When the world started listening.

A few days after the Givealittle page quietly went live, something unexpected happened. We weren’t prepared for it, not mentally, not emotionally, not in any way. Dan’s phone buzzed with a message from a reporter at the Otago Daily Times. He explained that he’d come across Hannah-Rose’s page, read her story, and felt moved enough to reach out. He wanted to help us share her journey with people who weren’t on social media, people who lived offline, the ones who could easily miss stories like ours unless someone physically put it in front of them.

My entire body tensed. The idea of sharing our lives publicly, on that scale, felt overwhelming. We had barely adjusted to having a Givealittle page at all. Letting strangers into our world was still something we were trying to get used to. But Dan reminded me gently that these people weren’t there to judge us. They were offering help. Real help. Help we hadn’t asked for but clearly needed.

So we called the reporter back.

We spoke honestly about our daughter, about what we were facing, about the hope we were holding on to even as plans kept shifting under our feet. They listened with patience and wrote a story that represented us exactly as we were: parents trying their hardest to get their little girl the care she deserved. The article went live, and just like that, our story reached households and people we never would have connected with otherwise.

Then the next unexpected thing happened.

The very next day, we received a phone call from a woman named Rachel Brazil. She introduced herself kindly, explaining that she was 52 years old and living with Arthrogryposis right here in Dunedin. She had read the article, seen our story, and wanted to reach out. There was something steady and grounding in her voice, like someone who had walked through fire and come out with her head still high.

Rachel didn’t hesitate. She encouraged us to connect with her parents, who had raised her, advocated for her, and fought through the same maze of medical appointments, procedures, and unknowns we were currently drowning in. When we reached out, they welcomed us instantly. They invited us into their home as if we had known them for years. Sitting with them, listening to their experiences, seeing the way they looked at their daughter with quiet pride it filled something in us we hadn’t realised was empty.

It wasn’t just comforting. It was validating. They understood our fears before we even spoke them. They understood the weight we were carrying before we even described it. They didn’t rush us. They didn’t talk over us. They offered wisdom and reassurance the way only people who had lived it could.

During that visit, they told us about Jean-Claude Theis, Rachel’s paediatric orthopedic surgeon. He had been a pillar throughout her childhood. Though retired now, they believed he could still offer guidance and insight, especially since he had dedicated so much of his life to children with complex orthopedic conditions.

We reached out, unsure if he would respond.

He not only responded he stepped into our journey as if he had been there from the start.

Despite being retired, he offered to look at details, give second opinions, provide clarity where the system sometimes fell short. He checked in regularly to see how Hannah-Rose was doing. He wanted updates, progress photos, casting results, and he gave advice with a gentleness that made us feel like we weren’t navigating this alone anymore.

For the first time in a long time, things didn’t feel so dark or heavy. Strangers were becoming supporters. Supporters were becoming guides. And suddenly the world didn’t feel as impossible as it had when we first opened that Givealittle page.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how all those moments connected. One stranger read a story. One reporter asked to print it. One article reached the right woman at the right time. And that woman’s phone call changed the direction of our journey. We didn’t know it then, but that chain reaction would become one of the most important turning points we would ever experience.

It taught us something we still hold tightly to:
When you speak up, even scared, the right people hear you.

We had spent so long trying to carry everything alone. We didn’t want to burden anyone, didn’t want to seem like we were asking too much, didn’t want to open our lives to people who might misunderstand or judge us.

But when the world finally started listening, what came back to us was kindness. Connection. Understanding. People who opened their hands and said, “Let us help.”

This chapter of our journey wasn’t only about exposure or fundraising or trying to get to America. It was about community. It was about the unexpected ways people show up when you need them most. It was about learning to accept help even when accepting it feels uncomfortable. It was about realising that standing alone doesn’t make you strong – standing together does.

And most importantly, it was the beginning of us finding our people. People who would walk the rest of this path with us. People who knew the landscape far better than we did. People who made the road ahead feel less frightening simply by being on it with us.