For the second half of my 20s, I spent many nights imagining what my future might look like with or without a child. I didn’t believe in my bones that I was “always meant to be a mother,” but I also didn’t have conviction I wanted a child-free life. The question laid like heavy sediment. I’d stir it up every few weeks to see if the load had lightened enough for me to see through the clouds, but it never did. I’d let the sand settle so I could carry on my days—but after five years, something needed to change.

I realized that the sediment was made of fear. Fear of losing my freedom and my sense of self. Fear of the state of the world and the downfall of humanity. Fear of irreversible changes to my body. Fear of giving birth. Fear of missing out on the experience of motherhood. Mostly fear of regret. My poor husband’s neck from the whiplash. Snip, snap, snip, snap.

An article written by a parental clarity coach helped me recognize that I needed to separate my desire from my decision. Understanding the truth of my desire in isolation helped me then approach the decision with the objectiveness I was craving.

A month after reading that article, I got pregnant…with twins. It all happened so quickly. The twins are now 13 months old and I am only just starting to process my new reality.

To help move through the nuance, I am dedicating space to honestly reflect. I’ve been thinking about recent conversations with close friends and I wanted to revisit the big question of “Do you want kids?” I do not wish to go back and change my mind, but my perspective on children is different now that I have two. I hope my sharing can bring me closer to anyone in a similar headspace as I was 2 years ago.

//

We chose to move forward with trying to grow our family because in that article I mentioned, it asked to take 5 days to pretend as if you decided that you were going to have a child. And take 5 days and pretend as if you decided not to have a child. Remove blocks and allow yourself to dream positively and big.

The option with a child was simple and pure. I imagined a day at the ROM, learning about dinosaurs together before grabbing dinner and heading home for bedtime routine. The option without a child was relaxing. It was a chill day of visiting cafes and exploring neighborhoods together while we worked remotely in another country for a month at a time. It was quiet and blissful.

When I tried to do this exercise, I would often be interrupted by doubt. Specifically the option with a child. There was so much unknown and therefore a lot of fear. What’s going to happen to my body? How hot is it going to be on Earth when my child is an adult? Will it be worth it? What if I regret it?

I did my best to silence the murmurs and by the end of the 10 days I felt like the image of our little family was worth the risk. I love my husband so much, I would certainly love a tiny version of us. I believed we would figure it out. So we started trying. And shortly after that, my grandfather passed away. I felt a spiritual wind that soothed me with how the end of a life is just enough energy to start another.

Turns out that energy was enough to clone itself—and now I am a mother of 13 month identical twin boys. I would tell that confused girl that everything will be okay. Now, I think back to those big fears and questions I had.

//

What’s going to happen to my body?

Girl, it goes through a lot. My skinny-with-no-shape figure flaunted my midriff as her best asset and now after birthing my boys, I vow no one will ever see me in a bikini until I get a tummy tuck. When people say I look the same as before, I feel like I’ve deceived them somehow. My ribcage is bigger, my waist is thicker, my belly is wrinkled, my hair is thinner. Everything I was afraid of came true. Except for one thing—how I’d handle it. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to see the good my body did, but I do. I’m so proud of myself for that. For the first time ever I feel motivated to stick to a gym routine not just for vanity but for my health and longevity. It’ll take time and I’m happy to be on the journey. I am genuinely in awe of my body for creating two humans at the same time. It is only fair I treat her right.

How hot is it going to be on Earth when my child is an adult?

The world is f*cked. Like truly. I felt despair before having kids and now objectively the world is even more f*cked up than when I was pregnant. I’m not a very positive or hopeful person when it comes to what’s happening in the world but now I have to be. I need to work towards a better version of tomorrow so my kids believe in their future too. “How can we make the Earth less hot when my child is an adult?” kind of mindset. It’s really hard to feel hope when everything feels awful—a live-streamed genocide, self-serving billionaires making policies, extreme climate disasters…the list goes on. And although I’m still mad about everything, I choose to channel it into something progressive to show my boys apathy isn’t the solution. Everything is political and mothering is no exception. I am embracing that, and I am more hopeful than ever.

Will it be worth it?

I feel bad that my answer isn’t a wholehearted “YES!” but a meek “I don’t know.” It makes it sound like I’m indifferent about my boys, but that’s absolutely not it. It’s just a stupid question because it’s impossible to answer!

To evaluate it, I look at what I give versus what I receive. I give a lot. Everything I have really—love, time, energy, money. I used my body to grow and feed them and my body will never be the same. I sacrifice freedom and spontaneity. I give mental space and physical space in my home. When parents say kids change everything, they really mean it. It’s really hard (the twins thing definitely make it worse). And what do I receive in return? It’s hard to describe because it’s spiritual. In return for my labour and sacrifice, I feel my soul—that has drifted far—returning to my core. I am more patient and empathetic. I am more passionate. I am more grounded in what actually matters. I am more human.

It’s a high price to pay to have children, but I get something truly invaluable.

The reason why I have a hard time answering “is it worth it?” with a wholehearted YES is that I don’t know what my life would have been like without kids. Could I have found this sense of peace and centredness another way? That’s the missing piece to the equation. Which leads me to the last question…

Will I regret it?

I don’t. BUT it’s more complicated. When I was evaluating the two versions of my life with and without kids, I think I missed a crucial piece and if I had hindsight I don’t know if I would have made the same decision. That part feels hard to say, but honest.

The simple dream of seeing our little nuclear family go to the museum had meaning. I got to witness life take shape and grow, which I had a direct impact on. I cared about the future and the next generation. I was leaning into the full experience that life has to offer—embracing the hard things because it makes the good so much better. It was subtle. The smallest thing like imagining myself having to kneel down to get to my daughter’s eye level so we could chat about dinosaurs—it made me feel whole. It felt good and it felt right.

In my second dream, I was relaxed. I felt love for my husband and so grateful for the life we were living. It was carefree, but it also felt lonely like something was missing.

I realize I was comparing two versions of life where the only difference wasn’t just having a child or not. The real difference was that in one with a child I was living for a greater purpose. In the second I was living for myself. In one I was connected to life, and the other I was disassociating. My imaginary life without kids I was comfortable and privileged. Lucky enough to be one who gets to look away.

