating. Lockie heard his son playing rugby union, so he was coming up to Rockhampton to see a specialist, and I was living up there doing uni at the time. So we started dating, and within six months, I had finished up the exercise science degree that I was talking about, and I decided to move back to Billow while I studied my teaching dip head.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

And so by this stage, you and Lockie were pretty serious? Like how quickly did things move and what was the plan? Him being from town, did that make things pretty straightforward? You just always wanted to build a life in Billow?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

I kind of, but Lockie was also a very sensible person, and he wasn't too keen to just sort of jump in too seriously. Um, uh in saying that, we were serious, but he wasn't the sort to want to just straightaway move in together or anything like that. And also bearing in mind, I was only 19 at the time, so I was quite young. Lockie was 24, so he was five years older than me. Um, so we did sort of just ease into the relationship. It definitely was a serious relationship, but also we took into took into regard our age at the time. Um, so yeah, we just sort of lived between each other's houses for a couple of years. I finished my teaching degree, knew I absolutely didn't want to be a full-time teacher, needed something to do the following year, and I said to Lockie, I'm thinking about going to summer camp in America for four months next year. And he said, I've been to America a few times. I don't really want to go, I think I'll just stay here. And I was like, Okay. So, like we were still fully dating and together the whole time, but he just let me go and you know, have my experience. Um, and so I went to America for four months and then I came back and we just were the same as we had always been. Um, and then yeah, a year or so later he got the question.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

And what was that day like, you know, having that being asked to be his wife and committing to a life together? That's that's huge. How did that feel for you and and what happened after that together?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

It was yeah, super exciting. Um, we had bought a farm together just out of Villawilla at the end of 2020. In September 2020, we moved into our farm. And so this was the end of December that he finally questioned, which I had kind of given him a time frame and said, you know, we need to figure out what we're doing. I have endo, I need to be planning ahead here. Um, babies is on my agenda, all of that. Um, so I said, you know, figure it out by the end of the year. So, in true lucky fashion, he waited until the 28th of December, and we went we went camping at our creep down the paddock um and took our dogs and uh just camped in the back of the Ute under the stars, and there was this at like midnight, there was this most beautiful shooting star, and I thought, this is it, this is my moment. He's got it from nothing happened. So then and the next morning we got up and I was half disappointed. We're packing up the camping stuff, and then we were literally just about to leave the creek, and I was looking out over the water, and then I turned around and he was down on me. So, so much joy, so much excitement. Um, yeah, and really ready to start the next chapter together.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, and as part of that next chapter, you mentioned earlier that that you had endometriosis. So take us through that. How did you get diagnosed? How debilitating was it for you? What did doctors tell you? What did that mean? Yeah, take us through that because that's a pretty important women's health issue that doesn't get spoken enough about, particularly in rural Australia in terms of healthcare.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Yeah, definitely. So it was in 2020 that I uh went back to my gynecologist to say, you know, I'm having these weird, weird pain, like bits of bleeding. I'm not really sure what's going on. There wasn't really much, there wasn't many symptoms really to go off. It was sort, and it was sort of random. And it would be a few months between having the bouts of pain. It wasn't super debilitating, it was nothing too serious. And so it had probably been going on for a couple of years by the time I actually decided to go to the gynecologist and be like, look, this has been happening for the last little while. Like, what do you think could be happening? And he said to me, Oh, you know, it's hard to know. It could be pelvic inflammatory syndrome or it could be endo, and really the only way we can diagnose it is to do some surgery and have a look around and see what we can find. So, um, yeah, in mid-2020, I had that surgery done, and it showed that I had stage two, almost stage three, endo, which was a real shock to me because, like I said, I didn't think my symptoms were that bad. So that then made me quite nervous, the fact that it actually had progressed that far without me even really knowing that I had it. So over the next year, I actually experienced more pain, which I wonder if it was to do with the fact that I then knew that it was in my body. Um but yeah, so that was part of me then feeling like Ocky and I needed to hurry things up. We had been dating for four years. Um I was 24 when we got engaged, I thought 23 when we got engaged. So yeah, it um definitely played a huge role in our relationship because my life goal has always been to be a mum and a wife, you know, just to have that family bonding, just to be a family unit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

