Category: Update (Page 2 of 14)

NEW CHANNEL! – KOREAN APPA

2018/06/07 / Nic / 0 Comments

Hugh’s new channel! Korean Appa!

Hugh has rebranded his YouTube channel (which previously was just a place for TV appearances we had done and random stuff) to a father and baby channel where he will show little videos of him and Yul. It’s called “Korean Appa”.

“Appa” means daddy in Korean and Hugh is emphasising that he is in Korea and will be speaking a lot of Korean in the videos. He wants to record these memories with Yul, but also wants to encourage and motivate Korean men to be more involved with their children. Many Korean men grew up with fathers who were emotionally distant (the old fashioned belief that raising children was only the mother’s job) and while men now want to be more involved with their kids it can be hard if they didn’t have a good role model.

Hugh is a new father but hopes his own journey inspires others too. He will also be showing how we are raising Yul to be bilingual and in two cultures. The reason why he is uploading on this channel and not the MKH channel is because we don’t want to have too much baby spam on there. On this ‘Korean Appa’ channel there can be lots of little videos while on MKH they are a longer and more edited format.

Please subscribe if you are interested in seeing more of Hugh and Yul together and want to know about what it’s like to be a modern father in Korea. We hope that it can be encouraging to other fathers as well. We think carefully about what we put of Yul online and always try to make sure the positives outweigh the negatives. So far documenting our story not only preserves those precious memories in a way photos can’t, but also helps us to constantly be thinking and revaluating about what is important in our own relationship and what we want and need for our family. 20 years ago we wouldn’t have shown our child in this public way, but times have changed a lot and children can very soon make their own social media accounts without parents knowing. By being more public with our videos we hope to educate Yul about social media and how to create a positive identity online.

We already get so many comments from people about how seeing Yul in our photos and videos makes their day or how they are encouraged when they see us as a family together. I hope we can continue to be something positive and encouraging.

The majority of videos will be in Korean but there are English subtitles, just click for the CC or subtitles at the bottom of the video.

SUBSCRIBE TO KOREAN APPA!

New ‘Either Way’ Episodes

2018/05/20 / Nic / 0 Comments

Update to let you know there are new episodes of my new series ‘Either Way’ up! Click here to read them. This webtoon deals with issues like endometriosis, infertility and IVF. The response has been amazing and we are already over 1000 subscribers. There have been so many awesome comments too!

EITHER WAY

2018/05/06 / Nic / 0 Comments

NEW SERIES!

We have some exciting news! I have started a new comic series called ‘Either Way’. This is a series about endometriosis, infertility and IVF. It’s our real story so it’s also in the context of our marriage. These are big topics to cover but one of the major reasons why I wanted to start this comic is to start to break down the stigma around these issues, as well as injecting a bit of humour into the story.

At the moment I am uploading it on WEBTOON but will upload on other platforms as well soon.

Click here to go to it on WEBTOON.

I am also uploading it to the TAPAS platform here.

Since these issues are to do with women’s health, there can still be a lot of shame and stigma around them. Women often feel like they can’t talk about them, and even when they do can often be met with blank stares and “What’s endometriosis?” or “What’s IVF?”

I hope this comic series can educate as well as entertain. The title refers to something Hugh and I would always say when discussing the future. We were told we might not be able to have children. This can be devastating news, but in order to maintain some positivity we would say that “either way” we would be happy together and build a wonderful life together.

When my other webtoon Nicholalala was ending I was given the opportunity to pitch this idea to WEBTOON. I was a paid featured artist for Nicholalala, which meant I was paid every month to create those episodes. While they liked that ‘Either Way’ was genuine and my own story, they concluded that it was too mature for their core audience. Unfortunately, I think these types of issues are often labelled “too mature” or put into the “too hard basket” because of the stigma around it. But the truth is that 1 in 10 women have endometriosis and most will first get it in their teens. A lot of the core audience at WEBTOON may already be suffering from some of the things I’m making comics about. Also, many will go on to deal with these things later in life. I think it can be helpful if they are introduced to these topics early and can feel confident to talk about them freely. Many women struggle to even get a diagnosis of endometriosis because of the ignorance of many doctors. READ MORE ABOUT ENDOMETRIOSIS HERE.

