Fara Belicht 2: Koen - zwangerschapsafbreking, prenatale diagnose, Down-syndroom

This is the story of the one. As a maintenance tech at a university, he knows ordering from multiple suppliers takes time away from keeping their arena up and running. That's why he counts on Granger to get everything he needs from lighting and HVAC parts to plumbing supplies all in one place and with fast, dependable delivery, he's stocked and ready for the next tip off. Call 1-800-Granjer, click Granger.com or just out by Granger for the ones who get it done. My name's Adela Nyango and welcome to another episode of Legally Cluners. No seriously, I have no clue what I'm doing, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Hey you, welcome to this episode of Legally Cluners. This is what's coming up. - To all months are over and I have not, I do not feel any desire to go back to work. Luckily I was working with, I had been introduced to this career coach, so I had a meeting with her. And she told me something very important. She's like sit with that discomfort and uncertainty and hesitation to go back to work. It is telling you something. And when I reflected on it, I realized what it was telling me was. For me, work has always been high stress, highly competitive, very exhausting, ban out. Why would I want to go back to that? - That is part two of Coe's story. Dr. Coe Mariah, we're gonna jump into it in just a bit. How are you doing? I always ask you this and I ask you to let me know in one word in the comment section wherever you're listening to this one. To let me know how you're doing. Describe it in one word. I really wanna check in with you. And in case this is the first time you're listening to this podcast, welcome to the family. We've noticed quite a few of you are just discovering us. It is never too late to join the family. Welcome, welcome, welcome. And here we have a couple of shows that are really dedicated to African women. So in Mondays we have this show that has different Africans come on and share stories of their lived experiences on Wednesdays, two things happen. Our newsletter goes out where we unpack different topics around healing and our midwicties episode goes out where we do the exact same thing. On Thursdays, we have four Man and Less Women that goes out on our YouTube channel. If you wanna stay up to date with the latest episode, if you don't mind being a week behind, you can catch it on our audio channels. So for Man and Less Women, the title (laughs) is a bit self-explanatory, but it's a very different African women convene and share their expertise and their inspiring life stories and show you that womanhood can look so diverse and you can create what womanhood looks like for you and feels like for you. Trust me, it's an awesome sweet, awesome sweet. So welcome to the fam. Back to this episode. If you have not listened to part one, please go to the previous episode so you do not float. If you did listen a bit of a recap in part one we heard about Dr. Koi's childhood and just her speaking about the powerful lineage of women storytellers that she comes from and how it was like for her to grow up as a child who was constantly made to feel different and she talks about speaking up against injustice and school and getting punished for it and how that kind of made her over time slowly learn to silence her own voice. So really her entire story is about remembering and reclaiming your voice. It never fully disappeared. So in part two, that's exactly where we at. Dr. Koi starts to reconnect with her voice again from moving abroad at a young age to just like navigating leadership, activism, burn out that part and if I was to wrap this part of our story in a few words I would say it's really about what it means to choose yourself. A hundred African stories on legally clueless stories from Africa. So I finished KCSE, I had a gap year and then I went to Australia. stayed in Australia for about eight and a half for nine years, they're about so quite a long time. Started working there. I mean I always worked part-time anyway even when I was at university but now finished studying and was working properly. Then after about eight and a half years decided to come back home and I've been back home since it's been a while since I moved back home. It was good, it was good, it was challenging, because living abroad is challenging. And of course when you go there when you're like a 1920 hour, okay what do you even know of life? Actually my parents were very brave to let me go at that point you know. And I saw people who we went with there who really lost their way, really really lost their way. So yeah just also to sit to parents, this thing of sending your child abroad when they're young, it can be hit and miss, lucky for me it was not a miss. But yeah Australia was good to me, I enjoyed it. The main reason I came back home was just because like I missed home and I also was feeling like I'm missing out on so many things. It really people are getting married, people are having children, you're meeting the kids three years later, you know things like that. So yeah so I eventually decided to move back home. But I had a very typical kind of university life, you know. You're studying, you're working part-time, you're parting also with friends and there were challenges in terms of just settling in and the culture shock, but very typical highlights, I made very, very good friends in Australia, in fact it