The Sweetest Mother's Day Gift!

When You Become a Mom, You Want Your Own—But Sometimes She’s in Heaven

3 Minute Read

By Adrianne Thompson

Pregnant woman standing next to her mother, color photo — Image via Adrianne Thompson

The person you need the most when you become a mom is your own mom.

You need the person who created you to help you navigate this new phase in your life and nothing and no one can prepare you for doing it without her whether it’s your first or fifth.

RELATED: Even Though You’re In Heaven, Your Grandchildren Will Know You

It starts the second you see the positive you tell your husband and the next call goes to . . . who? The one person who is going to burst from excitement and start shopping right away is now in a place without phones.

You’ll tell yourself she sent that baby just for you, and that’s OK because she did.

Up next is all the planning. Finding out the gender, designing the nursery, and picking out names. If you’re like me, it’s a double-edged sword when you pass on her name but don’t get to see her tears of joy as you announce it. Then there are the updates and sonogram pictures that don’t get sent after each appointment as you wonder who this baby will look like and wish she were here to talk about her experiences with pregnancy and delivery.

RELATED: It’s Hard Being a Mom Without My Own Mother’s Guidance

At the hospital, her absence is overwhelming when she is not there to fret and worry helplessly because she can’t do this for you. But now she can’t even hold your hand. Then again when she’s not in the hospital room eagerly awaiting her turn to hold that precious bundle and pose for the pictures.

Then you get home and you’re in the trenches. You’ve been exposed in every imaginable way, you’re exhausted and sore. You are falling in love in a way you’ve never felt or imagined. Your worries and anxieties are at an all-time high, and you are at your most vulnerable.

You want the person who has always taken care of you.

You’ll miss being able to just cry into her arms from the combination of hormones and lack of sleep. You’ll crave the comfort that came with a fresh-cooked meal that takes you straight back to your childhood. You’ll wish she could be there to help with the responsibilities you feel overwhelmed by, and most of all, you’ll long to see your baby in her arms.

RELATED: Some of the Best Grandmas Live in Heaven

Little by little those babies bring surprising gifts. You’ll see her in their smiles and hear her in their laughter. When they learn her name, it brings you peace. When they start asking about her, the stories will flow. When they talk about her like they knew her, you know you’ve done it right. Most importantly you’ll find her in yourself as you become a mother, and it helps to bring her just a little bit closer.

Originally published on the author’s Facebook page

So God Made a Grandmother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Order Now!

become a mom i miss my mom mom Motherhood motherless motherless daughter my mom my mom in heaven

Adrianne Thompson

Motherless daughter who uses writing to process grief and healing. I married my best friend six years ago. We have experienced some big tragedies and a whole lot of love, including the three tiny humans we have brought into the world.

I Miss Having Parents

In: Grief

Grown daughter posing between smiling parents

I have been living with the ache of loss for so long that I truly don’t remember what it feels like not to carry it. Sometimes it rests quietly beneath my ribs, dormant and almost polite. Other times it rises without warning—on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a coffee line—and cuts straight through me. Today, it was a song. I was waiting for my coffee when “Pictures of You” by The Cure drifted through the café speakers. I hadn’t heard it in 20 years. In my twenties, it meant heartbreak—young love unraveling, relationships ending before they were...

Keep Reading

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

In: Grief

Nobody tells you that when you lose a sibling, your entire childhood flashes before your eyes. There’s no better witness to what you experienced growing up than that one person who was standing nearby for all of it. And when they’re gone, a part of that childhood and a part of that story goes with them, because it was only ever known between the two of you. There’s no last chance to say, “Remember when?” or to laugh about the things that made you laugh to tears together, a million times at the kitchen table. There’s no last conversation about...

Keep Reading

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

In: Grief

I survived losing my father after his long, grueling battle with cancer. It was one of the most difficult seasons of my life. I had a front row seat to watch cancer pick him apart piece by piece. When you lose a parent, you lose a part of yourself. They say time heals all wounds, but you never stop missing the good ones, and there are days when it feels like it just happened. By the grace of God, I survived, but I will always miss my father. Then, almost a decade later, I lost the career that helped me...

Keep Reading

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

In: Grief

During the weeks we cared for my grandmother in hospice, survival mode felt necessary. There were medications to track. Visitors to update. Logistics to manage. I remember sitting on the couch that served as my makeshift bed and listening to the rhythmic hissing and puffing of the oxygen machine one night. While my mom showered off the day, I texted my sister updates and sent my husband a quick message of love. I could still smell the lavender candle we had lit earlier in the day to mask medical scents. The house was quiet, but my mind wasn’t. I was...