That’s what I wonder. I wonder if my decision would have been different with this insight. In the world without kids, what do I care about enough to want to learn more about it? To help shape its future? How do I want to use my time on earth staying connected to people and contributing to a greater collective? There is no shortage of injustices to be righted.

Parents talk as if they know something everyone else doesn’t. Yes, parenthood is a wild and unique experience, but at the root of it, becoming a parent simply awakens an inner knowing that everyone has in them—to love another human being. There is a lot to unlearn from the damage an individualist and capitalist society does to our nervous system. It makes us forget we are all human first, needing to care for and be cared by others.

And maybe without having kids I would have gone on living the same life feeling like I was too insignificant to make a difference, oblivious to what I am capable of. I don’t know.

Having children doesn’t make you a better person. You make you a better person. There are many ways to live a child-free life that is just as fulfilled and just as connected to your heart and soul if you are intentional and practice. You best believe, I would have been an excellent child-free auntie to my friends’ and siblings’ children.

So no, of course I don’t regret having my boys. I love them entirely! I hope I can raise them to be boys who care. They are a lot of work and some moments feel impossible, but I thank them all the time for helping guide my soul home. It wouldn’t have mattered what I chose, there’s always going to be moments where you wonder “what if…” Think deeply about what connects you to your humanity most. Like I wanted to tell that confused girl, everything will be okay (and also Free Palestine).

Koren Leung is a product manager, a hobby enthusiast, a writer, and a mother of identical twin boys living in the heart of Toronto, Canada. This essay is the first post of her brand-new substack—No big, No small—which you can subscribe to and support here. 

The post Do You Want Kids?—A Postpartum Reflection appeared first on MOTHER.

I’m 38, an age I never thought would feel the effects of aging, and yet, here I am, bloated, angry, some X pounds overweight, with lines jutting across my forehead and neck like I’m wearing a goddamn high school geometry quiz. I wonder if my dermatologist—before she injects the botox—has a protractor to measure and marvel over the pronounced exactitude of these angles. I mean, wow. It really is quite something. Someone has to.

This is the bully inside me talking. She wants to say a bit more before she’s done.

I have aubergine varicose veins that collect in cruel webs at the back of my knees and in random spots along my thighs, that, in another macabre twist, happen to be the color of limestone. And then there’s these new curves. I get out of the shower and look at my reflection and see the Vénus impudique, you know, that Paleolithic sculptural representation of a woman with bulging breasts, belly, thighs. She’s almost circular and completely anonymous, for her face isn’t present, save for horizontal ridges running across the countenance plane. Was this the chiseler’s artistic choice? Or was her face wiped away and distorted over the years?

Here’s the thing that strikes me most, despite all the other physical changes in my late 30s: my phantom breast syndrome. I got a prophylactic mastectomy to protect myself from the realities of having the BRCA2 gene mutation. Having this means around a 60% lifetime risk of breast cancer and a 15-30% lifetime risk of ovarian cancer. We know from the brave women like Anjelina Jolie, and her wonderful essay, the benefits of this medical choice. And now, even though I no longer have breast tissue, I feel that deep primordial discomfort where my breasts used to be. Any menstruating person knows this all too well—that rich, throbbing, tender-to-the-touch pain and sensitivity right before you bleed. There is no biological reason for me to still feel this. There is no breast tissue left to swell. And yet my body can’t let go. It must remind me.

I’ve had this pain since I was 10. So young to have a period, and yet, there I was one summer, noticing the first drop of blood staining my floral polyester pajamas. I had no idea—could not even predict—the rapid physical development that would soon follow, pushing me so prematurely and suddenly into womanhood.

Yes, I am grateful to be alive! I am grateful to have access to genetic testing that allows me to make the hard choices, to continue living, to have a body that is healthy and can move. I understand this is a deep privilege. And yet, and yet, I still feel the grief associated with this specific time of aging—this nowheresville between my reproductive years and full-on menopause. As the Mayo Clinic says, “Perimenopause means ‘around menopause’ and refers to the time during which your body makes the natural transition to menopause, marking the end of the reproductive years. Perimenopause is also called the menopausal transition. Women start perimenopause at different ages. You may notice signs of progression toward menopause, such as menstrual irregularity, sometime in your 40s. But some women notice changes as early as their mid-30s.”

To provide more color, within my group of friends, all women between the ages of 35-50, we’re experiencing these changes in myriad ways.

Let’s start with the vulvas. The changes to our desire and intimacy, that is who we love and how we love; the beginning of vaginal dryness, in which we’re instructed by OBGYNs to use tablets, creams, lubricants, or even insert Kegel balls before engaging in sexual activity; a weakened pelvic floor, which means peeing and laughing, peeing and coughing, peeing and walking, and even organ prolapse; changing periods, in regularity and flow, and I mean like suddenly bleeding through a tampon and right through our thick-as-camel-hide Levi’s jeans in the Trader Joe’s produce aisle.

Then, there’s the surgeries and speciality visits. The hypo- or hyper-thyroidism; the trans-vaginal ultrasounds (yes, exactly, it’s basically a medical dildo) to look for cysts or enlarged fibroids, or anything else that could be causing our sudden bloating or abdominal discomfort; the hysterectomies; the salpingectomies; the mammograms, with differing recommendations of when to start and how often based on family history and which doctor we consult. The interminable pap smears, which, for as long as we have cervixes, we’ll continue to get. The Botox; the peels; the lasers, the new face cream to try (necessary, no, but the pressure is pervasive).

And the cancer diagnoses. Breast cancer without family history, when we felt a lump and the first doctor said: “Look, I doubt it’s anything but let’s check it out anyway.” Cervical cancer. Thyroid cancer.

The careers. There’s leaving careers; changing careers; adjusting careers; the juggling of careers and child-rearing, which, in an overwhelming amount of cases, means single-handedly making the dentist appointments, doing the summer camp registrations in January before the spots fill up, facilitating all things that revolve around food in the household; organizing the pick-up/drop-off gymnastics; not forgetting to book that long-overdo wax before we have to appear in a bathing suit for our kid’s swim lesson because they’ll only be in the pool with us, the parent du jour; and, and, and… sorry, out of breath… all the other things we have to do before the sun goes down and we start to bleed from the eyes.

