Wednesday, June 10th 2026
Last night, I snuggled up beside my son, Alex, and listened to his heartbeat. I could hear it and feel it—this little heartbeat that once beat safely inside of me.
My body nourished him. I held him, bathed him, changed his diapers, dressed him, played with him, read to him, painted with him, and built forts with him. I watched him walk away on his first days of school. I attended assemblies, parent-teacher conferences, school concerts, and special events. I watched him make friends, play sports, and celebrate so many milestones and achievements.
I was there for it all—the beautiful journey of motherhood. Not only did I have the privilege of watching him grow, but I also had the honor of helping him become the incredible little boy he is today.
And through every moment, every challenge, and every joy, I received the greatest gift and blessing I could have ever asked for: the privilege of being his mother.
As I continued listening to his little heartbeat, I felt both profound joy and deep sadness. Joy for all the moments we have shared, and sadness in knowing that not only has so much of that precious time already passed, but that I may also lose the opportunity to be part of so many future moments in his everyday life.
It is a loss I have already experienced with my firstborn, Dominic.
I shared all of those moments with Dom, too—the ordinary days, the milestones, the celebrations, and the memories that quietly become the fabric of a childhood. Yet I will never again have the chance to be part of Dominic's day-to-day life in the way I once was. As I reflected on those memories, I thought about all the moments, both big and small, that shape a child's life. I also thought about how few of those moments their father was present for.
What I felt was not sadness for myself alone, but sadness for the boys—and for Brad as well. He missed so much. Yet there is a painful irony in knowing that his desire now to be fully present in their lives may come at the cost of my own presence in their future memories and experiences, perhaps not even on a 50/50 basis.
Next year, as Dominic graduates, I will not be serving on the graduation committee. I do not know who his teachers are, who his closest friends are, what his school looks like, or even what his room looks like. Since he left, I have seen very little of him, despite initial promises of regular visits. And I worry that the same pattern may unfold with Alex.
As these thoughts washed over me, I could not help but reflect on the unfairness of it all. Their father has often made the boys' lives revolve around the choices he wanted to make, rather than making his own life revolve around them. And because of that, it seems that someone has always had to lose—whether it was the boys, their father, or me.
As I listened to his little heartbeat, the joy and sadness gave way to anger and resentment. All of the turmoil I carry within me rose to the surface—the constant worry, the uncertainty, and the overwhelming fear of grieving another child who is still alive and well.
I thought about the loss of my relationship with my eldest son, Dominic, and the painful reality that I do not know how to find my way back to him. In so many ways, he feels gone—not because he is no longer here, but because the emotional, physical, and mental distance between us has grown so vast. I read his words and struggle with the belief that they do not fully reflect the boy I know and love. Yet I feel powerless to change any of it. Distance, circumstances, and influences beyond my control have left me feeling unable to reach him.
I thought, too, about Alex. About the deep fear that I could lose him in the same way. I see his confusion and uncertainty as he tries to make sense of sudden and significant changes in his life. I think about the impossible position he has been placed in—the fear of losing either his brother or his mother and his family here. And I am struck by the reality that the possibility of losing his father was never part of that equation, because his father had not been a consistent day-to-day presence in Alex's life for so many years.
The hurt runs deep when I think about the choices Alex was asked to make in recent months. From my perspective, he was influenced, swayed, misled. He has been placed in the painful position of feeling unable to openly love both sides of his family at the same time. He was asked to decide where he wanted to live without fully understanding the long-term consequences of that decision. I do not believe he could have known that time with me might become so limited, despite assurances that our relationship would continue. Having already experienced that reality with Dominic, I fear the same outcome for Alex.
Alongside that fear is a profound sense of helplessness. I do not have a large family standing behind me. I do not have the same network of support and advocacy that their father has. What makes this especially painful is that, before these events unfolded, my bond with the boys was built through years of love, caregiving, and daily presence. Yet those years now feel invisible in comparison to the support now aligned against me.
When the Section 211 report was released, I felt physically sick. Reading it, I felt unseen and unheard. I saw conclusions that did not reflect the mother I know myself to be, and statements that, from my perspective, painted an incomplete and deeply unfair picture of my life and my parenting. Because some of my mistakes and struggles were real—the broader narrative became easy to accept, even where I believed it failed to capture the full truth.
What hurt most was the feeling that my entire character had been reduced to a collection of flaws, stripped of context and disconnected from the years I spent loving and raising my children. And that the implication that trauma defines me more than the life I built in spite of it. I felt as though I had been portrayed as incapable and unsafe, while everything I had done right had been erased from the story.
I imagined what it would be like for a judge to read those words without ever truly knowing me—to make decisions about my children, my character, and my future relationship with them based largely on reports, summaries, and competing narratives. What made that thought so difficult to bear was my belief that parts of the report reflected a degree of bias and that some opinions and interpretations were presented with the weight and certainty of fact. Reading it, I felt that important context had been lost, and that conclusions had been drawn from an incomplete picture of who I am as a mother and as a person.
The fear was not simply that mistakes I have made would be considered. It was the fear that those mistakes would be magnified while years of love, sacrifice, growth, and devotion would fade into the background. I worried that a judge, relying on what was presented before them, would be making life-altering decisions without ever witnessing the countless ordinary moments that truly define a parent-child relationship.
This site was created to show the mother and person I was before BPD surfaced, as well as the mother and person I am today. It also offers a glimpse into the loving family and fulfilling life we have built here in Kamloops.
I pray that all those involved in this custody process, regardless of the role they serve or the side they represent, will be guided by integrity, compassion, and truth, keeping the best interests of Alexander and Dominic at the heart of all they say and do. May every word spoken, every action taken, and every testimony offered contribute to a future filled with love, stability, and every opportunity for the boys to flourish.
-AL
Alex is happy here. We miss Dom.