It was the worst day of my life. I was alone with my mum in a bright, top-floor hospital room overlooking the Houses of Parliament in London. I was in my late twenties, and a surgeon had just done the rounds and told us that there was nothing else they could do about the progression of my mum’s stage 4 cancer.
“Mum,” I sobbed. “I just want you to meet my children.” Those were the first words that came out of my mouth as I flung my arms around her as she lay in her hospital bed. It was primal. I didn’t even want children at this stage of my life, but the need for her to be around when I did felt visceral. How could I ever do it without her by my side? I needed her unconditional love and support; her sense of humour and perspective.
But Mum never got to meet my future daughters, Lola, 10, and Liberty, eight. She died aged 54, just a few years older than I am now. Twenty years on, hardly a day goes past without me missing her. Recently, that grief has intensified too. Waves of sadness come out of nowhere, such as at my daughter’s recent eighth birthday party, or if one of my children is unwell, as happened last week.
Being without her didn’t feel normal, and I have always struggled with the loss alone. It is why the recent statistic that one in three new mums in the UK are motherless caught my eye. According to research by Peanut and The Motherless Mothers, 67 per cent of motherless mums report depression, 71 per cent anxiety, and 95 per cent feel unsupported, with 85 per cent saying motherhood reopened their grief. Motherless mothers are also around five times more likely to report experiencing postnatal depression, and 68 per cent of new mums had their grief misdiagnosed or brushed off as other causes.
Despite the numbers, it remains an “invisible” problem in maternal healthcare systems, according to the report, with 74 per cent claiming that a healthcare professional didn’t even ask them about available maternal support. For me, being motherless was initially the last thing on anybody’s mind when I first got pregnant in 2016. I was ushered into grief counselling on the NHS, not to deal with a lack of maternal support, but the immediate grief of having lost my partner, Alex, who tragically ended his life midway through our IVF journey.