And then there’s the babies. The first babies, last babies, lost babies, definitively choosing not to have babies, or we’re so deep into exhausting fertility treatments to try for the love of all things holy to have a baby while we still can.

The divorces. The relationship changes because the partnership was never fully balanced in the first place and now, suddenly, there’s space to notice. Or because: see above.

Let’s talk about this. Let’s have these conversations as much as possible. We’re half the population. We’re too important not to.

I am both the little girl in floral polyester pajamas sitting in her room with a bulky pad hastily stuck to her underwear and the woman who made two other human beings (which also means two organs, lest we forget), who bears prominent scars from medical procedures, who has prideful flub, running around town with a Vénus impudique body. When the inner bully retreats, I think: That’s right, watch my big ol’ tush sway. Behold this body that has done so much.

I am crying, sweating, hustling, laughing, tired, and no, I don’t want to have sex tonight. At least not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Yes, let’s try tomorrow. Tonight I want the privilege and space to just rest.

Writer and editor Anna Clarke Fiddler currently lives in Oakland, California, with her husband, two young children, and a giant Bernedoodle. She’s currently at work on her first novel, a ghost story set in Dublin in the 1960s.

The post Phantom Breast Pain & Other Stories from Perimenopause appeared first on MOTHER.

Then I became pregnant with my first child. Severe nausea and exhaustion clung to me the entire pregnancy, and the labor was not easy. When I finally held my sweet boy for the first time, I could not imagine going through that experience again any time soon.

When he turned two, I was in physical therapy for a gnarly shoulder injury, while my husband pursued the clinical requirements for his master’s degree. Adding another human to our lives felt outlandish. Another year-and-a-half passed before we decided to go for it, but pregnancy didn’t come quickly this time.

When I did get pregnant, we realized our children were going to be five years apart. No ideal family spread their kids out that far, right? How were they to be close friends?

“You’re practically raising two only children,” I was informed.

I felt in my heart they must be right. We’d done everything wrong and there were no takebacks. How come we hadn’t just sucked it up and had the second one earlier?

Unfortunately, this pregnancy wasn’t any easier. Nauseous, I passed out every night at 8 p.m., willing myself to get through bedtime books and teeth brushing.

Then our daughter was born. I watched our son tenderly hold and care for her, and I felt certain that they would be close, despite their age gap. This little girl was meant to be when she came, not a day, week, month, year sooner. They would love each other unconditionally because they were siblings and that would be enough to transcend the gap.

At first, it was easy. My boy was smitten with the baby stage. He loved to hold her in the crook of his arm and run errands for me. He cheered when she walked and said her first word, which was his name.

As she grew, she started ransacking his things, begging him to include her in his play. His quiet world was destroyed by a piggy-tail wearing toddler who declared herself no longer a baby.

I watched their loving relationship melt before my eyes. Self-doubt came whooshing in full force: It’s your fault they fight all the time. They can’t overcome their age difference.

When I became pregnant with our third child, I shook my head. Another 5-year gap. What were we thinking?

This one was the worst pregnancy yet. Somehow, I managed to care for my family by maternal willpower.

Our baby boy came a few months after my daughter turned five. Now, it was she who held him in the crook of her arm and ran errands for me. I had been thrust into something sacred, this quinquennial occurrence, cyclical in nature, like El Niño and LaNiña in the Pacific.

Still, I wondered in my heart about the ten years between my boys. How would they ever be truly close?

Last weekend, my eldest asked if he could take his brother down the slide.

“I’ll be very careful,” he promised.

On high alert, my protective instincts objected, but my heart tugged at the idea. “Okay, just hold him tight.”

As they zipped down the twisty slide, my friend saddled up to me.

“My husband and his big brother are very close.”

“How far apart are they?” I asked.

“Ten years,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter, they are best friends.”

I smiled, teary eyed. Inside, my heart quieted.

This third baby is still new to us. I don’t know yet what the age gap will look like in the long term, but I do know that my eldest no longer considers his sister such a baby. They have bonded over being “the big kids.”

Of course they fight, but I know now that it will be okay—this age gap I’ve created between three children. They’ll find a way to be close, even if their closeness ebbs and flows in different seasons. Because that’s true of all sibling relationships, even the ones closer in age.

Being a mother to three children in different stages means I must morph to meet very different needs. To one, I am the source of nutrition and the arms that carry. To another, I am the hand that holds hers at kindergarten drop off. And to the eldest, I am a listening ear to the pre-teen woes.

But I am okay with it. More than okay. This is my family, just as we are, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, age gaps and all.

Writer Kris Ann Valdez is a desert-dwelling Arizona native, wife, and mother. You can follow along with her at @krisannvaldezwrites on Instagram.

The post On Raising Kids With Big Age Gaps appeared first on MOTHER.

Life before Lily was a hazy blend of ambitions, dreams, and snapshots of what motherhood would look like: quiet nights with lullabies and nursery rhymes, afternoons filled with smiles, and the unmatched joy of watching my baby girl take her first steps. In reality, it was painful. She never slept, and each time I tended to her, my skin pulled at the site of my C-section. My hands were still swollen from my pregnancy-induced carpel tunnel syndrome and whenever I breastfed her, they became numb and tingly.

I wished her away several times a day, even Googling: How to put your newborn up for adoption? Despite these feelings, I was physically drawn to her. An enigma that I couldn’t fathom.

After Lily, I felt out of place in my own skin. I constantly worried whether I could get through the first year of our lives together. I couldn’t decide whether this tiny person who was tugged out of me was here to torment me or fill me with love.

One month postpartum, I shared my anxieties with my OB. She attributed my struggles to the baby blues and handed me a pamphlet detailing the signs of Postpartum Mood and Anxiety Disorder. Dismissing my concerns, she sent me home, expecting improvement over time. Yet, as the physical pains began to subside, the emotional abyss of postpartum depression gripped me tighter.