breaks my heart that I did not maintain, we did not maintain contact. I guess back in those days also, by the time I was moving back home, no mobile phones were there, but there was no like this, my WhatsApp, number first time, now I was on, I guess there's a bit harder to also maintain contact. So I had a very good community of people when I was in Australia, I was blessed. Very good people, I'm so grateful to them, forever indebted to them, even if we've not kept contact for the most part, the people I will remember for the rest of my life. A lower life, there was, there was a year, I went, I really struggled, that that was a year, I would say actually I think experienced some level of like, at the depressive symptoms, but it was just more, I can't tell you why, like not, not I can't tell you in the sense of, I don't want to tell you, I can't say there was anyone reason. I just think I was really, I was struggling to settle in culture shock, far away from home, far away from anyone I knew, I was struggling with the cost that I was doing. So I initially went there to study civil engineering. I did very well in my, what they used to call for university, did very well in university, got into the civil engineering course, civil and structural engineering, did it for two years, oh my god, I hated it, I hated it so much. Then I'm like, now, how do I even start telling my parents that this thing is not, you know, it's not working. So I think, like now all of that is country, and you know, I'm also a very, like I'm a person who takes my academic seriously, so like, it's just not working. Yeah, thankfully again, my dad to their rescue, because when finally, I told him, I didn't even have the courage to tell him, I asked one of the university counselors to call him and tell him, and he called me back and he was just like, you know, your career is what you'll do for the rest of your life, and you need to be happy with it. So if this thing is not working, then change to, you know, change to whatever will work for you, me, I'm like, what? By this time, fizzy, melipopo, like, you know, I don't know what, everything. So yeah, so anyway, I ended up changing from civil and structural engineering to a batch of arts, majoring in psychology and anthropology. I always say, I'm so grateful for that decision because if I had not changed, I would never have gone as far as I have now in my academics, like all the way to the PhD level, which is basically the highest academic qualification you can get. If I had stuck with that initial course, I would just be a very miserable engineer, doing my 8 to 5 or 9 to 5, probably with a drinking problem or something, you know. But yeah, because of that switch and because of the support of my parents to make that switch, I really thrived. I really, really, and can I just say also that my dad was gracious enough to allow, quote, unquote, for that change, because I remember when I told him, I want to go do engineering, he's an engineer himself, civil engineer. And he said, are you sure? Are you really sure about that choice? Because I guess he could tell from my academic transcripts that I thrive more in the humanities than in the sciences. Me and like, can't believe your dad, you don't have faith in me. I'm going to be one of the first female engineers in Kenya. Nini, Nini. So you see, my motivation is even to be the first female. It's not because I really like this thing. Yeah, but anyway, he was very gracious when I wanted to change. And I believe I'm made in proud since I think even he does not regret supporting that decision because I have since then really thrived academically and professionally. We're, me and mom, we are, we are good. My mom and I, we are very similar. And so I think because we are very similar, there's only so much we can get along. In other words, our personalities are very similar. We're both very tough. We are both, we can be very hot headed. we can be very opinionated, we can be very known answers, say it as it is. So in many ways we are two peas in a pod. I don't know if that's the right thing though. Like we're just similar. So because of that, then of course sometimes we'll clash, right? But it's just, yeah, it's just a typical mother-daughter relationship to be honest. Oh yeah, so I'm back in Kenya. So then I started walking in Kenya for an organization that I worked for for many, many years. Yeah, being back in Kenya was just like, yeah, working, started studying for my PhD as well. Also being sponsored by this organization that I was working for, they sponsored me through my entire PhD program, which was fantastic. So I did not pay a single cent for it. I had, yeah, since I moved back to Kenya, like, work was great. I was thriving professionally. I think what might be interesting for me to talk about is kind of after that, because I walked in that space for a very long time, about 14, 15 years. During my working life, okay, not that I've stopped working, but during this, when I moved back to Australia, and then all those years when I was working and employed, this thing of speaking up against injustice, now it had come full force with all its dreams. So even during that time, I was always the person who would speak up against injustice, particularly gender injustice, whether it was in the workplace, whether it was in society, like, I am known, even my former colleagues, you just like, oh, the gender person, you know, like you get even that tag of the