Keep Reading

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

In: Grief

Woman's hands holding beautifully wrapped small gift

It has been two months and nine days since my mom passed away. The first several weeks were spent on the details and logistics of planning her service. She passed in December, so once her beautiful service had passed, I busied myself with the preparations for Christmas. By mid-February, I finally began to process some feelings of grief on a deeper level. The quiet of this less-busy season is allowing the grief to soak in a bit more. Not the big things; not the obvious, grief-heavy reminders that stop me in my tracks. Instead, I’ve been noticing the small things....

Keep Reading

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

In: Grief

It’s been 10 years since I last heard my mother’s voice. Ten years since I could pick up the phone and ask a question I already knew the answer to, just to hear her say it anyway. Ten years since someone loved me in that very specific, unconditional, occasionally annoying way that only a mother can. My mom died in 2015. And while “passed away” sounds softer, more polite, the truth is that she left. Suddenly. Permanently. With no forwarding address. She was gone. What I’ve learned in the decade since is not what I expected. I thought the biggest lesson...

Keep Reading

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

In: Grief, Marriage

The year 2025 began as a quiet storm. I was slipping into the fog of depression while navigating the early chaos of perimenopause, and some days simply getting out of bed felt impossible. My thoughts felt dark and heavy, my body unfamiliar, my energy nonexistent, and my moods uncontrollable. And yet, in the haze, there was one constant: my husband. He noticed the subtle shifts I barely acknowledged. The sighs, the quiet retreats into myself, the moments I almost broke. Instead of judgment or frustration, he offered presence. He held space for my struggle without trying to “fix” it, and...

Keep Reading

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

In: Grief

Becoming a mother has a way of bringing old wounds back to the surface, even ones you believed had healed. I never imagined grief would surface so strongly in my motherhood journey. I thought it was something you carried silently, something that faded with time. But becoming a mother felt like my loss rising to its feet and saying, I’m still here There are moments when I reach for my phone to call my mom, only to be met with the reminder that I can’t. I want to ask her if what I’m feeling is normal, if the exhaustion softens,...

Keep Reading

Memories of My Grandma Live On

In: Grief

Be intentional. Take the picture. Create memories. Because even when we think we have all the time in the world, one day it will slip away. Sadly, this is exactly what happened to my grandma and me. While I was growing up, my dad and his parents had a strained relationship, and they were estranged for about the first five years of my life. Thankfully, they reconciled, and my grandparents and I finally had the opportunity to establish a much-anticipated relationship. Though I was never able to form the same closeness with them as I had with my maternal grandparents,...

Keep Reading

Netflix Captured What I’ve Treasured for 17 Years: My Daughter’s Room Exactly How She Left It

In: Grief, Motherhood

Girl's bedroom with posters on the wall and toys on the bed

It was a Sunday evening. I was alone, scrolling through Netflix, searching for something, anything, to fill the quiet. Then I stumbled upon a documentary I had no clue existed, called All the Empty Rooms. After reading the description, my heart immediately went out to all the parents who contributed to this film, and to the man behind it, Steve Hartman, whose compassionate heart radiates in every frame. One statement he said hit me like a freight train: “What we need to talk about is the child that’s not here anymore.” Period. Powerful truth. Curiously, I started watching. Then I...

Keep Reading

It's Not My Job As a Parent To Make Life Easy

Motherhood

It's Not My Job As a Parent To Make Life Easy

I Miss My Family So Much This Christmas

Living

When You Become a Mom, You Want Your Own—But Sometimes She’s in Heaven

RELATED: Even Though You’re In Heaven, Your Grandchildren Will Know You

You’ll tell yourself she sent that baby just for you, and that’s OK because she did.

RELATED: It’s Hard Being a Mom Without My Own Mother’s Guidance

You want the person who has always taken care of you.

RELATED: Some of the Best Grandmas Live in Heaven

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

Adrianne Thompson

I Miss Having Parents

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

Memories of My Grandma Live On

Netflix Captured What I’ve Treasured for 17 Years: My Daughter’s Room Exactly How She Left It

Get It Now

So God Made a Mother

When You Become a Mom, You Want Your Own—But Sometimes She’s in Heaven

You’ll tell yourself she sent that baby just for you, and that’s OK because she did.

You want the person who has always taken care of you.

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A GRANDMA

I Miss Having Parents

What No One Tells You about Losing a Sibling

Grief Didn’t Break Me, It Rearranged Me

I’m Learning To Be Soft and Strong

The Legacy Our Mothers Leave Is In the Details

You Never Get Over Losing Your Mother

My Husband Is By My Side Through Every Storm

Losing My Mom Shaped Me As a Mother

Memories of My Grandma Live On

Netflix Captured What I’ve Treasured for 17 Years: My Daughter’s Room Exactly How She Left It

Previous Post

Next Post

You May Also Like