And you managed to get that and and to do that for not as long as you deserved, but you did achieve that. However, it has had its ups and downs. So tell me a bit about deciding to try and fall pregnant with your endo. Were you told it might be trickier? Did it end up being hard? How long did you try for before you fell pregnant with your little boy?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Um, so after my first surgery mid-2020, I then had another surgery mid-2021 because the pain had really ramped up. I was really anxious about it because the pain hadn't been there previously and yet it was as bad as it was. I kind of wanted to get an understanding of how quickly it was growing. Um, and when I went for that surgery, it actually hadn't grown too much. So they removed what was there. We got married in the September, and I fell pregnant by January. So we actually were quite fortunate that yeah, within three months of stopping the pill, I fell pregnant, and everything was really smooth sailing. Um well, until my 12-week scan when I tested in the high risk range for Down syndrome. And I my specialist didn't actually explain to me what that meant, and my statistics were actually only one in 1100 and something, but it was still classed as high risk, so I then had to undergo more testing, or I had the option to undergo more testing to see where I sat with that, and um it turned out that it was sort of like a false positive. I actually wasn't in the high risk range for uh Dougie to be down syndrome. So that was all a bit of a um confronting situation in itself, but at the beginning of the pregnancy. But yeah, so from when I got those results at 13 weeks, everything was smooth sailing. I mean, I had the bits bits of um morning sickness and all of the things that come with it, but nothing nothing was wrong, everything was just good. Um until I went to the races one Saturday when I was uh 27 plus five weeks pregnant. And I decided I wasn't feeling very well by the end of the day. I went home early. I Lockie was heading out the door to go to night shift, and I said, Oh, just keep your phone on loud, like I'm not feeling great. We might need to go to the hospital for me to get checked out or something. Um so he left to head to night shift and I went to bed, and I had like just full body aches and wasn't feeling very good. Um, so I thought I just need to go to sleep and I'll wake up feeling better. But I woke up an hour later and my pains were isolated to my abdominal region. Um, and so I started Googling Popston Hicks, thinking maybe I've got Popson Hicks, like I'm too early for it to be anything else. I didn't know anything about labor because I kind of wanted to scare myself by looking into it too soon. And anyway, I looked at the Popston Hicks symptoms and I was like, no, that's not it. And then as I kept scrolling, the labor symptoms came up and I went, oh my goodness, I've got like five of these symptoms. I'd lost my mucus plug, and I had I was in labor, like I was having contractions regularly. Um yeah, there was a few things there, and so I called my mum, who was in Brisbane at the time for other appointments, and said, This is what's going on. She said, You need a real Lockie right now, get him to come home and call your midwife. You need to go to the hospital. So, yeah, Locky headed home from work. I called the midwife. She said, start timing your contractions so that we can get an idea of how far along you might be. Which already at that point my contractions were only two minutes apart and lasting 30 seconds to a minute.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Oh wow. So yeah, lucky. That must have been so frightened frightening. Were you thinking in your head, obviously you knew it was too early, but were you frightened and frightened knowing that you were likely in labor and you're only 27 weeks?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

I think I was just in shock and I just was feeling so ordinary anyway. Um, I could tell that I had a fever and like I just wasn't feeling good. So I literally stayed dressed in my pajamas, slipped my slippers on my feet, hopped in the youth, and Loki started driving me to town. And as we're driving, I'm still timing my contractions and they're getting closer together and lasting longer to the point that he went to stop at a stop sign as we're getting into town. And I just I don't usually swear, but I said, Don't you ever think stop? We need to keep going. Um, and so we got to the hospital, and I could barely walk into the hospital because my contractions were hitting me even as I was trying to walk in there. So they got me in there and put me in ED immediately, and um yeah, they checked me and said, Yep, you're definitely in labor. They needed to give me the anti D because I have a negative blood group. I hadn't had that yet. They were asking me about my glucose challenge, but I actually hadn't had that yet. It was meant to happen in two days' time. So they were giving me the steroids, and at this point, I still didn't think I was gonna have a baby. At this point, I still was just thinking the hospital's gonna fix this, you know. I'm just gonna stay in overnight and I'll be home tomorrow. Like, this isn't a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

And you were at Bill, you were at Billawila Hospital to be careful. I was at Billawila Hospital. They had maternity, they had maternity services then.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

They had maternity services, yes. And there happened to be an obstetrician on duty at the time when I arrived. And the midwife came in on call to help as well. Um, so I'd probably been laying, I'd probably got there at a About midnight, and by one o'clock, I like was in more pain all of a sudden, and they checked me and I had a prolips cord. So Dougie's umbilical cord was coming out in front of his head, um, which is super dangerous anytime, but especially at 27 plus six weeks, because if that cord gets damaged, he then doesn't have a lifeline anymore. So the doctor sort of used his hand to guide my cord and Dougie back in and said, hopefully he will just stay put. Like, we've got the jet coming from Brisbane to come and get you with a doctor on board, so that if you end up delivering in the sky, we can do that, but hopefully we can get you to Brisbane without you delivering this baby. Um, and then 15 minutes later he came back and checked, and my cord was prolapsing again, and he just said, This is not good, you're not going to be able to be transferred anywhere. Um, he literally put his hand inside me and held Dougie inside me as he told the nurses to call in the medical team because I needed to have an emergency cesarean ASAP. So with his hand inside me, he tells me to get over on all fours, and I'm thinking, are you gonna take your hand out? Nope, I just had to kick my leg over his head and get over on all fours. I was on the gas, I was vomiting because I was in so much pain, because I was in full-blown labor, my body's trying to push this baby out, and the doctor's holding it in. Um, it was chaos. So lucky my husband was there with me the whole time. My dad ended up coming in to support us because my mum was away in Brisbane. And yeah, so the doctor held Dougie in for half an hour while the anaesthetist uh arrived and while they got theatre ready, and then they wheeled me around and did an emergency caesarean. Um and yeah, the doctor said that when he went to do the cesarean, he actually got nervous for a little bit because Dougie was so far down in the birth panel, he didn't know if he was going to be able to get him back up to bring him out of my tummy. So he was worried he was actually going to have to push him through vaginally. But luckily, that didn't have to happen. And he was able to come out through the cesarean. Um, and then yeah, they had to have the Neo-Puff respirator on Dougie's face straight away breathing for him. Uh, so a nurse had to do that for four hours while they waited for the Neo rescue team to arrive in Villawilla to transport us.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Oh, Katie. One minute you're at the races, the next minute, you know, your little boy's in the fight of his life. That must have been such a frightening time for you. I know you said you were in shock, but at what point during his birth, the cesarean, or afterwards, did it start to hit you that you'd become a mum, but not in the way that you imagined it would happen?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