The whispers of depression became a constant companion, taunting me with insecurities. “You’re an unfit mother,” it hissed, “You’ll never love her, and she’ll never love you.” My only escape was to end my life.

Two months postpartum, on October 30, 2019, after a failed suicide attempt and at the desperate pleadings of my husband Joe, I voluntarily admitted myself to the Hackensack Medical Center Psychiatric Unit.

The night before, I took a handful of Klonipin and Tylenol like the Internet said, but nothing happened. Instead, I wobbled to Lily’s bassinet and watched her sleep. I wished I could crawl in beside her, close my eyes, and never wake up. I wanted so badly to die. I wanted to let her have the life she deserved—a life without me.

“I don’t want to go up there,” I begged Joe as I relinquished my wedding band, cell phone, and clothes to the attending nurse. “But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t be a mom.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” he said. With his dimpled smile, I knew he was trying his best to keep hope alive.

I hung my head below my shoulders. “I’m not the person you married.”

“I have to get back to the baby,” he said. “We’re all going to be ok.”

He took my bag of valuables from the nurse. “Get some rest.”

By the time I got a room in the unit, I’d already been in the ER by myself for 12 hours. It was early morning, 3am-ish. My psyche-mate was already asleep. I felt alone and humiliated that it had come to this.

My first full day at the psychiatric unit marked two months since Lily’s birth, coinciding with Halloween. Her first holiday and her two-month birthday slipped away without me. I missed her, but I didn’t understand why. A hole seemed to deepen inside me the longer I was away from Lil.

At the same time, I disliked her: the feedings, the inconsolable crying. But then I remembered the quiet mornings when we’d hold each other’s gaze. I never wanted and not wanted anyone so much.

Everything felt inverted. Even my name was reversed on my hospital bracelet: Kleinman Loren.

Joe visited often, bringing books and pictures of Lily—the only outsider things allowed in the unit. Babies weren’t.

As we occupied our small space in the vastness of the activities room, the nurses’ watchful eyes bore into us. In a psych ward, privacy is a luxury. Even in our rooms, the bathrooms were door-less, just a long curtain separated my roommate and me.

“I’m missing it all,” I whispered, surprised by my own admission. “All I want is to leave this place.”

“Focus on getting better, not on leaving,” he whispered back. “We’ll still be here.”

I resented Joe and the hospital. A murky fish tank illuminated the room with its day-glow radiance. Fluorescent light made everything shine. The floors, the shower, the people. It rendered the day sterile. I imagined Joe and I freely leaving amid a round of applause in the rec room. The doors would open, and we’d be on our way to our baby girl.

The following day, Joe accompanied me for a family visit with my psychiatrist, Dr. Hirsch, and my social worker.

Dr. Hirsch proposed discharging me right away, a notion Joe rebuffed. Despite reassurances from Dr. Hirsch about my stable condition, Joe questioned how much time he’d genuinely spent with me.

Joe’s insistence on my prolonged stay infuriated me, triggering my ire to the point where I demanded a divorce. His eyes welled up at my outburst.

Joe posed a direct question: “What keeps you from wanting to end it all now?”

“I miss my family.”

While he said it was a good start, it couldn’t be the sole reason. I hoped he’d realize the anguish of being separated from our family was gnawing at me, that my desire for life stemmed from my longing for my old life.

But that didn’t suffice for him. My emotions were still all over the place. One day I wanted to go home; the next, a huge burden of responsibility lifted from my shoulders knowing I was here.

I agreed to stay two more days.

When Joe left, he promised to return after dinner. But soon into my meal, a note arrived. He was too exhausted to drive.

The nurses asserted that I would leave well-rested and prepared to be a good mom. This perplexed me since Joe said I’m already a good mom by agreeing to stay at the hospital.

In group therapy, I began to slowly unravel the complexities of my depression. How the deep and consuming love for my baby coexisted with my seemingly bottomless anxiety and fear. How the dull ache of exhaustion and sleep deprivation made every feeling of wanting to escape ten times more intense.

When Joe came to visit again his eyes were red and his smiles less frequent. His jovial nature seemed to be overshadowed by the weight of our situation. I found myself yearning to comfort him, to reassure him that I was on the path to recovery. But I couldn’t. The guilt of putting our family through this was still raw.

When the day of my discharge came, I felt a rush of emotions. The walls of the hospital, initially so cold and sterile, were now something I was scared to leave.

The house was as I’d left it: quiet and loud. The ticking of the baby swing next to a messy pile of baby clothes and distant hum of a full dishwasher played on repeat. Time can be in freefall, but it was as if it were waiting for my return.

When I held Lily, her tiny form in my arms and soft breath against my chest brought a rip tide of emotion—powerful, relentless, and utterly overwhelming. A painful concoction of joy, relief, love, and fear. As I studied her tiny fingers wrapped around mine, I was struck by the fragility of the moment.

I started crying. I cried because I was sad. I cried because I was happy. I cried because I was scared. I cried because I was tired. I cried because I wanted to be alone and because I didn’t want to be alone.

As I sat there with Lily in my arms, Joe massaged my shoulders. “It’s okay,” he whispered.

Through therapy, medication, and time, my bond with Lily grew. Despite recognizing that my depression wasn’t something I inflicted upon her, I felt the need to apologize. I felt the weight of the missed bath times, feedings, diaper changes, and playtimes. Moreover, I felt remorse for considering her a mistake in my worst moments and proposing she and Joe move while I sorted myself out.

There were days, even after my hospitalization, when I found myself questioning my worth, my strength as a mother. I was learning, however, slowly, and painfully, that my struggle wasn’t a testament to my failure, but to my humanity. My postpartum depression wasn’t a sign of weakness, but a manifestation of an illness as real as a broken bone.

Before my hospitalization, I’d often questioned whether I loved Lily.

I once asked my sister, a mother of two: How do you know when you love your child?

“You’ll feel like your heart is about to explode,” she said.

I feared I’d never know what that was like.

Almost four years later, it’s like I’d always been at home with Joe and Lily—like I’d never been sick.

But it did happen, and when the conversation came up recently with Joe about having another baby, I quickly said, “No.” Even with the most well-intentioned postpartum plan, I might not survive next time.

