Hey guys, how's it going? Long time no see, it's Micaela.
I owe you guys a huge life update and I have been dragging my feet on this video for -- I'm gonna
start crying already, oh my god. I didn't expect myself to feel emotional right now.
I have been dragging my feet on this life update video for, maybe two years?
But I know that I kind of owe people somewhat of an explanation, I know I don't
owe you all the details, but until I make this video I can't move forward, and I can't
go back to creating travel content which is something that I truly love to do. So
I mean, I've been putting it off for long enough, and I've decided it's finally time to
just kind of bite the bullet, give you this life update, and uh hopefully just move on and keep
going back to doing, you know, the things that I love. Oh my god, I'm sorry I didn't expect
that as soon as I turned on the camera I'd get really emotional, but I think I've just
been dreading this for so long - I've been having nightmares about making this video because I'm...
I'm just holding a lot in, to be honest.
Oh, I don't even know where to start.
So I think I'm just gonna have to start with where we left off.
I was traveling um during the beginning of the pandemic, I was trying to stay busy stay working,
I was actually having a lot of fun I was making videos, and during the last few
videos that I updated with I actually I was pregnant and I hadn't told anybody yet! I was
keeping it a secret so I could keep working just because I loved what I did so much and
at the time I had planned to eventually tell you on YouTube as well. I was also working
on a local TV program which ended just last year and on the TV show there was no way I
could hide that I was pregnant it was obvious uh it was definitely obvious especially because I
tried to work just straight through to the end with that.
It was supposed to be a really really happy thing,
that we tried to keep to ourselves and we had a lot of excitement and uh...
Our daughter, she was born on August 31st 2021 and she passed away an hour later.
In her father's arms,
I've been dreading making this video because it feels like I think I have so much unresolved
trauma from this era and I really just don't want to trauma dump on a bunch of strangers,
so that's the gist of it. There's a long story there and I don't know
how to talk about it without feeling like it's exploitive? You know? Or like if I'm
revealing too much or I'm making other people sad or uncomfortable,
I don't know how to gauge what is too much information, and what's necessary information...
But during that time during the last few months of my pregnancy we found out she was very sick and
as the weeks went by it became clear that she wasn't going to survive,
and it was the hardest thing that I've ever gone through my whole life.
I can't I don't know, I don't think I should share all of the details, but she had something called
Trisomy 13 which meant she had three copies of the 13th chromosome, and that caused a whole bunch of
things in her body to be formed incorrectly - most importantly her heart and although while she was
being made we could hear her heartbeat very very strongly, and she was alive,
unfortunately, once she was born the heart could not function
without my support and ... she didn't even cry, but she opened her eyes a little bit
we got to hold her and she passed away about an hour after she was born.
I couldn't make this video back then because I was still in it and that was extremely hard. I didn't
know how I was. I thought I was okay even though I clearly wasn't, and then I wasn't okay, and
then a lot of things happened, and at the end of that year I found out that I was pregnant again!
Although that second pregnancy was extremely hard because I wasn't
mentally ready to carry another child and to like, just jump back into it,
I'm extremely glad that I did because the day she was born, and even now, like
from certain angles she looks like my first daughter she looks she has the same nose and
she has like the same hairline. And so in a way, like I get to see glimpses of what could have been
the first time and I get to see glimpses of my first daughter as my second daughter grows up so
um just having her here is the greatest joy and she's just a sweet little baby.
I feel like finally now, maybe - how long has it been? like two years since all of this started?
I feel like finally, I'm ready to work again, I'm ready to go
out and do things. My brain feels like it's functioning at a normal human level again,
I'm not sad all the time. I know I cried a lot at the beginning of this video,
but I had so much anxiety built up about like just talking about all of this and...
Yeah, I'm ready to start posting again but for me, there was a huge mental block where
I was avoiding coming back to YouTube because I didn't want to have to make this video I didn't
want to have to tell you this story I didn't like that it was my story - I didn't like that
it was my life - I didn't like that you know... I felt stuck in the sense that if I had ignored it
and acted like everything was fine it would have been like the erasure of this big part of my life,
but then if I address it, then it also feels like I'm just kind of
like exploiting my own sadness which I also don't feel comfortable with so I don't know.
I don't know I'm gonna have to trim this down to like a comfortable level
that I feel is okay to share. There are a few things that I made over the past
few years that I wasn't able to share because of the pandemic that I would
like to post now and moving forward I would also like to post more current information.
A lot of people had wondered where I had been, but I've always been on Instagram so you can
always follow me on Instagram. You can even go back and see the history, you can see some
photos I shared from the past few years and some of the harder times in my life if you want to?
But yeah, that's where I've been I just wanted to say thank you for your patience thank you
for your understanding um thanks for waiting and now I'm looking forward to getting back on track.