The RMA Podcast. Episode 50. Unbreakable. Choosing to get up. With Nicole Jukes.

On Episode 50 of the RMA Podcast we have a very special guest, RMA Community Ambassador for Brisbane, Nicole Jukes.

Nicole is a single mum of three kids, Amity 10, Jack 8, and Max who is in Heaven. In 2010 Nicole was a first time parent, and then she wasn't. You see, Nicole and her then partner were preparing to be parents of their first baby. It was then at her 20 week scan they were told that there was something wrong with their little son's heart. It was too small for a diagnosis at that point, so they had to wait a further 6 weeks to have a better look, and after an agonising wait, at 26 weeks whilst still in the womb their little baby Max was diagnosed with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. This is a condition where the left side of the heart is grossly undergrown and cannot pump blood correctly. It is a fatal diagnosis.

They were given three choices that day. They could terminate their son, however they would need a special court order due to the term of their pregnancy. They could choose to carry him full term and when Max was born they could take an emergency helicopter to Melbourne and Max would have three open heart surgeries in the first year of his life, however this would only be enough to keep him palliative, and after that he would need a heart transplant that they were told would likely never come. The third option was to let Max continue to grow in Nicole's belly until he was ready to be born and he could live out his natural life with no interventions, and spend the time they could with him, possibly a few weeks. To make this choice as a parent, of how your child will die is something no one would ever wish on anyone, but that was the choice they were making, and whatever option they chose would mean they would be saying goodbye to Max.

They chose to let Max continue to grow inside Nicole, knowing that while he was in utero, he was still with them. As you can imagine, enduring a pregnancy when you know the child inside you is inevitably going to die is something that would be unimaginable. People would ask Nicole about her unborn baby, and she would have to apologise to them and explain to them that when he is born, he is going to die.

Max decided to meet them at 33 weeks and was a natural birth. They didn't get to hold him as he was taken away immediately and put on life-support in the neonatal ICU. On day two he was taken off life support, and it was then that Nicole and her partner got to hold Max as he took his final breaths.

When Nicole left the hospital without her baby, she wanted to scream to every single person she passed, "Do you know what just happened to me? Do you know my baby died?!".

You never really recover from a loss so great, but what Nicole did is something even greater. At one point she decided to make a choice. She could define herself as the woman who lost her child, or she could get up. She chose to get up. She decided it would be selfish of her to not go out and live her best life, because Max didn't get the chance to.

Since then, and after 2015 when Nicole's sister coaxed her into her first 5k at parkrun, Nicole has run countless kilometres in living out her why. Her why has become ultra running, particularly the 'backyard ultra format', and she believes the whole reason she chose that is because you have to 'get up'. You need to get up out of the chair every hour and start the next lap. If you choose not to you are out. She chooses to endure the suffering and the pain because Max gave her the gift of unbreakability. She suffered through the worst pain imaginable and she didn't break. She wants to know "if that didn't break her, then what will?". How far can she go until she breaks?

Nicole has had great success as an ultra runner, having recently broken the female record at the Dead Cow Gully in 2022 of 201kms and 30 laps! It is her passion and purpose to share her love of this ultra format with those that will listen, while supporting and encouraging women into the ultra running space! Nicole manages her time well, while being a full time mum, she also works full time as a paralegal and is almost finished her law degree! She certainly knows how to juggle all the balls and get results! We are just thrilled to have her share her story, and we know there is so much more to come for Nicole!

You can follow her on instagram at @nicolejukes or over in our RMA community page!

This episode is brought to you by fisiocrem Australia