gender person, you know, so of course, sometimes it would get me into trouble, right? Not so much with my employer, my employer is very supportive actually, but then of course, sometimes if it's like something happening in the workplace, and then like you have to call it out, then of course, you're going to get into trouble with some people, right? So yeah, so that thing came like full force, man, as in, and you know, now it was different to an hour's younger, because I was also now starting to embrace it. I was owning it. And I'm like, I still, I wasn't still at the level of awareness, I am now, but I was like, but I was embracing it a bit more. Although in the same way that I did when I was in form four, because now just like I had been elected to be deputy school captain in form four, when I went to the workplace, again, on two different occasions, I was elected by the staff to be employee representative or like to PhD students representative. And I'm just like guys, you are killing me because you know, I cannot be quiet about some of these things. And what that means is that sometimes your batting heads with, you know, the powers that be, right? So in the final, in my final year of my PhD, I just had to say, I'm resigning from this post of being the representative, you guys will just have to find someone else, because Mimi, I just want to put my head down and finish this PhD thing. I'm so I'm tired of fighting battles, I'm tired of fighting for justice for people and everything. So yeah, so for a period of time, I kind of just, but this time I chose in a very wise way to silence myself, it was a very different, it was very different to when I was in high school, because in high school, I was silenced. And in a very punitive way, in the last year of my PhD, I chose to silence myself. And it was through wisdom and being strategic because I was like, I have a goal in mind, I know there are people within this system that support me, but still, I don't want to spend my energy fighting battles. I just want to get the work done. So when I was elected to be so when I was in the working space, I was elected first time to be PhD students representative and then post PhD, I was elected to be what they used to call research fellows and postdoc representative. But both of these things, they're basically it's like stuff, right? It's like being a staff representative. For the most part, my experience was good to be honest, because there were people at the senior most levels, who are very supportive of me, who would hear me when I raised concerns, and not hear me in a very kind of superficial, we're just taking a box kind of thing, they would like hear me, listen to me, ask for my opinion on things, if I raised an issue with them, like this is coming from the staff body of the student body, this thing is coming up. I did feel for the most part that they would take my concerns seriously. Having said that, you know, there would sometimes be tricky situation where a staff member comes to you and they're raising a very sensitive issue regarding another staff member. And maybe that other staff member is your senior. Now you're like, OK, my job is to objectively represent the issue that this staff has brought to me. Now, I cannot go to that senior member because they are the problem, the complaint is about them. So how do I handle this? And how do I handle this in a way that the senior member will not now take it out on me? You know, but now that's where I think it really helps to have good top most senior leadership, because I think that is what saved me, otherwise I think I'd have gotten into lots of problems. Cause now what I would often have to do in like in the few times, those, the one that many, but in the times those situations came up, I would bypass this kind of mid senior people and just take it to the very top book and appointment goes to the top most people or person and be like, listen, in fact, without sometimes as the staff member to do is I'm like, can you put it in writing so that I can print it out, but remove your name and on you might as your name, then I'll take it to the top most senior person, be like, look, this has come my way, this, you can see the complaint yourself, you can see the names that have been mentioned. I need a way forward. What do we do? And the few times that I found myself in that situation, the top most senior leadership are very supportive of me, I felt they handle the issue adequately to the extent where now when I, you know, when I go back to the consent staff member, and I'm like, this and this and this is what is being proposed, how do you feel about it? Are you okay with this? Do you want to take any further action beyond this? Like even they were happy with with what has with the action that has been taken or with whatever has been proposed. So I was lucky in that regard, I really was lucky in that regard, but I can see how if you don't have a supportive senior leadership, it can be very hard, especially with the very sensitive, you know, topics or complaints that come about in the workplace, I can see how it can be very difficult. I was, I was just lucky. And then of course, but the time I finished my PhD, I'm also now getting to see more senior level positions. So I can stand my ground better, I can represent the staff better because I'm also now, I can hold my ground, I can even go to HR myself and be like guys, any this, it's not working, you know, so in terms