I don't think it did. I don't think it hit me for days because when I arrived at Billow Hospital, they did a rap test, because obviously this was in COVID times, this was 2022, and I like I said, I knew I had felt like I'd had a fever. They did a rap test and it tested negative. Um I this is where the story gets even crazier. Usually the mum wouldn't be able to fly down to Brisbane that day because the baby's the priority, the mum can't be on the flight with them because of the situation of needing doctors and whatnot. Um, but my super coach uh from when I was a kid was having a heart attack on the same night in Billow Hospital, and he needed to be flown to Brisbane. So they actually put me on his plane with him, with his consent, to be flown to Brisbane as well. So I didn't have to wait until the next day.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Is this like a lack of resour resources or something, Katie? Like how did how on earth, you know, you'd just given birth, traumatic, you'd had surgery, you're separated from your baby, and then you've got to just share a ride with a bloke that's had a heart attack.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Often the mums don't get to go at all on that day. They're kept in the hospital that they're at, and the baby is transported to Brisbane, especially because I had had the cesarean, like obviously I'm needing healthcare as well. So I can't have a baby that's critically ill on a flight with another patient. So that's where the dilemma comes in, I guess. So I actually arrived in Brisbane before Dougie did. I left the hospital uh before the as the Neo Rescue team arrived to pick up Dougie. So Lockie flew down with Dougie. But as I arrived at the hospital in Brisbane, they did a rat test and I tested positive. And I said, No way, no way, this can't be right. I just did one a few hours ago at Billow Hospital. I was negative, this isn't right. And they said, Oh, we can do a PCR if you like, and I said, Yep, do a PCR. So they did a PCR and I awaited my results, and yes, I had COVID. So I was taken to an isolation room at um the Royal Brisbane Hospital. Um and I was told I wouldn't be allowed to see my baby for seven days.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

For seven days. Yeah, yeah. I I actually can't believe that that is legal to withhold a mother from her child like that. I mean, don't get me started on the pandemic and the way things were managed at times. But so, oh my god, Katie, I sorry, I'm just digesting. I don't think I've heard a more extraordinary birth story with just hurdle after hurdle. So, what happened? Your little boy's in the fight of his life, in in the, I guess, the best care in Queensland in Brizzy. You're in isolation. Where does Lockie go? And and what happens next for both you and your little boy?

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Uh Lockie becomes the milk boy, the milkman. He wasn't he had to choose between seeing me or seeing Dougie. He couldn't go between seeing both of us for risk of contamination. So I would have to express my milk into a jar, give it to the nurse. The nurse would take it out to the front desk. Lockie would come and collect it and then take it to the NICU where Dougie was. Um yeah, so they kept me in that room, which was actually on the maternity board, for a couple of nights. They told me I could I would be able to stay in there for a few more nights, it would all be fine. I think it was on night three that they came in at like 9 p.m. at night and said, We're taking you to the COVID ward. And I was like, um, okay, but I am struggling to get out of bed still. Like I've had a cesarean with COVID. Like, my body is not okay. They've wheeled me down to this room on the COVID ward. People are coughing their guts up. It's horrific. They've put me in this room. I look at the bed, it's lopsided. I'm like, there's something wrong with this bed. Nobody cared. The nurses all just seem so apped out and exhausted. I'm just sobbing. I'm like, where am I meant to pump? There's no machine in here for me to pump milk. There's no specimen jars for me to put my milk into. I'm asking for help. People are taking hours to come back. I again, I'm still only like three days postpartum with a birth story that, you know, was so unexpected. And I just rang mum in the middle of the night and I just said, You've got to get me out of here. I can't stay on this COVID ward. Like, this is horrific. I can't do it. Um, so she started ringing around motels, but first she was disclosing that I had COVID, and they were all saying, nope, nope, you can't stay here. So eventually she stopped telling them, and we managed to get a motel room for me so that I could get out of the hospital. On that day, on day four, Dougie then ended up with a perforated stomach and needed to be transferred to the Martyr mother's to have surgery. And again, I couldn't be there for that. So Lockie, my husband, had to um go by himself to the hospital with our four-day-old baby who weighed 1.1 kilograms, and watch him be wheeled into a surgery where they weren't actually 100% sure what was wrong at this point, whether it was a proliferated bowl or they just knew something was wrong with his abdominal cavity. And so I just can't imagine the emotions Locky was feeling sitting there as a new dad by himself, um feeling responsible for our baby because I couldn't be there, wasn't allowed to be there. Um anyway, luckily the surgery went well. Um, it was only a perforated stomach, which is much better than it having been a perforated valve. So, yeah, Dougie had to stay at the Martyr Mother's hospital for three weeks so that the surgeons could keep checking on him. And on day seven of life, I was finally able to get out of ISO and go and visit my baby for the first time. But walking into that NICKU room, and Dougie was at the cot in the cot at the very end, you know, there's four babies on either sides of the room, all hooked up to these big massive machines that are just beeping and alarming every time someone's heart rate's too high, too low, their breathing stops, the just alarms all the time, and I just remember walking in there and just it's all just so surreal that this is happening to me. And you know, Lockie guided me down to this little incubator crib that has a baby in there that I'm like, this is my baby, I guess. Like, I I don't know, I haven't seen this baby for seven days. I I didn't get any time with him really at the start in Billow Hospital. I mean, I have an hour laying there next to him, but I'd just have a cesarean and was in crazy amounts of pain and shock. Um, so that was kind of weird and hard to come to terms with that that that one was my baby. Like he almost didn't look any different to any of the other babies in the room. Uh so yeah, and then you know, Lockie had been taught how to change his nappies and stuff. So Lockie then taught me how to change his nappies while he was in the incubator crib where you can only put your hands in the through holes on the sides to be able to do it. Um yeah, Lockie, Lockie then taught me how to do all of these, I don't know, motherly things, I guess, in a way. And so he had just held the fort for seven days. He had just cumpled in and absolutely got the job.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

I just can't believe how much the system let you down as a new mum to be forced to isolate away from your baby, to not be allowed near your baby for seven days. How do you feel about that now, several years later, looking back on what happened to you and what was done to you?

