10 year wedding anniversary and Mum's Masters Graduation

Dear Matthew, Toby and Josie,

This month your dad and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. I think my below post that I put on Instagram summarises our relationship!

'Happy tenth wedding anniversary Neil!
Let’s be honest, much like our first dance, the decade started off calmly and then quickly turned quite hectic 😆 Apart from the first couple of months, we’ve been navigating pregnancy, a baby, a toddler, or a mixture of these, the entire time (disclaimer: we still love you, Keene kids, despite your chaos). Chuck in a legal career, postgraduate study, a house move and home projects, four operations and other medical issues, international travel with said small children, along with managing a bunch of crazy animals- oh and the plague 🙄- and it’s fair to say we’ve been in survival mode for the vast majority of it. Yay for holding on through the rollercoaster and making double digits! 🥳 Here’s to a quieter second decade!'

We celebrated with you all with take away, Christmas donuts and watched part of our wedding video. For the first time we didn't do our usual tradition of taking you all to the Esplanade where our wedding reception is held, but sometimes it's good to break tradition :) I'm very grateful for your dad, despite our ups and downs, and I'm most grateful that our marriage has brought you all into our lives. 

I also wanted to share that I have graduate from my Master of Counselling! Finally after 6.5 years of study, I made it! Matt you begrudgingly came along to my graduation ceremony with Ma Ma and Gumps, and although I know you were pretty bored, you said to your friends online later 'hey, did you know my mum has a Master's degree?' and my heart swelled. I hope seeing me walk across the stage inspires you in some small way to fulfill your own academic desires one day, and to continue to do so even in the face of adversity.

Below is what I shared on Facebook following my graduation, that I thought was important to include here too:

'Today is a day I have been visualising in my head for the last six and a half years. I started my Masters of Counselling in July 2016, and did my first week of study online while in Bali. My eldest was 2, and I was returning to study for the first time as a parent. In my undergrad degree I studied 56 units in 5 years. In my postgrad I studied 16 in 6.5, and yet it was a million times more exhausting, not simply because the academic expectations were higher, but because of the season of my life that I did it in.

During this degree, I studied while pregnant twice, submitted an assignment while in labour, gave birth to babies mid-semester, took a newborn with me to an intensive weekend unit on campus, endlessly pumped to get enough milk for one feed so I could leave babies to attend lectures in person and spent countless nights typing assignments on my bed in the dark, always surrounded by sleeping babies, toddlers, older children and cats. Often I would be sitting up in bed, near midnight, with a baby across my chest, attempting to type 5,000-word essays with one finger because it’s all I could manage logistically. I’d tell myself ‘just do 100 words then stop’. Almost every assignment was done in the dark, as any attempt at opening my laptop during the day was met with a toddler slapping at the keyboard (because I have had a toddler at every stage of the degree). And then the plague hit and I was interacting online in lectures while jumping on a trampoline with two little boys while pregnant (amongst other interesting ways to still maintain enrolment without losing my mind). But it was the vision of today that spurred me on when my eyes were heavy and my brain was drained and I all I wanted to do was stop.

So I didn’t stop- and I received a high distinction for every single graded unit. I also contributed to the School of Nursing and Midwifery’s permanent class resources for postgraduate students for the work I did in relation to the rights of women seeking a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean) in Western Australia. Following the work I did in class, I was asked to record an extended lecture on the topic, which is now watched by postgraduate nurses studying Perinatal and Infant Mental Health around Australia as part of Open Universities. This was incredibly healing for me, given part of the reason I started the Masters was due to the birth trauma I’d experienced following caesarean birth and the resulting post natal depression. Having my own successful VBAC, thanks to my own supportive midwife, during the degree, was icing on the cake, but having the opportunity to educate postgraduate nursing students about how best to support and advocate for the mental health of mothers seeking a VBAC, like my midwife did for me, made me sooo happy.

From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful to our amazing grandparents/babysitters. Without them, this degree quite literally wouldn’t have been completed. They enabled me to do something that was my mine and mine alone, during a time when so much of my life centred around others. Their actions ensured my own mental health stayed strong when I could have easily fallen into the black hole again, and for that I will be forever grateful. It is not lost on me that their care for me has had the flow on effect of me now being qualified to care for others. They will never know the full extent of their contribution because it will continue for years to come while I use my new skills. They have made a difference in this world simply by turning up on my doorstep time and time again.

Special thanks must also be extended to my kids. They have taught me so much about what is needed in order to help kids who may be struggling, and how best to support their families too. I am so happy that my eldest got to see me walk across the stage today. Despite him ensuring I knew just how boring the ceremony was for him, I hope this is a memory that stays with him forever and possibly inspires him to go after a qualification that he wants one day (at uni or elsewhere). That little 2-year-old in Bali is now 9 and has been with me every step of the way. His own journey has played such an important role in my learning, and had it not been for our beautiful, resilient son, and all he’s been through, I am positive I would not have been half the counsellor I was for those wonderful kids I saw on placement. Thank you to everyone else who has encouraged me along the way and made the journey that bit easier, including the mums in this group. Every positive comment has been so appreciated.

To anyone who thinks they’re too old or too busy to study (or whatever reason), I am a big proponent of slow and steady wins the race, and that you’re going to age anyway, so you may as well start what you want to do now. I started this degree at 30 and will be 37 next month. That birthday would have come around anyway, but now it will arrive with me being a qualified counsellor.

So here’s to a mountain that slowly became a molehill and is now a piece of paper that I am so very proud of!!'

Love you all, 

Mum xxx