of competing with the HR, yes, and not mostly no, because I wasn't the only staff representative. So there was a whole body of us who are representing various categories of staff, right? So each category of staff members had a representative. Then now we would all either individuality issues to the concerned people or every I think once a month, we used to meet for what they'll call an employee representative's meeting. So I wasn't like the only one doing that job. The only time it became a problem was there was once when one of the very senior directors asked me to do something very specific to kind of gender, gender equity in the workplace. Again, because I was the gender person, I was the employee rep for my group of people, but then I was also the gender person. And then I think there'd been some concerns raised. And so I remember he called me to his office and we had a very long conversation and he asked me, he's specifically directed me to do certain things. Because they wanted to just I guess come up with some strategies or solutions. So I had I had third party, not no one told no HR person came in to me, but I had that some people from the HR were not happy about that. Like why is she doing this? Does she think she's does she think she's the HR? But remember, she could do my I did not. I did just volunteer myself to do this thing. I was working and the instruction from one of the top bosses. So me I just I ignored it. I was like, take it up with the boss. It's not like I didn't give myself this role. You have a problem with what I'm doing. Take it up with the senior boss who directed me to do this thing, right? But again, in fairness to them, this is I had from I had from a third party. So and I'm always very cautious when I hear things from third parties, I take it to the pinch of salt because I'm like, everyone has an agenda. You know, people always have an agenda. So you don't know this person is coming to tell you at you. So and so say this and this about what you're doing. What is the agenda for telling you that that thing? So I always when someone says, oh, so and so say this about you. I like always take it to the pinch of salt because again, it could be true. It could be false, right? So I had but I know I never came and told me anything to my face. In fact, the contrary, I remember post-PhD when I really did not want to take up the employee reps role. Because I was fed up, I'm like, "Me, I'm dead of fighting battles, dead of being the one-carimada of this fighting for justice and everything." The head of HR actually strongly recommended me as like a rep who's put Koi in that group. I'll translate it and say, "Yuna, Koi, just say it as it is." Koi is like no, not so she'll just tell us as it is. I was so shocked when the other HR person was like, "So and so say, they really want you in this group. They highly recommend you please come and be part of the group." I'm like, "What? That guy the way I was giving my hard time in those meetings. Why would he even want me?" He should be happy. I'm not in that group because I always give him such a hard time in those meetings. So I thought it was very evolved of him that he actually wanted a vocal person in that group. So that's what I'm saying. Also, when I had, "Oh, I don't know HR, or not have you thought you're doing us like, "Oh, okay, maybe not. I don't know." But I do know that at some point, the head of HR specifically requested that I be brought back to this employee rep group. He was like, "We need voices like us there." Shocking to me, shocking because honestly, I feel sorry for him. I used to give him such a hard time about things. So more power to him. So I get the rep, that was fine. That was fine. Post-PHD was fine. Honestly, it was fine. Fairly smooth sailing. At some point, I handed it over, but just because I was like, "It's good to have Tanowa with these roles. You don't have to be like a Mugabe. You stayed in that role forever." So at some point, I was like, "I think it's good for people to have fresh blood." So then again, I stepped down from the role. Someone else took over. Carried on with my work. In the 2020. I started thinking of taking a break from the working world. An intentional break because I was so exhausted. It was many things. When I was exhausted, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, I just felt I needed a break. I was also really in the face of my life where. and now that I think about it, it was when I turned 40. So I was also really in the face of my life. I was thinking about a legacy. What is my legacy? What will be my legacy? I wanted to do work that felt a lot more impactful. I was really thinking of my legacy work. So I even talked to my senior boss and I was like, "You know, when I'm done with this project that I'm leading, I'm going to take a break." Blah, blah, blah. And I remember we laughed about it. He was like, "You, I think you're just going through a midlife crisis. Ha, ha, ha. We laughed about it." And I was. so I was going to take a break in 2022. But then when I was in the process of finalizing my project so that I could take a break, I was head-handed by another organization to go into a more senior leadership role. So then I thought, "Okay, you know how they say a good. a change is as good as a rest." So I thought, "Okay, maybe what I actually need is just a change. Maybe I've been in this other organization for so long. Maybe what I need is a change. Maybe it'll