I’m a mother, but you cannot see my children. I have carried eight lives in my womb who never made it to their due date, but I’m a mother nevertheless. Mother’s Day is for me, too.

When I meet strangers who ask if I have children, sometimes I don’t know how to answer. Because yes, of course I have children.. but they live in Heaven. How do you explain that to a perfect stranger who is just trying to make small talk? I find myself torn between wanting to acknowledge and honor the lives of my babies while also not wanting to burden a perfect stranger with the weight of grief and death and celebration of motherhood that never was, at least on this side of eternity. Most of the time I just say “Yes”, or “We are working on it”.

This Mother’s Day is my fourth as a mother with invisible children, marking nearly 5 years since we miscarried our first baby.