So God Made a Mother is Here! 🎉

I had a son. His name was Brendan. He would have been 11 years old this September.

The kids were thrilled to be adding #8 to our beautiful family, especially Nathan. You see, everyone in our family has a “buddy” . . . Emily and Joan, Annabelle and Natalie, Michael and Jonathan . . . and Nathan was finally going to get his buddy.

To this day I can’t put my finger on exactly what happened. I know that the night before I lost my son, he was kicking and stretching, as usual, his active little self. One night, at almost 34 weeks, I got the kids to bed and settled down in the rocking chair to crochet. I waited for him to start his usual evening gymnastics routine, but he was unusually calm. After about an hour, I started to get worried. My husband was out of town, so I asked my neighbor to come over and sit with the kids and I drove myself to the hospital.

I walked into the emergency room, told the attendant what was going on and immediately a look of sadness fell over her face.

I knew. She knew. We said nothing.

I was handed my paperwork, given a classy paper bracelet to wear, and told to head up to labor and delivery. “Do you know where that is ma’am?” the attendant asked. I just walked away. I had birthed five of my seven children in this very hospital. I knew my way like the back of my hand.

I made my way to the nurse’s station and again was met with faces veiled in sadness. Every other time I had taken that walk, I was excitedly rushed into one of the rooms in the main hall as they prepared for my baby’s birth. Not this time. This time I was taken to a room towards the back of the floor behind the nurse’s station. I broke down crying. I kept thinking, “They’re taking me back here because they know my baby is stillborn and they don’t want me around the other moms who are delivering healthy babies.” This is the first time I have ever shared that thought with anyone.

I will never forget the image on the screen. My little boy, lifeless. I knew when I saw him . . . it was all wrong. He was floating on his tummy, not in the usual position on his back.

He was gone.

The doctor took my hand and explained to me what I already knew. Then we prayed together. He asked if I had come with anyone and I told him I was alone. He asked if I wanted him to call my husband and I took him up on the offer. While he spoke to my husband, I still couldn’t believe it was real. My baby was gone. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He only had seven more weeks until his due date. Everything was fine! What the hell? All I could do was cry.

As I drove myself home, I was completely numb. I laid in bed that night staring at my belly trying to will it to move. Staring for hours. Hoping against hope that the doctor was wrong and that at any moment my baby would move. The sun came up. Still nothing.

I’ve never had to plan a funeral for a baby. It was devastating.

As word spread, flowers and fruit baskets started arriving. Eventually, I just hid in my room and let my husband answer the door. It was all just too much.

His delivery was torturous. I understood the baby had to be delivered, but going through hours of pain and agony of delivery only to know your baby is not alive is something I don’t ever want to experience again.

The only crying when Brendan was born was mine.

His funeral was small, just us and the kids. It was a perfect ceremony for a perfect little boy. I felt guilty leaving him there. Mothers don’t leave their children, but I had no choice. I was completely broken.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about him.

I often wonder what his voice would sound like, what kind of trouble he and Nathan would be getting into. Moms like me don’t tell our stories to garner sympathy. We tell our stories to keep the memories of our little ones alive.

I was honored to be Brendan’s mommy for seven short months. I share my story today to let other moms who have dealt with the loss of a child know that they are not alone in their pain and their grief. Our children will not be forgotten . . . not as long as we are here to keep their memories alive. God bless.

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog

You may also like:

My Baby Was Stillborn, But Still Born

To the Moms and Dads Who Suffer Loss: You Are Not Alone

To the Nurse Who Held My Stillborn Baby

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our new book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Teresa Warner

I am a writer, youth minister, and a mother of 7. I love all things creative to include crocheting, cooking, baking, and sewing.

I Became a Widow at 37; God’s Grace Sustained My Young Family

In: Faith, Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Mom and young daughter at sunset

After my husband soared to Heaven eight years ago, my three daughters and I found ourselves on an intense grief journey. I never imagined being a widow at age 37 when my girls were just 2, 5, and 8 years old. Despite the heaviness of grief, I knew God was near. And I longed for my daughters to experience His comforting presence too. That’s how we started chasing God’s glory together. We started with a nightly rhythm of watching the sunset together. We would step out onto our back patio or pull over on the side of the road and pause...

Keep Reading

The Miscarriage I Had Decades Ago Is Still a Tender Wound

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Sad feeling woman walking in early twilight

It’s funny how grief tends to bury itself in the recesses of one’s mind until it literally rises from the dead at some point and resurrects through the experience of others.  I did not know how traumatized I was when I lost a baby in 1993 through miscarriage, or what my doctor termed as a “spontaneous abortion,” until a friend recanted his wife’s similar experience to me. The hurt and denial of the past sprung back to the present rather quickly as if it was happening to me all over again. My husband and I couldn’t have been happier when...