re-energize me. Maybe I'll get my. spark back, my rejuvenation back." So when I finished my work with this one organization, I transitioned into the other organization. The one where I had been head-handed. Yeah, that lasted like I think at most 18 months. It was terrible. Honestly, it was so terrible. I don't even want to go into it. All I can see, it just did not work for me. I found the work environment to be very toxic. Some very kind of toxic colleagues. But also, in fairness, I was also just exhausted. It did not do for me what I thought it would have done for me. There were two things I was looking to get out of that new job. One, a change, which I thought would re-energize me. But two, the kind of work they were doing, I felt, would help me to see the impact I was looking for. Because I was really looking to do work where I can say, "This is my impact. I can see the impact from the work I'm doing." So when I got there, I realized, "No, actually, this is not really what it has been sold to be, at least for me." And then also the work environment was toxic. And then, of course, at that point, I'm quite tired anyway. So, yeah, so I resigned from that job in December 2023. So then the last two years, all of December 2024, and all of the year 2025, I was basically on an intentional break from the working world. And that has been one of the best things I have ever done for myself. I'm so deeply grateful that I'm privileged enough to do that. Because, of course, there's some people because of circumstances. They cannot take a break from working, right? I was, I mean, in fairness, I also organized myself well financially, so I didn't just take a break. I put some measures in place to make sure I will be able to survive. Pay bills, not starve, not be a bad-end to anyone. I really don't want to be a bad-end to anyone. I never have been a wanted that. It's so hard for me to even ask for help. So I was like, "I definitely don't want to be a bad-end to anyone." But so I did that, and it has been so good for my spirit, so good for my mental health, so good for my heart and my soul. The last three years, I've so deeply reconnected with my spirituality, with ancestral healing as well. Because of being able to take that break, I've been able to now start other projects that give me joy like my podcast. I couldn't do that before. I was so busy. So, so busy with work, so tired mentally. I would not have the space to even be able to do anything like, you know, my podcast, right? So, yeah, so now I was able to start having the space and the freedom and the bandwidth, the mental bandwidth, the emotional bandwidth, to do things that actually bring me joy. But most importantly, it gave me a chance to just pose and think, what would my legacy work look like? Because, you know, before you can't even do that, you're just like busy, or chasing grants, trying to meet deadlines, supervising people, like you're just, you're just in this ratriase of just trying to get the work done. You don't even have thinking space. I realize, once I stopped working, I realized, I actually did not have space to just even think. Because even if it's the weekend, your brain is so tired, your mind is so tired, you cannot even think how is it, if you're really, you cannot think, you know? So, yeah, so just to be able to just have that space to think, to reconnect with myself, to reground myself, and just get to this point where I'm like, actually, what I am is a black lioness. I'm not a black sheep. I'm a black lioness. I have so many gifts to offer the world. I have inherited so many gifts that I need to, I have a responsibility to use wisely, to give back to society and to the world. So, yeah, so it's been amazing. So right now, I'm in a space of, initially I'd say my break would be one, yeah? One, yeah, Alicia, that one, yeah, ended, and I'm like, oh my god, I am actually not ready to go back to work. And I was so stressed about it because I was like, what does this mean? Have I become lazy? Am I now a lazy person who does not want to work? Like, this is not me. Me, I'm a gogeta, I'm career driven, I'm, you know, all these things. Then now, I'm like, I've all 12 months have quashed. 12 months are over and I have not, I do not feel any desire to go back to work. Luckily, I was working with, I've been introduced to this career coach. So I had a meeting with her and she told me something very important. She's like, sit with that discomfort and uncertainty and hesitation to go back to work. And when I reflected on it, I realized what it was telling me was, for me, work has always been high stress, highly competitive, very exhausting, bang out, you know, just like crazy working. Why would my body want to go back to that? Like, it did not, like, work had stopped feeling joyful for me. And so it is why the idea of going back to work was just like, I can't, I can't. So then we went through a process with her where she was like, so now what you need to do is define for yourself what would joyful working look like. What does that look like for you? So it might look something very different for me and for you, for example, for someone else. What is joyful, maybe for someone else, joyful working is that crazy, you know, crazy has so low of like stress, mini, like maybe that's where they get their energy from. For me, at this point in my life, I'm just very clear that that is not what joyful working is for me. So yeah, so now I'm in a phase of trying