I’ve made peace with postpartum depression, but it didn’t teach me about personal strength and resilience. It taught me about powerlessness. I couldn’t recognize this depression on my own. I needed Joe to help me recognize it.

The post Mom Talk: Will I Ever Love Her? appeared first on MOTHER.

There are countless times I have struggled with this question since losing my own child. Were people supposed to wish me happy Mother’s Day? When someone asked me if I had kids, was I allowed to say “Yes, his name is Leo”? How could I prove to others that I was a mother if I had no child to hold? But most importantly, how could I prove that to myself?

On October 22, 2013, I gave birth to my firstborn child. I was 23 weeks pregnant and knew it was way too early for him to come. When Leonardo was born, he didn’t cry. I questioned the doctors about it and they said his lungs weren’t developed enough for him to be able to cry, but not to worry, he’s definitely alive. I was relieved, even though I knew that his chances of making it weren’t great.

The neonatal team swarmed around Leonardo as soon as he was born. My husband was by my side, but I remember asking him to be with the baby; I didn’t know how much time we had with him and I wanted to make sure Leo had a parent by his side at all times. A few minutes later, the doctors told us that there was nothing that they could do. Leo’s organs were not fully formed yet and he would die soon.

They handed Leo to me. He was still alive but every little breath was becoming increasingly difficult for him. When they placed Leo on my chest, I could only focus on him. I was studying his features, trying to commit them to memory. I was telling him how much I loved him, that I would be with him til the end and that things would be okay.

I was worried about him. Was he suffering? I knew exactly when he took his last breath. The nurse wrote on her papers: “Born at 8:19pm, lived until 9:21.” Sixty-two minutes. That’s how long he lived. I did not feel any sadness at that point because I was still holding my baby. The excruciating pain of losing my child came later—everyday I had without him.

Leo’s story is a short one. He was born and minutes later he died. Of course to me, his death doesn’t define him. He is first and foremost my son. In his absence, Leo has taught me many things and has put me on a path to raise awareness about pregnancy and infant loss. I have lived 10 years without my son and in this time I have learned three very important things about grief that I would like to share.

Grief is Forever. The pain of losing a baby is intense and it won’t ever go away. Time cannot heal this wound. It is true that right now, I’m not hurting as much as I did in the first few weeks following my son’s passing, but I cannot be sure if it hurts less because the pain has lessened over time or because I’ve become accustomed to it.

Grief is a Consequence of Love. Yes, you can truly and deeply love a child that you have only had the privilege of carrying in your womb but never in your arms. You can love a child that was born still or who has passed away shortly after being born. The love that I feel is real and valid and that is why losing my baby is still so painful. Yet, I feel incredibly blessed to have experienced this love.

Joy and Grief Can Coexist. A week after Leo passed, someone said something to me that made me laugh. I immediately felt guilty for it. Now I know that joy and grief, sorrow and laughter can coexist. I am happy and have so much to be grateful for, but there are times when I still need to stop and allow myself to be sad. This is my new normal.

In addition to being Leonardo’s mother, I’m also the mom to three living kids. I mother Leo’s younger siblings in the traditional way people parent: I am compassionate, offer guidance, make sacrifices for their well-being and happiness, and, mostly, I love them unconditionally.

I cannot parent Leo in the same way, so I had to find other ways to show him my love. One of the ways we honor Leo as a family is by often talking about him. Together we celebrate Leo’s birthdays with cupcakes and candles and make financial gifts to a little boy in South America who shares Leo’s name and birthdate. As my living children grow, the questions about why and how Leo died and where he is right now become more difficult to answer. I welcome those questions, though sometimes I have to resign to a mere “I don’t know why.”

Another important way in which I personally honor Leo is by volunteering my time to help parents who have gone through a pregnancy or infant loss. Books, media, and medical professionals offer guidance on how to take care of a baby during pregnancy and during the newborn stage. But there’s little guidance on how parents should take care of themselves after their baby dies.

The topic of pregnancy and infant loss is uncomfortable and thus seldom discussed. Many people to whom I’ve turned to quickly wanted to either change the topic or make me feel better by offering well-meaning platitudes. During this time of intense and raw grief, I needed people who understood me and my loss. I was lucky to find a support group—people who til this day are my friends and the ones I turn to when I’m feeling sad.

I’m currently volunteering for Return to Zero: HOPE (RTZ), a non-profit that provides compassionate and holistic support for people who have had a pregnancy or infant loss. Offering support and compassion to the bereaved community RTZ supports is my way of honoring my son. It gives me purpose and it keeps Leo’s memory alive.

Going back to the question I posed earlier: “Can and should a woman who has lost her pregnancy or infant call herself a mother?” My answer is a resounding “yes!” Yes, because she loves that child with all her heart. As Antoine de St-Exupéry so beautifully puts it in The Little Prince: “It is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” Essential—what better way to describe a mother’s love?

To learn more about Return to Zero: HOPE, learn about their virtual support groups, or find out how to support this organization, please visit their website or connect via Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Natasha de Sousa is currently the Board Chair for RTZ HOPE and a French teacher. Since her son’s passing, she has been actively involved in the pregnancy and infant loss community by volunteering for various non-profit organizations. Originally born in Brazil to Indian parents, she grew up in Canada and currently lives in Seattle with her husband and 3 living kids. You can follow her on Instagram @natashapdesousa.

The post What Grief Has Taught Me appeared first on MOTHER.

Today would have been your birthday.

You would have come into this world loved by so many people. You would have been the first baby your dad had ever held. He was holding out for that moment with you.

You would have been wrapped up in blue or pink, we’re not sure, as when you’re just a little poppyseed, we can’t learn these things.

Our lives would have slowed at your arrival. You would come home to a brand new space that we spent the last nine months turning into your room. Your four-legged siblings would have greeted you with patience.

But today is different from what we once thought it would be.

The house is quiet, your room is still filled with a chaotic array of items, and your mom is mourning the loss of someone she was so excited to meet.

The months leading up to this day have been far more draining than any medical professional told me it would have been. In June, we excitedly learned of you, and just like that, you left us in July.

