Is Motherhood Only For Those With Living Children?
The struggle of being a mother with no living children.
Mother’s Day in the U.S. is approaching in less than a month. That day brings up a lot of emotions and feelings within the community of loss moms, along with the uncomfortable yet ubiquitous question to moms who have no living children:
Am I a mother?
This topic comes up a lot in my pregnancy loss support group. Some of the members have living children while others don’t.
I’m one of those who don’t.
Cecilia, the daughter I lost at about 18 weeks gestation, was my first child. Her loss was accompanied by the loss of my hopes and dreams for our future as a family together.
I feel like I was robbed of this promise that my body made to me. The promise that was made as soon as I found out I was pregnant. The promise of Motherhood.
It feels like Motherhood was taken away from me when I lost my baby. Although this doesn’t mean that I won’t try again for children, I feel robbed of being a mother to Cecilia here on Earth.
In my pregnancy loss support group, we’re told that despite our losses, we are mothers.
I wholeheartedly believe this. I am and always will be the mother of Cecilia, my angel baby.
But it’s just not the same as being a mom to a living child.
I can’t connect with other parents about parenting issues.
I can’t set up play dates with other kids.
I don’t have a daughter to handcraft me a painting of her handprints or pick flowers for me on Mother’s Day.
After I passed my due date just two weeks ago, it started to hit me that I’ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life. A whole person is missing from my life, and always will be.
Her absence is present in the baby section of the supermarket as I roam the aisles childless.
Her absence is present in the meals that I share with my husband, knowing that a high chair should be next to us.
Her absence is present in the unfinished blanket I crocheted for her that I sleep with every single night.
This is what it’s like to be the mother of a child that never got to experience life outside of the womb. A constant reminder, for the rest of our lives, that there will always be a part of us missing.
This Mother’s Day, I’ll have a hole in my heart. A whole the size of my 18-week-old baby.
So for Mother’s Day this year, honor all forms of Motherhood. Honor the mothers and grandmothers in your lives, the ones with living children.
And please don’t forget to honor the mothers who don’t have living children. We’re here, too.
