Mother’s Day

I know Mother’s Day is a few weeks away but it’s a day that is on my mind right now. I have a very complex relationship with Mother’s Day. Growing up, Mother’s Day was just like Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and birthdays. It was a day that grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins came together for a family supper. We would sit around a table of hams, turkeys, potatoes, salads, and buns; kids interspersed amongst the adults with dogs sniffing under our feet; jokes and stories and memories being shared. As an adult I now realize that my picture-perfect family is not necessarily the norm… not everyone lives near family, or has family, or gets along with their family. But this was my normal, and I loved it. I couldn’t wait to carry on these traditions when I had a family of my own. I didn’t think my future would look any different than my present. Then my mom got sick. 

It was Friday April 9^th, Good Friday, when my Mom had emergency surgery. She had been unable to keep down anything she ate or drank. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. They thought maybe she had a twist in her intestine. They (painfully) tried to untwist without doing surgery, but it wasn’t working. They sent her in for surgery the next morning and that’s when they found the tumor in her colon. If you have never had to see a parent lying in a hospital bed, consider yourself lucky. It nearly took my legs out from under me seeing the woman who had always been so strong look so fragile. That Easter was the first time a family celebration was different from what I was used to. My Mom was the centerpiece at our family gatherings, and she couldn’t be there. 

Fastforward to May 2015. My Mom was in Vancouver for surgery to remove cancer from her lungs. My Grandma had just passed away after being in the hospital for several weeks. We had just gone through our second failed IVF cycle. That Mother’s Day was the first one to bring me a deep sadness. I didn’t know it then, but that Mother’s Day was my Mom’s last one on earth… and I didn’t get to spend it with her. The grief of losing my Grandma, the grief of never getting to meet our babies, the grief of not having my Mom with us, all compounded and pushed into a day that was supposed to be a celebration of mothers.

Mother’s Day has never gotten easier. May 2016 was the first one without my Mom. May 2017 was the first one after our third failed IVF cycle. May 2018 was the first one after our failed frozen transfer; it was also my sister’s first Mother’s Day. May 2019 I was hopeful that my surgery to remove endometriosis was going to be the answer to our unexplained infertility, and June 2019 we found it was not.

May 2021, I found out our first adopted embryo transfer had failed. It was 6 days before Mother’s Day. I spoke to my counsellor the day after I found out we weren’t pregnant. This is the same counsellor that helped me with the loss of my Mom, so she knew my story well. She asked me what my plans were for Mother’s Day. I didn’t have a plan, but she encouraged me to make one. The only plan I had was to pretend it wasn’t Mother’s Day. I should have planned better, because I totally fell apart. Besides 2015, that Mother’s Day was the hardest.

Now I’m thinking about this Mother’s Day. It’s been another year of loss and uncertainty. My sister (the beautiful soul that she is) called me a few weeks ago to ask what I would like to do for Mother’s Day. I’d like to mention that even though my sister is a mom, Mother’s Day is still hard for her. She also lost a mom and has had to navigate motherhood without our Mom alongside her. I told her I wasn’t sure yet, but I’ve been thinking about it since that phone call. Part of me just wants to hide and wait for it to be over because it’s impossible to leave your house and not be reminded that it’s Mother’s Day. The other part of me wants to be acknowledged and celebrated. Even though I’ve never held our baby in my arms, I’ve held one in my womb and in my heart. Even though I’ve never raised my own child, I’ve cared for and raised many children. Some may look at me and say, “She doesn’t have children, she’s not a mom. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be a mom”, but I am. It has taken me a long time to be able to say this out loud (or write it in words) but I’m worthy of being recognized as a mother.

I’m sending love to all the mothers, yet to be mothers, hoping to be mothers, mothers who have adopted, those who have lost a mother, those who have lost a child, those who have lost an embryo, those who have lost a baby, those who have a strained relationship with their mother, those who don’t know their mother, those who live far from their mother, those who choose not to be mothers, and those who are mothers in their hearts. Happy Mother’s Day 💕