My tears, my blood, my energy, my will to do anything. All things that I lost in a quantity I never thought possible. And just when I think I’m over the bulk of the post-traumatic stress that has ensued since you left, I feel the weight through my lower half and remember only bright red and echoed screams.

I feel sometimes like my body is a shell of what it once was. I sink into a spot on the couch where I dreamed of holding you, but instead I sat on towels to prevent stains of what remained of your departure.

While I appear put together, sometimes the moment just strikes me wrong and there I am, morphed into a puddle, asking myself why you had to leave us.

There is no bright side to this. In this case, everything did not happen for a reason, it just is. And when people learn of your existence, the last thing I want to hear is “I’m sorry,” mostly because it won’t bring you back.

But I look for ways to honor you. A necklace, a candle, a Christmas ornament, a birthday cake. But sometimes I think it only causes me more damage. The tightness in my chest appears, I crumble once again, only to remember that even for that short amount of time, I was so lucky to be your mom, and to now love something as much as I love you.

So today, on what would have been your birthday, I’ll put a candle on your cake with a drawn-on purple butterfly that reads “Happy Birthday, Poppy” to remember the little poppyseed you are. Because even though you aren’t here with me, you will always be a part of me.

April Bilodeau is a writer, editor, and owner and operator (alongside her husband, Emerson) of Dove Hill, a farm that houses horses and a variety of other animals. 

The post Today Would Have Been Your Birthday appeared first on MOTHER.

In one of my favorite books I’ve read in the last nine months, Transformed by Birth by Britta Bushnell, she uses the Sumerian myth “The Descent of Inanna” as a powerful metaphor to illustrate the death/rebirth of the initiatory journey of birth. In the story, the goddess Inanna descends to the underworld, where she is stripped of her cloaks and adornments one by one until she’s left completely naked, humbled and exposed. She dies and is eventually reborn, reemerging into the world, taking inventory of all the things she’s discarded along the way and assessing if they’re still of value to her now. She returns to the world transmuted, alchemized, as her true essence.

Like Inanna, I am about to descend and surrender to the unknown, leaving behind much of my armor and past identity, to return forever altered, becoming more of who I am meant to be. In honor of the Jing (and once upon a time, Jenny) who has carried me here, I took the advice of my dear friend and incredible birth doula Elizabeth and wrote her a letter. It was cleansing, cathartic, closing the pages to a chapter and season, opening to a blank new slate.

Dear Jing,

We’ve come a long way together. We’ve traversed continents, overcome language barriers, cultural divides, lived, loved, learned, fallen, gotten back on our feet, lost ourselves, and found our way back home. Through it all, I’ve been in awe of your resilience, bravery, strength, and heart. You did it. You’ve brought us here, against all odds. When you thought you were on your own, you carried on, you found your purpose, pushed through adversity and came out stronger. You wandered the earth in the cloak of a lone wolf, until your friend Elizabeth had to remind you one day in your late 20s that you are loved, and that you deserved to love yourself. A simple statement, with deep reverberations. The journey we’ve been on in the years since has been profound. We excavated, laid ourselves bare. We looked deep into our soul to find our true essence. And from ‘Jenny’, we found our way back home to Jing. Turns out she was there, waiting, the whole time. And now we are shedding yet another layer. Who will we find in the process? Who has been there all along?

On the road to becoming a mother, in that liminal state of pregnancy between worlds, I’ve felt my heart burst open, shedding layers of what I thought defined me in the past. The hardened shell, the determined grit, the martyrdom and self-sacrifice I believed were necessary to success. I realized another way forward, to trust in my infinite wisdom, to tap into the universal field of energy that we all belong to. I learned that there was no glory in suffering or self-sacrifice. That there can be a path of ease and abundance. That abundance is strictly a matter of spirit. Now I see that my child is the only reason I learned any of this. He has led me down this path, and all this before he is even earth side. What more is he going to teach me about myself? About life?

So I’m shedding the old Jing, the battle-hardened woman who has brought me to this point. But what I’m taking with me into the next chapter are the lessons I’ve learned, an open heart, the courage to be vulnerable, the letting go of total control, the essence of me who’s been waiting to be discovered the whole time.

Thank you, and I love you, Jing.

Jing Gao is the founder and CEO of Fly By Jing and Suá. This essay is an excerpt from her brand-new Substack, which you can subscribe to here.

The post The Liminal State Between Pregnancy and Birth appeared first on MOTHER.

At 19, I thought I had it all figured out. I met my future husband and while young, embarked on the journey of marriage and motherhood. Fast forward to 41, and the complexities of life had revealed just how much I had yet to learn. Seventeen years, two kids, and a global pandemic later, I found myself at a crossroads, grappling with a partner’s addiction and the daunting prospect of single motherhood.

The decision to walk away from a failing marriage was not easy. To be clear, it takes two to make a marriage and it takes two to end a marriage. I had a role in this too. I was angry, resentful, combative, and lonely. I had to make a decision. Either hold on to a marriage that was no longer serving either of us or walk away and give us both a chance. Nothing is that simple though. With a 10-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son in tow, I began my journey into single motherhood. But the bigger question was, “Who was I?”

I had been a wife, mother, and caregiver for so long that I had no clue as to who I was outside of marriage. The act of letting go was difficult. Saying goodbye to what was. But there was something deep inside, almost like a dark night of the soul moment. A deep re-birth and sense of purpose—emerging on the other side where life had meaning again.

I found myself juggling various responsibilities that used to be shared by two. Balancing work, childcare, household duties, dating, and a social life while facing financial pressures was new for me to navigate. It was overwhelming and yet also empowering.

As I reflect on my journey, 4 years later, a multitude of emotions flood my mind—fear, uncertainty, but also a profound sense of determination and pride. Becoming a single mother was not a path I had envisioned for myself, but as the saying goes, “man plans and god laughs.”

Amid the uncertainty and chaos, I discovered a beacon of hope—a community of women who, like me, were rewriting the narrative of single motherhood. Together, we shattered the silence and stigma surrounding separation and divorce. Our shared experiences became the foundation for SAINT—a community-driven platform empowering single mothers to thrive.