SPEAKER_01 33:40

I guess the tricky thing is I can understand it because he was in a room with all of these other babies. But if I walk in there with COVID, I'm not only risking giving COVID to my own baby, it's to all of these other little babies that are fighting for their lives too.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Um, and there was no other way, there was no other way for you to look at him, even be through, you know. I totally understand the keeping the other baby safe, of course. And I've not had a NICU baby, so I I don't understand. But there was no other way, like, do you think that anything could have been done to support you in any way rather than just shove you away because you had COVID?

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, I don't know, and I guess for me, I probably haven't wanted to reflect too much on that time or feel like I wish things had been different because I don't I don't want to hold any negative emotions about it. Um, for me, I've just tried to keep moving forward, and you know, we're past the COVID side of things now, so it's not likely to happen to other mothers. Um yeah, it it definitely was flawed, but I also don't know what the solution would have been in order to keep everyone safe, and especially babies when they're at their most critical.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yeah, physically safe, absolutely. But the emotional toll on yourself and your husband sounds reasonably unavoidable, but that must have been horrific for you. So take us through obviously NICU was a journey in itself, but take us through how long was he in NICU for and and what was his health like, and when did you take him home?

SPEAKER_01 35:30

Yeah, so he had that surgery, the laparoscoposcopy on day four of life. Um, and so things were quite nerve-wracking for at least a week following that because of the risk of infection, which at one point he did spike a fever, and they called us in the middle of the night to say, look, he spiked a fever. We think we should give him antibiotics, we need your consent to be able to do that. And we just said, Yep, like you're the professionals. If you're telling us that's the best option, then yes, do that. Um, and then I think it must have been while he was still at Martyr Mother's, so a week or so after the abdominal surgery, that they had been measuring his head circumference, and they said, and maybe they did an ultrasound of his of his brain straight off the bat just to check how things were. They noticed that his ventricles were enlarged, um, which is a sign of a brain bleed. But they said, you know, it looks like he's only had a grade two brain bleed, which a grade four is the worst that you can get. And they said, usually most grade two brain bleeds defy themselves, like it he his body will just develop and mature, and it'll be okay. So they kept measuring his head weekly um for the 10 weeks we were in hospital, and his head size just continued to grow way more than his body size, like it was not in relation to the rest of his growth. Um, but by the time and and luckily he managed to move from um the CPAP machine, like the breathing support, he managed to move straight to high-flow breathing support rather than having to go on to oxygen. So we knew he was likely to get out of hospital without having to go on oxygen, but that was a whole situation in itself advocating for him because you'd have diff different doctors come in with different opinions about what should be happening. Um, Loki and I were there at hospital all day, every day. Like Loki took the 10 weeks off work as well, and we were both there, and we were just in the hospital for you know, six hours a day each, um, just cuddling our baby because we knew that skin-to-skin cuddles was going to be really beneficial to him, it was going to help me with my milk supply. So, yeah, it was all it was all very busy all of the time. Um, but yeah, by the time we hit the 10 weeks, he was able to be weaned off the high flow um breathing support. And they had decided that his head circumference was okay and that he was stable. And they flew us back to Rockhampton where we had two nights in hospital there before coming home. But that was so scary because we'd gone from him being hooked up to a machine for 10 weeks where it beeped, you know, every time anything happened. And yet, as soon as we got to rookie, they were like, No, you don't need any machines. And I'm like, What? You mean my baby's just gonna be in my room with me, with no nurses, with no machines? Like, as much as that's exciting, it was more so daunting. I was just like, uh, is this gonna be okay? Like, are we sure? He only came off the high flow like a day ago. How do we know he's not gonna relapse? Kind of thing. Um, but anyway, everything was fine. We came home to our farm finally after 10 weeks. And on Dougie's due date, so at 12 weeks postpartum, uh, we had his due date birthday party. He had a zero birthday party, seeing as though we never got to have my um baby shower because he came so early.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

Yeah. Oh gosh, Katie, like what a roller coaster. And for you, I'm not everyone's different with how they emotionally manage, you know, traumatic experiences like that, particularly around birth trauma. But, you know, before I ask you about Dougie and motherhood, did you get any support in dealing with what had happened to you emotionally? Because I imagine there was a lot to take on. Did you ever seek support for that? Did you feel like you needed some extra support?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah, I had a friend who was already using a psychologist um for her own postpartum journey. And she actually said to her psychologist, look, I have a friend that's just had this happen. Can I give her my appointment slots? Like because the the psychologist didn't have any more availability. She said, Can I can I just give her my next time slot? And can you just talk to her? And then can you fit her in? Because I think you're gonna see that she needs this. So yeah, my beautiful friend Danielle gave me gave me her time slot and I got to speak to a psychologist. And honestly, I was still just in shock. I think the whole 10 weeks, I just I think I probably went from being in shock to just being in survival mode. I didn't have time to crumble. I I knew I needed to, not that I didn't have time to crumble, but I knew I needed to stay strong and support my baby. You know, he was still the priority and he needed me at the best that I could be. Um the hospital then also put me in contact with the psychologist as well. So, yes, there was lots of support around me. I just didn't really know how to use it yet because I was just like, I don't, I can't or I don't want to unpack all of my feelings on this. I just need to keep going. You know, I just need to keep getting to the next step. I need to get my baby home. Yeah, I just need to keep going from here.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