READ AN EPISODE HERE:

You can read one of the first episodes here and then check out more over on the WEBTOON platform.

Of course anyone who has been following us for a while knows there is a happy ending to all this, but there is a lot of cover that we didn’t share online when we were going through it. This is the first time we’ve been this open about what we’ve been through.

Please check out the new comic series here!

Sneezing is funny

2018/03/08 / Nic / 0 Comments

Sneezing is funny!

Just a little video from today. Yul has started these big laughs now which are so funny.

He had a health check up a few days ago to see how his progress has been and the doctor said he is very healthy. All his other checks (things like brain, heart and lungs) showed no problems as well. It’s all amazing news considering he was so premature and in the NICU for a month.

Thank you everyone for all your supportive comments. It’s made such a difference to have this support on our difficult journey to finally have a happy and healthy baby. People have said that seeing a photo or a video of him makes their day and it makes us really happy to hear that. It’s a big decision whether to show your child online but we’ve had overwhelming support, so we are glad seeing these moments from our lives means something to our followers.

New Video: Our Baby Arrived Early

2017/11/01 / Nic / 1 Comment

We share the story of our baby, Yul Theodore, arriving early.

He is currently still in the NICU, but was doing really well when we visited today. It’s a weird limbo to be in. We have a baby, but he can’t come home with us yet. At the moment our lives revolve around going to the hospital every day, and I’m also constantly pumping at home while recovering from the c-section.

We have been overwhelmed by the messages of support from everyone and surprised at how many people genuinely care about us. When we realised people would worry when we didn’t update on Instagram on some days we wanted to share more of our story, especially because many people have been through something similar.

We wanted to create a space in the YouTube comments where people could share their stories, not only about having a premature baby, but also being in an international relationship in situations like this. Since we were originally told Yul would only be in the hospital for 1 week to 10 days, my parents flew over from Australia to see him. Unfortunately, he has had to stay a lot longer, so they can’t see him much. They will be flying back over a bit later though.

When we realised how much Hugh has vlogged at the hospital we knew we could put together a video to share with you guys. We mentioned IVF in this video and that’s something we also vlogged so eventually there will be a video about our IVF journey too.

It’s been a very difficult and unusual time. We are excited and happy to finally have a baby, but it’s distressing and heartbreaking to not be able to take him home yet.

It was hard to put together this video but I’m glad we did because it’s a record for us, and something our families can watch too. We can film a lot, but if we don’t edit and put it together in a video like this then footage eventually gets lost and memories fade. I’m glad we have a record like this even though it can be hard to do.

Thank you again everyone for all your support.

Follow Instagram for more updates.

Our Baby

2017/10/17 / Nic / 3 Comments

This is a quick update…. our baby arrived early! I had an emergency C-section last Thursday. So we welcomed our son Yul Theodore to the world. Because he is so early he is in the NICU for a little while.

We update most days on social media, especially Instagram, so please follow on there if you’d like to know more. The blog and YouTube channel is likely to be quiet for a little while. Once he can come home and we are settled we’ll talk more about our experiences and introduce our son properly.

Big thank you to everyone who has been sending lovely messages and supportive comments.

Update: Hospital

2017/09/12 / Nic / 1 Comment

Seaweed soup in the hospital

Those that follow our social media will have already seen these updates but now I’m out of hospital I will update too. Just over 10 days ago I was rushed to the hospital with severe bleeding. I’m out of hospital now and I’m okay, and baby is okay! I have placenta previa which is a condition that usually fixes itself, but I’m now in my third trimester and it’s causing some problems. I had bleeding a few more times in hospital while they adjusted my medication, and some contractions. As it’s too early it was very important to stop me from going into premature labour. I’m now at home with some medication that seems to be working. However with this condition I may end up in hospital again sometime. Baby is likely to be premature but we are just wanting to get him to a certain week, where there’s less chance of complications.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and support on our social media.