SAINT is more than just a support network; it’s a testament to the power of collective healing and growth. Through peer-to-peer SAINT circles, personal development workshops, and educational resources, we’re reshaping the conversation around single motherhood while forging meaningful connections. No longer are we defined by societal stereotypes; instead, we celebrate the strength, resilience, and achievements of single mothers everywhere.

In essence, redefining single motherhood is about reclaiming our narrative and embracing the fullness of our identities. It’s about recognizing that single mothers are not defined by their relationship status but by their strength, resilience, and unwavering love for their children.

You can follow SAINT online at TheSaintCollective.com and on Instagram at @saint_singlemomcollective.

The post Redefining Single Motherhood—A Personal Journey appeared first on MOTHER.

“We talked it over and agreed that it would be nice to do no gifts this Christmas since we are taking a trip. We’d rather just spend time together.” That was the message I delivered to my mama, aunts, and uncles. No response.

I am the oldest of six kids in our family. When we were growing up in the Philippines, Christmas was a big deal. There was a lot of excitement finding gifts under the tree with our names on the tags. I remember the anticipation of waiting day after day until we were finally allowed to open them on Christmas. Our mama gave each of us multiple presents. Gifting was what we knew.

As little kids, my siblings and I picked up the tradition and gave each other and mama homemade Christmas gifts. After we got our first jobs, we exchanged store-bought gifts. Then when the family count grew to double digits with partners, we transitioned to Secret Santa to simplify. We stuck with Secret Santa even after we had kids. However, our kids were not part of Secret Santa and still received presents from each aunt, uncle, and grandma.

I first tried no-gifting when my daughter Amelia turned one. She was too young to want things for herself and would not miss gifts. A benefit to her early January birthday is its proximity to the holidays, which many people have off work, making trips a possibility. My husband has a lot of family in Oahu, so we decided to celebrate Amelia’s first birthday in North Shore. My family from California and Washington joined the trip because our wanderlust is genetic. When I sent invitations, I requested no-gifts because the trip was already a lot. However, if anyone wished to paint a picture, write a poem, or sing a song for Amelia, we would be delighted. One of the best gifts from that first birthday party was when our niece Laura sang an original song for Amelia with a ukulele, accompanied by her mom Terri on maraca and her dad Bill on guitar. It went something like this, “She’s only one, one, one…Amelia’s having birthday fun, fun, fun…All the time in the sun, sun, sun.” The song was a party hit and everyone sang it for days after. The no-gifts practice stretches our family’s creativity and have given us so many great memories.

Toys are a simple way to deliver joy, and there are so many beautiful and clever ones these days. I have bought plenty over the years for Amelia’s birthdays, Christmases, and, sometimes, no reason at all. It quickly started to feel like too much. There were too many toys in our too-small house. It made our home feel tight and stressful. After a massive home edit, I ended up donating a lot of toys, which made me feel guilty, but much lighter afterwards.

I also edited Amelia’s wish list to contain fewer things and more experiences, such as an annual pass to a kids’ museum, ticket to a musical, afternoon tea, paint-your-own pottery session, and money for her savings. It wasn’t a no-gifting practice. There were still gifts, but they were not more things to fill the house. They encouraged going out and doing rather than staying in and collecting. It was the transition to no-gifting.

A year ago, 17 of us traveled to Manila to attend a wedding and celebrate the holidays. We committed to that month-long trip over a year in advance. I decided to add Australia to my itinerary because I have never been and always wanted to go. I told my immediate family about Australia and they began to make their arrangements, too. Once mama knew, it was as good as an announcement. She told my Manila-based aunts, uncles, and cousins, who decided to join, as well. If there is one thing my family agrees on, it is travel. It was this trip that inspired me to finally give up Christmas gifts for myself, my husband, and our daughter.

Before the Christmas retail season began last year, I emailed my sisters and brothers and asked what they thought of a no-gifts Christmas. Everyone agreed. I knew they would be an easy sell since we have been doing it on and off for a few years. Then I emailed our cousins in Manila and asked what they thought of no-gifting. As expected, they were for it, as well. Then they volunteered me as tribute to inform our parents.

Through the family group chat, I told everyone that the family trip to Australia was an incredible gift already. We do not need gifts under the tree, too. After a week of radio silence, I realized that we would find out only on Christmas morning whether they’d heed the no-gifts request. Unlike booking travel, open communication is not our strong suit.

I did not present the no-gifts idea to Amelia last year. None of us told the kids about it. It was incredibly hectic before the trip and we had no time to tell them. And like I mentioned, our communication needs improvement. Mostly we thought they would not notice, and we were right! It was also hectic once we got to Manila. Most of us stayed in the same house. Of course, the kids loved it. They played together from waking to bedtime. Then there were wedding events, museum trips, a farm visit, a pottery-making lesson, and family reunions. There was little opportunity to wonder about gifts under the tree.

The morning of December 25th came. It was a Christmas miracle: everyone heard what we were asking for and went along with the no-gifts request. We were in sync. Well, everyone except for mama, who gifted each grandchild a toy. We told the kids about Sydney and Byron Bay and built up the excitement by reading books and learning about Australia.

Once we arrived in Australia it felt like a vacation. It felt like the best present. Seventeen of us from the U.S. and Manila took the trip together. On New Year’s Eve we ate and hung out at Coogee Pavilion. Ten minutes before midnight we walked across the street to Coogee Beach, laid down our blankets, and watched the fireworks. It was uncrowded, free, and the most chill New Year’s Eve we ever had. Then we went to Byron Bay, where we celebrated Amelia’s birthday with cake, spent every day at the beach, kayaked with dolphins, surfed, and relaxed.

This year my brothers and sisters already agreed to do no-gifting again. We plan to gather at our mama’s house, take the kids to a Nutcracker marionette show, go to an amusement park, and ice skate. Two weeks of the gift of time. Our mama is an indulgent shopper whose love language is gifting. It remains to be seen whether she will get with the program this year. Either way she will be spending time with all of us, and that is a gift to us.

This essay was originally published on November 29, 2019. Ria’s tradition of a no-gifts Christmas still remains intact!

Are you a mother with something to say? Send us an email to be considered for our “Mom Talk” column.