And what was that next step like? Like take us through the first few months of having your little boy home and finally settling into being a family.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, it was super exciting to get home and to finally introduce him to all of our family and friends. Also daunting because we knew how fragile his health was. That I was very, very strict on people, please do not touch my baby at all. Don't touch his hands, don't touch his feet, just please don't touch him. Obviously, it was different with family. If they came to our house, you know, please wash your hands, and now you can have a hold, but obviously no kissing. We were just very strict on all of that side of things considering what we had been through. We just didn't want any extra hurdles. Um, but we were still worried about Dougie's head silly. We had actually, I spoke to my child health nurse and said, can you please just keep measuring his head once a week? Like, I don't think this is okay. Um and by the but so that was in September that we came home from hospital. Um, and by December, I was started talking to a neurosurgeon because I said, This doesn't look good. Lockie and I were looking at the stats, and he was just heading off charts, further off the charts with his head circumference. So we met with the um neurosurgeon and he said, Look, I think he's gonna need surgery, but I'm happy to give it a bit more time to see if he if his body matures, if it can rectify itself. But I think in three months' time we need to make a decision. Um so by March of the following year, Dougie's head size had reached the 99.9 percentile in size, and we knew that we couldn't wait any longer. He just needed to have the brain surgery to have a shunt put in. Um, so on top of that, in the meantime, Dougie had also been diagnosed deaf. Um he hadn't passed his newborn hearing screening in Rockhampton Hospital before we left there, so they had referred us on. Um, and I think probably in November of 2020. He had some more formal testing done. And it was bizarre because they were telling me he was deaf, but when they would play particular sounds in earphones, he was reacting to it, or he was waking up because he was meant to be asleep for the testing. And I kept thinking, I think he can hear things. So I was telling the audiologist that was on Zoom, I'm like, he's waking up, or like he's he's irritated by that. Like I can see that he's responding to it. So then they did more and more testing like that. Because they ended up saying, We think he's got ANS thing, which is auditory neuropathy spectrum, which basically means that Duggy has a form of hearing loss that it fluctuates from day to day, basically. So it can it presents differently in every person, but when they do their formal testing and measure brain wave or brain activity, flat lines as if there's absolutely no hearing there. And yet, in real life, there is a bit of hearing there. He does respond to particular things, different frequencies, all of that. So Beggie's hearing journey is still ongoing now.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Um we do testing.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

And honestly, I couldn't even tell you how many lots of hearing testing we've done. It's back to just being six monthly now because they don't want into fatigue of doing the testing. But as a baby, I think it was probably three-monthly, maybe even more often, occasionally. Just trying to get some more data just to try and figure it out. But he's currently still on the cochlear candidacy program. They're still querying whether he needs a cochlear implant. But his hearing sits on the threshold where if it was slightly better, they would say, Nope, the hearing aids are fine, they're doing the job. Or if his hearing was slightly worse, they would say, Let's do the cochlear. But for about the last year, we've just been sitting on this threshold. So we're just waiting, waiting for is um what we're doing at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Oh, Katie, and I want to ask you um a bit about, you know, how Dougie's doing now and obviously the impact on you as a mum, but we can't get to today before we talk about another part of your journey, which you're very um generously happy to talk about. You have since lost your husband, and I can't think of anything more heartbreaking than that, you know, in addition to dealing with what you've gone through with your little boy. But tell us when did something pop up with Lockie's health? At what point did that happen? Because things escalated pretty quickly, but yeah, what happened?