Keep Reading

I Buried My Heart with My Baby but God Brought Me Back to Life

In: Faith, Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Woman in a sweater standing outside looking at sunset

Recently, my world felt as if it were crashing around me. I was so angry I think my rage could have burned a small village. Unfortunately, that rage was directed at God though I knew that wasn’t what I needed to be directing toward Him. He owed me nothing then, and He owes me nothing now; however, my heart was shattered, and for a while, it seemed as if my faith was crumbling with it. I stopped going to church. I stopped praying. I stopped all positive feelings and allowed myself to succumb to the pain and the anger. When...

Keep Reading

I’m Letting Go of My Toxic Mother

In: Grief, Grown Children, Loss
Daughter holding mother's hand, color photo

My mom died. She died, but I became free. For the very first time in my life, I’m not worried about what stories and lies she’s spreading about me. Even though we lived thousands of miles apart from each other, she had everyone around me in the palm of her hand. They believed her. I was a horrible child, rebellious teenager, and spiteful adult.  You see, I was never good enough for her. Her fantasy of what she believed a daughter ought to be is something I simply could never live up to. When I realized the behavior was transferring...

Keep Reading

My World Stopped When I Lost My Dad

In: Grief
Sad woman placing a white flower on a closed casket

I think it’s safe to say we have all dealt with grief. If you haven’t, count your blessings. I, like so many of us, have traveled on the road of grief . . . an unpleasant walk. After several losses, I have been on different sides of grief. When your friend loses a grandparent, you mourn with them, for them, for yourself, for their family. But it doesn’t quite affect your everyday life. When your spouse loses an aunt after an illness. When your spouse loses an uncle in a motorcycle accident, you mourn the loss of a kindhearted man....

Keep Reading

It’s the Flower Food Packet that Hurts

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Flowers on a headstone

It’s the flower food packet that gets you. That little plastic packet with the powder that keeps your flowers alive longer. The little packet you know you’ll never use because these flowers aren’t going in a vase. They’re going on the ground. RELATED: The Impossible Grief of Child Loss Hurts Forever Buying flowers for my baby’s grave is a normal process for me. Every so often, and especially around the time of year we lost our boy, I grab a bunch at our local grocer. I lay them carefully on top of where his very tiny body was laid to...

Keep Reading

How Do You Say Goodbye to Your Mother?

In: Grief, Loss
Sad woman sitting on edge of bed

Sitting at a McDonald’s table in Charleston, SC, I looked down at my ill-fitting shirt and shorts. Stress had taken its toll, and most of my clothes now hung off me. I should have worn something else I thought, but how do you pick out an outfit for saying goodbye to your mother? I reached up and felt my earrings. They were hers and seemed right. That was something at least.   Within the hour, my family and I would come together to take my mom off life support. It was Good Friday and I managed to secure an Episcopal priest...

Keep Reading

This Is How to Show Up for a Friend Who Has Cancer

In: Cancer, Friendship, Living
Bald woman during cancer treatments and same woman in remission, color photo

One moment I was wrestling with my toddler and rocking my 3-month-old to sleep, and the next I was staring blankly at the doctor who just told me I had stage four cancer that had metastasized from my uterus to my left lung and spleen. “Well, I didn’t see that coming,” I smiled at the young doctor who had clearly never given this kind of news to anyone before. I looked over at my husband’s shell-shocked face as he rocked our baby back and forth in the baby carrier because I was still nursing, and we knew we’d be at...

Keep Reading

All I Have Left Are Dreams of My Mother

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood
Mother holding infant, older color photo

I had a dream about my mom last night. It’s rare when this happens but last night’s dream was unlike any I’ve ever experienced. I was at a party, and she just walked in. It was so vivid. She sat down in a chair, looking so beautiful, so young, her eyes so very blue. She was so full of light, something I hadn’t seen in a while. I just looked at her, stunned, and gasped. I said, “Are you here? Are you real?” I couldn’t believe this was happening. Just like that she got up, grabbed me, and hugged me...

Keep Reading

I Miss the Little Moments with My Mom the Most

In: Grief, Grown Children, Loss
Woman sitting on floor by couch looking sad

You think it’s going to be the big holidays that are hard. The first Thanksgiving without her. The first Christmas. Maybe even her birthday. But it’s not the big days that bring you to your knees. It’s all the little moments in between. It’s cooking a family recipe and not being able to call her to ask a question about the directions. It’s looking down and realizing you’re using the Tupperware you stole from her and knowing you can’t return it even if you wanted to. RELATED: My Mom is Never Coming Back To Get Her Shoes It’s talking about...

Keep Reading