to redefine for myself. What could joyful will walk, walking look like for me. What is this work that can, is impactful, contributes to my legacy, but I'm also able to maintain harmony and balance as I do it. I don't, I don't lose myself in my life as I'm doing this, this thing, this work, you know? So yeah, so that's why I'm at right now. That's why the queen is at right now. This black queen who is a black lareness, who roars. Batman, yeah, I think we only think on to add, and this will take us way back to, you know, the first thing we're talking about, which is about growing up and family dynamics and all of that. I do think we need to start having serious conversations about, you know, we talk about say workplace bullying, we talk about, say, bullying in school. I do think we need to start having conversations about bullying within families, because when I think of myself, especially my younger self, not even maybe child self, but like young adult self, yeah, I just really feel, anyway, all this to say, I do think we need to start having conversations about bullying within the family, or like, you know, maybe unhealthy family relationships, because I think they can be very harmful to people, particularly young people, young adults. And especially as I said, if they don't have that one voice that's grounding them, it could go very, very wrong. But also, especially, I really just want to speak to anyone out there who is different in whichever way. Different can look many things. You're an unconfirmist. You think differently. You look different. You dress different. Whatever, whatever different is, please find your community. Find those people or that one person that can ground you, because it can be a very lonely journey. And if you don't have grounding, you can make very bad decisions. But then for everyone else, it's just be kind. Be kind even to people who are different to an unconfirmist. The world needs all of us. The world needs people who conform, but also the world needs the rebels and the unconfirmist. Those are the people who fought for our independence. You know, those are in the dead and the dead, you think they were conformist. Those were unconfirmist. Those were rebels. All these people who fought for multi-partisan, non-confirmist. The world needs all types of people. It needs the non-confirmists and it needs, but you can't also have all of us being non-confirmist 'cause they're not pure chaos, right? But so it needs people who are rebels and unconfirmists and different. And then it also needs people who are like, okay, now you rebels, please we have attained some peace. Can we just calm down now? All of us, let's calm down so we can have a bit of or die in the world, you know what I mean? Catch more African stories in the next episode of Legally Cuey's. What an incredible story. I love it, I love it so much. I identified with so much. I told you in the last episode, the bit about, you know, honoring the women in her lineage when it comes to storytelling and her gifts. I connected with that. That really sat with me from last week into this week. I love when she talks about rest in this part too because rest is revolutionary. Rest is fuel. And there are very many of us, especially women, especially African women who spend so much of our lives trying to prove ourselves, you know what I mean? Surviving, performing, producing, movement, pushing through burnout, pushing through exhaustion and like, that's not healthy. Number one, and it actually wouldn't be productive if you're exhausted. You know this, you wouldn't be productive. You wouldn't be able to create. You wouldn't be able to live and health wise, you're gonna be doing a disservice to your body. So I really loved hearing Dr. Corey speak about intentionally stepping away from work and just given herself the space to reconnect with herself, reconnect with her, where am I, what's going? Reconnect with her spirituality, with her joy, her purpose. And like, I think we're always trying to find the next best version of ourselves from pushing harder. That doesn't work. I think you find the next best version of yourself when you pause, when you're silent. And in that silence, you get to hear yourself again. You know what I mean? I love this episode. I want to know what you connected with. So wherever it is you're listening to this on, after you tell me how you're doing, (laughs) let me know what you connected with in Dr. Corey's story, Boots by One and Part Two. If you feel moved to want to share your story on this particular show in the show notes, there is a story telephone, fill it out and our correspondence are gonna reach out to you. Ah, it's so wonderful to always start the week with you. Honestly, I've had a day and a half fighting with KPLC, who are our electricity provider here in Kenya. So you can imagine how hectic that's been for me. (laughs) But this talking to you just like, "Hmm, brings me back to center." Oh, before I go, do not forget to follow Dr. Corey Mariah on socials. So in the show notes, you'll get a link to her socials, you'll get a link to her podcast as well. But thank you so much for listening to this episode to the very end. I truly appreciate it and I think that you have every single thing it takes to heal. That's it for this episode of Legally Killers. You can share this podcast with your friends, you can keep it for yourself. I'm not judging. Just make sure you're here next week for the next episode.