SPEAKER_01 46:56

Yeah, so Lockie was actually diagnosed with Crohn's disease, which is an autoimmune disease when he was 15 years old. So a really long time ago. Um, he had tried many, many treatments. There is no cure for Crohn's, and so he tried many treatments to try and get on top of things um that had been unsuccessful in a lot of those things that he'd tried. Um, and in the year 2024, he decided to try FMT, Disal Natter transplant. So we actually flew to Melbourne to have that done to see if it could change his gut biome so that his body would stop tapping itself just to try and get some better quality of life because Bhang's disease is where you literally get no notice and you need to run to the loo all of the time. So it was really it it it it had always affected our life together. That was fine, like I knew what I was lining up for when we got together, but it was hard for him with Dougie, you know, he sometimes felt like, oh well, I can't really take Dougie to this or that because there's no toilets around. And so it did really restrict us in life, and so he wanted to try the FMT in the hopes that maybe he would be even a little bit better. Um, but when they when they did that treatment in August of 2024, they also did a colonoscopy and they found some growths in uh Lockie's large bowel. So the doctors took eight weeks to let us know about that. And like, because they did a biopsy when they did the colonoscopy, and it took them eight weeks to ring us and tell us that that had happened and that it might be cancerous. So Lockie and recommended that he book in with a gastroenterologist in Brisbane just to like get things looked at a bit more closely and see what was needed. Um, and it's just a whirlwind from there. So Lockheed was booked in to have surgery in Brisbane late September, I believe it was. And oh no, it must have been, sorry, his his treatment must have been a bit earlier on than August. But yeah, anyway, it took them eight weeks to let us know, and then he was booked in to have a surgery, but he actually ended up having a bowel obstruction before we even got to that surgery. The surgery was booked in for the Monday in Brisbane and he ended up in Billow Hospital on the Thursday night with really severe pain and we didn't know what was going on. He'd had the MRI, he'd had an MRI that week in preparation for the surgery that he was about to have because they thought they might need to remove part of his bowel or give him a um colostomy bag. But when he presented to hospital on the Thursday night, we said, Oh, you know, like he has just had an MRI done recently. They were querying that there could be like small amounts of cancerous tissue polyps within his large vowel. So the billet the doctor at the Billow Hospital actually looked up that MRI and then came and said to us, I'm really sorry, like I don't usually have to tell people this, but he has cancer. He has he definitely has cancer in his vows, and it's it's spread to it looks like there's spots in his liver, too. So um yeah, it just kind of went from there. We went ended up transferred to Brisbane uh to Rocky Hospital first, and then from Rocky to Brisbane. They did biopsies trying to figure out what sort of cancer it was. They said, Oh, there's two possible cancers. It could be just the normal standard bowel cancer, or it could be small cell cancer. Um if it's the normal bowel sort of cancer, we can do chemo and we can try and treat it, and results are pretty good. If it's small cell cancer, it's not so good, it spreads quickly, hard to get on top of it. Um, and we ended up finding out that it was the small cell cancer. So uh basically they told us there and then that it was terminal. Um they yeah, they said it's already in your liver. We we can't cut it out because it would just pop up somewhere else. Um, the trauma of the surgery would actually make it spread quicker. At this point, he had already just had surgery to get the colostomy bag put in because they did need to remove the large tumor from his bowel. Um yeah, it was just a whirlwind. Uh Dougie was at home with my parents. I think he had come Dougie had a neurosurgery appointment in amongst them. So my mum and dad had brought him down for that, and I slipped out of Lockie's hospital to go to Dougie's hospital to do the neurosurgery appointment to find out if and when Dougie's next brain surgery is went back to Lockie, and then yeah, just they said it's terminal, and with this sort of cancer, you've you've got six to twelve months to live. And how long did he live for after that? Eight months. And yeah, he he started the chemo a month after we found out that he had the cancer, and uh he was just an amazing person, the high spirits that he kept. Instead of being down in the dumps, he was just like, let's go and do some stuff, let's make some memories. He uh the chemo never really affected him, didn't really make him sick. He'd be out there water skiing two days after having had chemo. You'd have Dougie up on the disc water skiing with him. Um we'd be going for trips to Agnes Waters all the time. We would just we just decided to live the high life. Like he just he'd been working at the power station in Billawilla for 15 years, so he had long service leave. So he just took his long service leave and we just dug in and had fun and did all of the things we loved, and we just were always having barbecues with friends or spending time with family. Nothing, nothing too big or major, you know. We didn't travel overseas, we didn't do any of those things because when Lockie got sick, I said to him, Oh, you know, like, what are your bucket list items? And he had always been such a like adrenaline junkie sort of person, and he loved doing fun things. So I was kind of like, Oh goodness, what's gonna be on this list here? And he just said, Nah, like I've done heaps of fun things, like I've I've loved my life. He said, My biggest thing is just spending time with you and Dougie and just hoping I live long enough for Dougie to be able to remember me. Which, yeah, I mean, Lockie ended up passing away two da uh two weeks before Dougie's third birthday. So um, I'm not quite sure that Dougie will have real memories of Lockie, but I know that with the way technology is these days and all of that, that he will see that many videos and hear that many stories, that I think he'll feel like he remembers him anyway.

SPEAKER_00 54:40

Yeah, and for you, Katie, I'm I'm don't know what else to say apart from I'm just so bloody sorry, and listening to you talk about Lockie, there's clearly so much pride and love there for the type of man and dad he was. You mentioned that he was in high spirits and wanted to really live those eight months, and everyone's different, you know. Not everyone who gets given a terminal diagnosis, you know, my mother-in-law did, and we was a bit the opposite. Um, and so everyone is very different in their journey as a partner, because that's you know, there's the person who has the sickness, the illness, but then there's the people around them who have to live live with it even after they're gone. Were you in high spirits? Did that rub off on you? Like honestly, what was it like for you as the wife over those eight months? Because it's almost like you're waiting until the end because you you can't grieve them like you know, he was still there, but you knew he wasn't gonna be there for long. What was it honestly like for you?

