A Big Heart

Our son grew up without a sibling by his side, not our choice, fate decided that for us. When Tim and I got married, we pictured three children in our story, a house full of laughs and chaos. We did have three opportunities, but only one came to fruition and that was Luke.

Luke was almost four when we miscarried our third pregnancy, and I remember sitting in the specialists room a month later to discuss what next, I remember the moment I said, I cannot do this again, I cannot go through the stress, fully knowing that my blood clotting condition when pregnant was never going to change and that my end result was always going to be a roll of the dice.

Luke, not unlike most children, often asked for a sibling, he didn’t want to be an only living child, he wanted someone to play games with, holiday with, wake up early on Christmas Day with, and I guess someone to have those sibling fights for the front seat. Tim and I filled in the missing parts of a sibling as much as we could.

When Luke started school, we made sure he got involved in after school activities and as he built friendships, organised play dates and the like. By high school he had some wonderful friends both boys and girls and by the end of year 12 it became apparent these friends were his family, and in turn we felt like we had many more children we were nurturing.

Now I know 22 year old boys tend to get a bit of a bad wrap lately, but as with every age there is good and bad. But this group of boys will cross the road to give me a hug, they send me messages of support on my daughters birthday, they call when they want to help (not only when they need help), and they were the first to donate their dollars when I started this.

So this blog I wanted to highlight one of the amazing men that we are lucky to have in our lives, even though he moved to Melbourne after Year 12, Kaine Baldwin.

Kaine recently undertook his own challenge, to not only help with his rehab after an injury, but to use it to raise awareness and dollars for my project. It is a tough time mentally when you are in the professional world of football recovering from an injury, yet Kaine was putting himself out there for me.

27 days, 2,000km’s on the bike and 50km’s in the pool, raising over $1,700 through public donations (which are still coming in) and driving a further $5,000 donation from the Essendon Football Club playing group.

All of this is massive, but on top of that, and just as important, Kaine raised awareness on a topic that many are still to frightened to talk about. Kaine has made an impact by giving a voice to not only our daughter, Celeste, but to all the little ones who were born without breathe.

So the next time you roll your eyes at some young lad doing something inappropriate, don’t generalise, and remember Kaine.

60 sleeps

Thanks for reading xx