the river connection.

With Mother’s Day approaching, it’s difficult to know how to feel as a woman with no living children.

Because I do have a child. She made herself at home in my womb for almost two months before we lost her. River may not have made it into our arms, but she is a very real part of our life. Her presence changed my body. I was pregnant just like any person who has carried a child. We had hopes for our life as a family of three humans. Learning that we had lost her shattered my heart. The aftermath of “birthing” her through a D&C (dilatation and curettage) felt like my body and soul had been gutted. Our life drastically changed course in the months after losing River.

My best friend, who has also experienced pregnancy loss, described it better than I ever could: Being pregnant and then losing the baby means you’re a parent without a child. You experience pregnancy and birth and the hormonal rollercoaster that goes along with them, but you have nothing to hold when it’s all over. You come home empty handed and broken hearted.

I’ve never experienced the exhausting blur of the newborn stage, but I’m still a mother.

I’ve never watched my baby grow and learn, but I’m still a mother.

I’ve never worried about whether or not I’m making the right parenting choices, but I’m still a mother.

I feel motherhood deep in my bones, and science backs me up. Women have been found to carry the cells of their children for decades after pregnancy and birth. Even women who experience early miscarriages carry the DNA of their lost little ones. Microchimerism, as it’s called, allows me to hold River for the rest of my life, even if it’s not in my arms.

So why does our society seem to think that to be a mother celebrating Mother’s Day, you have to have a child that has a physical presence in your life? What a barrier that is to so many women who identify as mothers, whether they lost a baby at any point through pregnancy or birth, birthed a healthy human and put it up for adoption, or are struggling to bring balance and wellness to their life so that they can reunite with their children in foster care.

You are the only person who gets to decide if you are a mother.

My experience as a mother may be wildly different from yours, but neither is more or less valid.

I am the only person who gets to decide if I am a mother.

As you move through this week, consider that there are women who feel alienated by Mother’s Day. Women who wish to be acknowledged but fear judgement from a culture that doesn’t value their experience.

Women like me.