Bittersweet Beginnings
How Parenthood, Heartbreak, and a Dream Reborn Shaped Our Life Abroad
While recently filling out a questionnaire for
, I found myself writing a deep dive on why I moved abroad. A totally understandable character limit led me to truncate my story of what led my wife Lili and me to move to Belize, so I thought I’d post the full version here.Early in our relationship, we were avid travellers—technically still are, but two young children have paused that for the time being—and went on several trips together. Wherever we would go, Lili proclaimed, "Let's live here!"; even in places like Iceland, which is beautiful, but not where I'd care to live. So, I'd laugh and say no. But something shifted during our babymoon in Belize. Surprisingly, when she said it this time, I agreed. I'd always wanted to live abroad—almost moving to Costa Rica years earlier—and the beautiful landscape and welcoming people stirred my desire.
It wasn't that I disliked living in Canada—I never questioned it, to be honest—but something felt off. At the time, I owned and operated a growing residential renovation business. While I enjoyed the freedom of being self-employed, I couldn't shake the feeling that systems of someone else's creation bound me. I lacked autonomy and felt pressured by obligations and norms to conform to the world around me. I was a product of systems: governmental, educational, cultural, and social, set in place long before I was born. It didn't sit right with me. Under the blind societal obedience, sat an uneasiness, a restlessness, a desire to exit. I hadn't agreed to participate in any of it, yet I was expected to do so—dare say, I was mandated to do so. That sense of misalignment pushed me toward change and to consider life outside the country I’d grown up in and always known. The thought of life in another country was exciting, and the prospect of “what if we could make it work?” pushed us into action.
So, we spent much of our babymoon speaking to real estate agents and looking at properties. We found a place that ticked all our boxes: a fixer-upper (I have a history of renovating and reselling homes), close to the beach, with income generating potential (the place had a small building by the main road that the previous owner ran a bakery from before they had to return to the US for medical reasons and never returned).
We submitted an offer days before our return trip, and after a brief negotiation, the seller accepted. We were elated! But it was March 2020, and COVID lockdowns hit worldwide within days of returning home, making it impossible to fulfill a key condition of the deal, in-person inspection within 14 days of closing.
The deal fell through, and it crushed us, along with our dream. But, it was a blessing in disguise; only, we didn't know it at the time.
With our Belize dreams dashed, we set our sights on a fixer-upper in an up-and-coming municipality west of Toronto. Now, May, we worked tirelessly to prepare the home for our firstborn, starting renovations within 24 hours of closing on the property and had it livable by the time Jack arrived in October.
However, getting him into the home proved daunting.
Jack was born with a severe case of MAS (meconium aspiration syndrome); so bad that the OB who performed the emergency C-section said it was the worst she'd seen in her medical career.
So bad, it nearly took his and my wife's lives. For ten days, we didn’t know if he would survive.
Jack spent a month in critical care in the NICU. Thankfully, our new home was a short drive from one of the highest-ranked pediatric hospitals in Canada. He was presenting moderate to severe brain damage, and all diagnoses pointed to a life of disability and constant care from the Canadian public healthcare system. Had we been in Belize, as initially planned, the odds were we wouldn’t have been considering long-term care, but a funeral. As hard as they were to navigate and as weird as it is to say, I am forever grateful for the COVID lockdowns, which kept us close to top-notch acute medical care.
It was a challenging 30 days; the hardest of my life, and an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone.
After weeks in the NICU, and miraculous brain scans that came back normal, discharge day arrived, and we took baby Jack home. He pushed through; we made it. Our son was a miracle, beating the odds heavily stacked against him.
But being in the NICU and witnessing how common birth traumas are was eye-opening. So many families affected; so many journeys untold. It’s not what people want to hear about when the conversations around birth arise, so they aren't often shared. We were lucky, and Jack survived, but that was not the case for all the families alongside us in the NICU. Days before we took Jack home, we witnessed a family on the opposite end of the spectrum. Their baby didn't make it, and the whole NICU team came out to console the distraught family. It was fucking tragic; and bittersweet for us. We knew we'd leave with a healthy baby in tow, while others went home with only sorrow.
Soon after, I fell back into my work routine—long hours to steer operations and drive growth in my business. I had this miracle baby, but I barely saw him. He was a great sleeper and was often down by the time I got home from work, and still asleep when I left in the morning. Perhaps the result of 30 days in a noisy NICU ward. It wasn't what I imagined fatherhood would be, especially after Jack's rough start.
I wanted to spend more time at home, so I applied for parental leave. The GOC denied me. Since I was self-employed, I wasn't eligible. Despite years of contributing to the Canadian social security and EI system, they refused to support me when I suddenly needed it most. That moment clarified everything: I’d been playing by rules that didn’t work in my favor. The system was flawed; it wasn’t built for people like me.
I knew we needed a change.
So, in the spring of 2021, my wife and I vowed to spend more time as a family. We bought a camper trailer and toured around our province at every opportunity until the Fall. During that time in the camper, we reignited our Belizean dream. We knew the established norms of North American life weren't for us. So, while in that camper, we purchased a parcel of land—site unseen, because it was still hard to travel at that time—close to the beach in a growing community on the Placencia peninsula.
From our camper, we laid the foundation for new lives.
We also created a new life (literally) in that camper, where our second son, Dash, was conceived.
From the summer of 2021 until spring of 2022, we planned our move, designed a new house, sold our old one, and parted with many of our belongings.
Then Dash arrived, just weeks before we left, but not before threatening to blow the whole plan out of the turquoise water. We were back in the NICU. Shortly after his birth, Dash developed a hole in one of his lungs, behind his heart. Given the precarious area, invasive medical action wasn’t an option. While not nearly as severe an experience as our first, we spent a week in the NICU waiting for his recovery.
Some people thought a second NICU baby would cause us to delay or cancel our move, but oddly enough, it only strengthened our resolve. It put the unpredictability of life front and center. There are endless reasons why you shouldn't do something different, but we held on to our “what if…” and set off on a life abroad, never looking back.
P.S.
This piece touches on several themes I plan to explore more deeply in future posts—like moving abroad for the “what if” rather than to escape a problem, the subtle but persistent challenges of life overseas, and how leaving your home country can expand your sense of autonomy.
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Oof, what a story, Simo! And what a blessing that your little ones both made it through!
Thanks for sharing your experiences. As a 50 -year traveler to Belize (lived there as a Peace Corps Volunteer beginning in 1973) and now a part-time resident, your passion for the country resonates with me.