The post Mom Talk: How We Committed to A No Gifts Christmas appeared first on MOTHER.

As I moved into my early twenties, I was even more sure of my immortality; how could I possibly die when I was brimming with life, practically vibrating with it, wielding my sexuality like a too heavy sword, cutting down men and the occasional woman in my path?

At 29, I had my first child and I experienced a fullness of life (and an exhaustion) like no other, I was living for someone else for the first time and I felt absolutely essential. My child’s life underlined mine—I existed for her, she needed me and I would be exactly what she needed. I was the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter—there was surely some witch to that. I was continuing the line as I was supposed to and my life felt carved in stone, a purpose fulfilled.

In my thirties, Larissa died, also in her thirties.

It felt like a record scratch, it felt like the party was well and truly over. Death was always a “well yes obviously” inevitability, but now it felt closer. I felt the specter of death behind me, breathing rotten breath down my collar. I could die at any moment, I thought. Parenting after Larissa died felt breathless—my child’s birthday party seemed like a finish line I just had to cross; if I can just survive to take her to Disneyland, if I can just stay alive long enough to see her start elementary school. And of course, in America, death is something we live with, just out of sight in our blind spot, we know it is there, we watch the bodies pile up on the news and yet we still go to work, go to dinner, get out out out.

When Larissa died, it felt like growing up. It was a little bleaker than the average coming of age story, sure, but there was suddenly a distinct watershed moment: When Larissa Was Alive and When Larissa Was Dead. When she was alive, I still measured myself by her metrics—the things she thought were cool, the music we shared together through WhatsApp chats that shortened the six-thousand-mile distance between Paris and San Francisco. I partied, went to after-show parties with rockstars, I bought sunglasses I couldn’t afford and promptly lost, I had the kind of adventures I knew she would love. And she did. Whenever I told her I had seen Courtney Love across the room after a Distillers show she sent me a voice memo of a jealous scream. And then after I had my first baby, when she told me she was in Berlin for a photoshoot and had never seen so many beautiful men, I sent her a photo of my newborn, nestled in a bassinet, for context.

In hindsight, I suppose life had begun to shift even before she died; my husband and I were thinking about moving to a different city, for a bigger place to raise our daughter. I was plotting ways to leave modeling behind. Things were slowing down in this beautiful, seamless way I wasn’t sure she would understand or even like.

And then she was dead and nothing mattered any more. All I was left with was a list of things I never got to tell her, things I never got to ask. I saw the many ways I could die in everything I looked at, so obvious, so clear now. The first 6 months after she died, I drank too much, went out too often, something my husband tried to be understanding of. I was grieving, I was lost, I needed to try something, maybe this was it? Without realizing it, I was trying to recreate some of those heady days with Larissa—out all night, sleeping all day, devil may care. Except this time, I had my daughter, small and sweet with big brown eyes and a serious face. I felt I was failing her and it was too much, all too much. It was dizzying, this loss, and I kept trying to recalibrate, to find my footing but it was impossible. I was stuck, stuck, stuck, and sinking.

In those early stages of grief, Luka saw me cry frequently. Sarah Vaughan’s A Night in Tunisia would come on and I would be sobbing, often stood turning my head, looking around as if searching, like I lost something that refused to come back into view. It became apparent to me that I should explain this to my tiny, almost 2-year-old Lu, and so I began saying, “Mama is sad. Auntie Larissa died and that means she can’t come back and I miss her.” My lock screen on my phone was a picture of Larry, demurely sipping a Moscow Mule in a Cobain-esque striped shirt. Eventually, I showed it to Luka so often that she began to say “auntie Rissa.” I still sometimes show it to her, like a flashcard, to see if she remembers. I want her to remember.

I’m not sure what changed, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was writing. I began writing about Larissa for her funeral and I just couldn’t stop. I would write on my Notes app on walks with my dog through the Californian redwoods, I would stop during dinner with my family to write a sentence down. It poured out of me. When things felt tough, I wrote something, sometimes a question directly to Larissa, sometimes a story I didn’t want to lose, like the one in the bar in Paris where I wore a white satin jumpsuit and thought I looked the shit until a bouncer at a club opened the door for me and I fell promptly on my face.

As life continues, I can’t help but wonder who Larissa would have been had she not died. What would 35 have looked like for her? And 40? And 50? Where would her story have lead her? There is a certain amount of survivor’s guilt, for want of a better phrase, that I cannot shake. I am here and she is not and how do I reconcile with that?

As I age, I also evolve and move past who Larissa knew me to be. I am a mother of two, I have a career I am crafting out of a 20-year modeling career and absolute thin air. One day my children will leave my house and I will be an empty nester, I will be finding hobbies—power walking and calling my kids too often or whatever it is retired people do. Time marches on and leaves her in the dust and that makes me sad, but I suppose that’s what grief is—the mourning of the loss of potential.

When I was a small child, I asked my mother why we never went on adventures like the children in the stories we read together at night. My mother said to me “how do you know you are not on an adventure right now?” Nothing is promised to any of us, even though our children are a seed of hope, there is no guarantee we will live to see them sprout up and surpass us. Our hope can be to live in the moment: to be there when they are begging us to play another round of hide and seek (in which they will be behind the curtain again, of course), to be there when they tell us we brush their hair too hard, to be there even as they shut the door in our face.

The vibrancy of life is underpinned by the inevitability of death. In the wake of Larissa’s death I see even clearer just how crucial each second with my babies is. I am on an adventure right now, with them and with all of you, and it is special and dull and painful and wonderful all at once.

Eirinie Carson is a California-based writer, model, and mother of two. Her stunning debut novel, The Dead Are Gods, explores the intimacy of grief after the sudden loss of her friend, Larissa, in 2018. 

Eirinie’s past essays for MOTHER include: My Beautiful (Medicated) Birth Story, When Fathers Get Fanfare And Mothers Get Nothing, and Pregnant During A Pandemic.

She’s also shared tips on 9 Ways To Be A Good Friend To Someone Who Just Had A Baby, starred in our touching Mother Each Other video, and opened up her beautiful home to MOTHER for a profile.

The post Parenting After Loss, One Writer’s Journey appeared first on MOTHER.