Dear Grieving Mothers on Mother's Day

Mother's Day as a grieving daughter and mother can be hard.  On one hand, I am extremely thankful to God for the precious miracles He has entrusted to me.  On the other hand, I will always feel like an important piece is missing from my life.  I longed for so long to have a "normal" mother daughter relationship.  I was thankful for the mother that God gave me through the miracle of adoption and for the good years we shared together, but the road hasn't always been easy.  I also love being a boy mom, but I longed to have a relationship with a daughter of my own to feel what I never really had with my own biological mother.  I longed to give my own daughter what I never had.  I had a rough life in the beginning in foster and children's homes and finally adopted later in childhood.  After I was married, we decided to start our family and were blessed to have two beautiful, healthy baby boys in 2007 and 2011.  In 2012, we decided to try to have one more in hopes of having a girl.  We were blessed to get pregnant easily and were so excited to find out she was a little girl.  We prepared everything for her...her room, clothes, etc.  Then, after a long and tiring pregnancy while completing my last year of law school and working full time, I finally went into labor at 40 weeks and 6 days.  Labor seemed to progress normally through the day as we monitored my contractions, but when we arrived at the hospital and I was examined, no heartbeat was found.  How could this happen?  Our beautiful baby girl was taken from us just when we thought our dreams would come true.  Over the next five years, I was beyond blessed with two more little baby boys (one a complete surprise) who filled our hearts and home with so much joy.  They were indeed "rainbows" as we refer to them in the loss community.  I won't lie and say there wasn't a tiny bit of disappointment right at the moment I heard "it's a boy" during the ultrasound, but my disappointment disappeared just as quickly because my boys have my whole heart.  They are just amazing!  We thought we were done having babies with four little boys to raise, but in 2018, we got another little surprise blessing.  We were having another little girl!  We finally welcomed our beautiful rainbow daughter in January 2019 in a pretty scary delivery experience when she came a month early and almost died from a placenta abruption.  Her whole pregnancy was my worst, but I am so very thankful for her.  We mothers of angels do not take anything for granted!  I just wish we all could give ourselves some grace and know that others just can never fully comprehend what we feel and that is okay!

My Granny, Grandma, Mom and daughter Mattie are in heaven.

Please know that if you have lost a mother, daughter, beloved grandmother, sister, friend or any person who makes this particular day difficult for you to celebrate, your feelings are completely valid even when others don't understand. Please reach out to me here so I can pray for you and encourage you.