SPEAKER_01 55:44

It was so challenging. Um, I definitely managed to mostly stay in the high spirits, and a big part of that was that Lockie was my sounding board for everything, and I would put it out there and he'd be like, Yeah, but it's okay, we're gonna like do this and we're gonna do that. Or, you know, I did talk to him a lot about the future and the fact that, you know, I was going to have an I am gonna have another partner at you know, in the future, I still want more kids, all of those things. So, as much as they were hard conversations to have, they were really important conversations to have. Um, and I think he felt good to be able to have an input on that too. Like he was able to tell me, yeah, I want you to go and have another partner, I want you to go have more kids, have more siblings for Dougie. Like, go and do that. You've still got to live your life. Like, I'm just the chapter. And but the anticipatory grief was really hard, especially the further into his diagnosis that we got, because we were living this high life, and I started to feel like I'm exhausted. I don't know if we can keep doing all of the things. Like, it's and what if you do live for five years and we've just like been doing all of this, you know. Um it was just such a strange situation of just not knowing when things were gonna end, but knowing that it wasn't far off. Um, and because Lockie was so well for a lot of it, it seemed like maybe he will live for five years, like maybe he will be one of those key statistics where it doesn't catch up with him for a while. Um, and so it probably wasn't until about six months after his diagnosis that he started to actually slow down a little bit, but he was still he was still convinced he was gonna make it until Christmas. Like he was still convinced he had enough in the tank, and it wasn't until one day I noticed that his eyes had turned yellow, and that's the symptom that the liver is just completely failing. And you know, I had said to the um to the oncologist a few months before, I said, Oh, how will we know when it's like getting close to the end? And he said, Oh, you know, like his eyes will turn yellow, he'll start to get delirious, like all of these things will happen. And so I just remember one Thursday looking at him and thinking, your eyes have a yellow tinge. Um, but he hadn't noticed it yet, or maybe he didn't want to tell me that he had noticed it, so I was trying not to say anything to him about it because I didn't want to like dampen his spirits, but I was thinking, oh my gosh, we've got two weeks. And he died on a Thursday, two weeks from that day that I noticed his eyes were yellow. Like the timing was bang on. But the other concern for me was that we'd always said that he didn't want to die at home, and I didn't want him to die at home. But he also just kept thinking he had another day, so he only went to hospital on the Tuesday for palliative care and passed away on the Thursday. Um yeah, so he just hung on right until the end and just was so strong. And I think for me, I I wanted to be strong for him too. I knew I would have time to grieve after he was gone. I definitely faced a lot of my grief during that eight months of him being here with all of the thoughts about where's my future going and what am I gonna do next. Um, but I also just held it together because he didn't need to see me crying over him already while he was still here. And I had Dougie to look, I was just so busy, so busy looking after a nearly three-year-old and caring for my husband, which don't get me wrong, I had a lot of support from family and friends. But it was it was crazy busy. Um and so then, yeah, when he passed away, it was adjusting to life as a single mum. It was hard, so hard. And I mean, obviously, I was experiencing big emotions, Dougie was experiencing big emotions. Um yeah, to be honest, it's a bit of a blur now at this point. It was again another cycle of survival mode. Um, because with Dougie with his brain surgeries and whatnot, we had they the doctors had actually said to us, Oh, you're not gonna know if he has any brain damage until he's two. And so he had only turned two three months before Lockie then got diagnosed with terminal cancer. So it was like I went from one survival mode to a completely different survival, I went from thinking my baby wasn't gonna be okay to then knowing my husband wasn't going to be okay. Um, but I've always said as much as I feel super unlucky to have experienced both of those situations in my life, without having gone through that hardship of Dougie's birth and the grief of motherhood not being what I thought it was going to be, it would have been so much harder to handle than going through the grief of losing Lockie. Um, and I feel like he Lockie himself just taught me so much in my mother motherhood journey that I then had the skills to handle it when it was in relation to him.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

That's big of you to recognize about your journey, you know, to have to have that understanding that the hardest part of motherhood has helped you navigate the loss of this other person you love the most in the world. You talk with I don't know, I think there's again people who handle things differently, but you know, yes, you've been unlucky, you said, but you seem to have a a positive outlook for someone who's gone through this rather recently. Again, we're not talking about this being 20 years ago like you lost lucky last year. How are you able to stay in this headspace? And I imagine it's not all the time. Well, please share with us what that grief journey has been like for you. But how are you able to stay in a positive frame, more positive frame of mind despite what you've been through? And where is your grief at today, knowing that it's so layered, it's ongoing, it's still raw. But yeah, how has that been for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

Yeah, it's certainly been a roller coaster at times, but having Dougie has just made all of the difference because I know how much he needs me. He's so little still, and I always just want to strive to be the best mum that I can be, and so that means putting Dougie first. Obviously, I still need to look after myself, but by putting Dougie first, it's given me a purpose. Like I've still had something to live for through all of this and a reason to be my best self and to really work hard to be my best self. And yes, obviously, I'm not like I'm not hard on myself all the time. Like sometimes I do just have a cry about things here or there, but for the most part, I just don't want to play the victim. Like, I don't want to spend the rest of my life being seen as the sad lady who did it tough in her 20s. Like, I don't want that to be my identity. I want my identity to be um that I'm a great mum and that I, you know, rose above the challenges and put my child first and that I can keep striving in life. I've just done my Pilates instructor course. Um, I actually do have a new partner. Like I don't know, I'm just I'm just moving forward. I I don't want to be the sort of person that's stuck in the past. I think it's so important. It's so important to keep looking towards the future and not in a big picture kind of way. I just tell myself all I can do is make the best decision in each moment, you know? And so if I want to look back and feel guilty about a choice I made, it's not worth it because at that point in time with the knowledge that I had, that was the best decision I could come up with. So it's a matter of having grace with yourself for the point in your life that you're at, the knowledge that you have, the experiences that you've had. You can't change any of those things. And the best thing to do is just keep moving forward and just keep trying to be the best version of yourself, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Katie, who's influenced you enough to help give you those qualities, that forward perspective? Was that something Lockie taught you? Are there people in your life, your parents, your brothers, like a combination of people? But where has this come from? Because again, everyone handles it differently. There's no right or wrong, but it sounds like for you and your mental health, you couldn't be in a better um frame of mind in terms of how you go about navigating this grief.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

Yeah, honestly, I think I probably have to give 99% of the credit to Lockie. Um, when we first started dating, I was a very anxious person, I was medicated for anxiety, I struggled to see the meaning in life at times. Obviously, this was all back when I was 19, 20 years old. Lockie lost his dad at 18 years old, so he had experienced grief himself and had to navigate his way through that. So he was a very clever man and emotionally intelligent. That um, yeah, he had already dealt with hardships in his life and he had found a way through them. And so when everything happened, Happened with Dougie, he imparted his wisdom on me. And I was like, Oh yeah, well, you're right. There isn't any point in sitting here feeling sorry for ourselves because then we're just missing out on the good times that we could be having now. So why not just make the most of each day? And eventually things get better, or they don't. But you may as well have had fun in the meantime. You may as well have made the most of the moment when you could. Um so that's kind of what we did. We just always tried to make the most of each moment and just keep going.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

