In 2018 I had just started lecturing in nursing at a university in South Australia. It was the start of the academic year and I was new to town, so a colleague and I decided to check out the open-day stalls. I’d been vegan for a few years and was hoping to meet some like-minded folk.
A person in a Sea Shepherd hoodie pointed me in the right direction and I was immediately struck by this woman sitting in the middle of the stall. It’s a moment captured in resin in my mind – there was a crowd of people and cupcakes on the table. I would say I was 13 paces away from Laura when I first clapped eyes on her. She was just breathtaking; smiling, happily chatting to people. She seemed to have this immense gravity to her and I could feel myself getting pulled into her orbit. I chatted to her and a few others and left the encounter absolutely stunned. No work got done for the rest of the afternoon. I didn’t know what to make of it. It was a struggle to even accept she existed. I was in shock but I did my best to brush it aside.
I was married at the time, but things weren’t going well. I definitely wasn’t looking for love, but I joined the Vegan and Vegetarian Club and we saw each other in passing over the next few months. During that time I discovered Laura was in a relationship too.
Six months later I was going through a divorce and I learned Laura had also separated from her partner. But her situation was a lot more complicated; not only was she still living with her ex to care for their three-year-old, she was also five months pregnant.
It sounds absurd to say, but these details felt peripheral to me. Such was the chemistry between us that we managed to turn the famously unsexy annual general meeting of the Vegan and Vegetarian Club into our first romantic encounter. We kissed by the campus lake and I was a goner.
We agreed that whatever we were getting into was temporary. With a preschooler and baby on the way, and life as a single parent to get used to, a new partner was a convolution she didn’t feel she needed. I knew I very much fell into the nice-to-have, not need-to-have category. I thought I was OK with that. I even tried to date other people. But being with Laura was like having the colours of the world turned up to 11. Every other encounter paled in comparison; I only had eyes for her.
As her pregnancy progressed, I found myself helping her more and more. Each day we felt ourselves slipping into a relationship and each day she reminded me that we weren’t serious.
When her waters broke six weeks early, I was the one who took her to the hospital and helped advocate for her. The midwives weren’t taking the situation seriously and from a professional perspective I knew they were dropping the ball. Eventually they conceded Laura was likely going to experience a preterm birth. The following days were intense, but I never left her side.
In a gesture of what I’d like to think of as “radical acceptance” – and much to Laura’s chagrin – I installed a baby capsule in my car. Despite her protestations, I knew deep down I’d be the one to drive her and the baby home from hospital when the time came.
Not long after that, she went into labour. If I thought I found Laura impressive before, watching her give birth sent my opinion of her stratospheric. By the time the staff agreed to check how she was progressing, she was 10cm dilated and ready to push. By that point her confidence with the staff was at such a low ebb she rejected their offer of a wheelchair and instead elected to walk herself up a flight of stairs to get to the birthing suite. I was in absolute awe. Our daughter was born shortly after.
Once the pressures of having a baby in the neonatal intensive care unit had passed, I asked Laura when she wanted me out of the way. “If I wanted you gone, you wouldn’t be here,” she told me. “I don’t want you to go.”
She was showing such vulnerability, and it wasn’t easy for her. But in that moment I could see her own radical acceptance had hit home. I knew all too well I was madly in love; it turned out I wasn’t the only one.
Seven years later our blended family has grown to include two more children. In 2023 I proposed to Laura onnational television. She said yes.
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