You are absolutely incredible, Katie, and you should be so proud of yourself. And I hope your little boy one day learns about how incredible his mum has been through this chapter, and no doubt you'll pass on that to him as well. I guess my final part of this chat before I get to meet you in a few weeks is ask you how is he doing today and how is motherhood for you today? Because it's not clean cut with his health. I guess just briefly take us through this chapter of motherhood now that he's nearly four, what his needs are. And I should say one thing I did want to ask you is I understand, I might be wrong, but I understand that the maternity services at Billow Hospital have changed since. And that would have had a very different effect on whether your little boy made it here or not, given what's unfolded since. Take us through that, and then, you know, given how lucky you are that he is here today, what things are like right now with his health.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

Yeah, so the maternity services in Billow, like I spoke about earlier, we still had full birthing privileges when Dougie was born. That actually stopped four weeks after he was born. So it's incredibly lucky that he came when he did, because otherwise they would have been trying to skip me off to Rockhampton or Gladstone, and I probably would have given birth on the side of the road and Dougie wouldn't have survived. Like that's the nuts and bolts of it. So the timing, as much as it was terrible timing that he was so early, in a way, it's also kind of lucky. Um but yeah, so uh we have been working really hard to try and get maternity services back since then, um, because that was in 2022 that the birthing services stopped uh due to smugging issues mostly, and the theatre was not up to spec. So there's been a lot of work going on in the last two years to try and get things up and running again. Um we have finally had some success with that, and we have an opening date for the end of June for birthing services to be returned for low-risk pregnancies. Um, I think at first the community was a little bit unsure about that because they were like, Well, we used to be able to have everyone birth here, why can't we just go back to them? But it's been explained now that you know we're better off starting small at a lower level that is achievable and get the service up and running. It's going to be midwife-based. That's achievable. We can have that. Once we've got that, we can then look at recruiting in obstetricians and methodists and slowly moving up the levels to be able to allow for more birthing. But in my opinion, just any amount of help is better than no help. Any amount of help from a midwife or someone actually in the area of birthing and maternity is better than nothing. So it's a it's a big step in the right direction to get that done. The theater has been updated. Um, they're looking at opening a little antenatal, postnatal room where they can run classes for mums and all of that. So it seems like things are on the right track in a big way. Um, and yeah, they've got a proposed opening date for June for that. So that'll make a huge difference to mums in the area because it's not only um the women of Billow that rely on that, it's also all of the small towns around us. We're a bit of a hub where everyone comes to. So yeah, that's super important that that's happening.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

Well, well done for your advocacy because I know that you know you're such a big advocate and being part of this journey with the local community. Um, and as I said, can't wait to chat more when I see you in a few weeks. Um, and I guess I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing your story. I know that your journey with Dougie is ongoing. Um, and I know you mentioned, you know, he he's your priority. So I think that impacts when we spoke on the phone, the amount of work and teaching you can do. You've had to really focus on him, which, you know, that's what you do is your baby. Um my final question is given everything, how do you feel about Katie right now? I mean, asking if someone's happy, I think it's too load of loaded question because I don't think you can ever be in a constant state of happiness that fluctuates. But how would you describe how you feel about life right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

Um I'm actually feeling a little bit excited about life right now. My parents have renovated the house next door to them out on their property for Dougie and I to move into. Um we've been living in town since Lockie got really sick, so since about May last year. We've been living in town, which has been nice. We're in a great spot. We're close to the park and the libraries and all of those things. We've we've loved living the town life for a little while, but I feel like I'm really ready to get back to farm life. And Dougie is just such a little cowboy. He is jumping at the bit. We've been doing bits and pieces out at the new house to get ready to move in. So by the end of the month, we should be out there. Um, and I'm just so excited for it. We'll be living close to family. Dougie will be having that beautiful upbringing that Lockie and I had always for him. Um, and it will just be a change of pace for life, and so I'm just really looking forward to that as a fresh start, I guess. I feel like we've done the hard yards, we've we've faced our grief while living here in town, and it's been great to have friends and family so close by, dropping in, helping out, babysitting Dougie, so that I can still, you know, play my sport and do things that are important for my mental health. But we're really ready now. Like I feel like we're at a point where we're ready to move into that next chapter, always holding Lockie clothes and always having his memory with us. Um but I guess just making him proud, you know, doing the life that he wanted us to do, even though he can't be here for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

Katie, you and I have known each other two seconds, and even I'm proud of you. So I can only imagine what Lockie feels in and those closest to you. I can't wait to meet you in the flesh. Thank you so much for generously sharing your story with us. It means so much, and you should be so proud. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:15

Thank you so much for the opportunity to share my story. I'm honestly so grateful to, I don't know, get it off my chest. It's been quite therapeutic to put it out there and maybe it's a little bit of closure, I guess, on this chapter. And surely life is going to be beautiful and maybe a little bit easier in the future.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Motherland is produced and hosted by me, Steph Trathewee, and edited by the wonderful Eliza Ratcliffe. Now, don't forget, for many rural families, accessing speech support isn't easy. That's why Pop Family Speech Pathologist was created by Heidi Trussler, who grew up in Outback Queensland. Now, Australia's largest online speech pathology practice, POP offers Zoom sessions nationwide with no wait list, making expert support more accessible for families wherever they live. To learn more, head to the link in today's show notes. And farming is more than a job. It's a way of life, and everyone deserves to get home safely. The Victorian Farmers Federation is delivering the Making Our Farms Safer project, offering free, confidential farm safety visits with practical advice to reduce risks around machinery, vehicles, livestock, quad bikes and more. Search Making Our Farms Safer on the Victorian Farmers Federation website to learn more. That's it from me, everyone. Thank you as always for tuning in. If you're loving the podcast, please take 10 seconds to leave a review. It really does help us get the podcast out there to more ears around the country. In the meantime, I'll catch you next week.