To the Mother Whose Arms Are Empty: A Letter of Shared Grief

A letter from my wonderful wife

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It has been a challenging time for my wife and me. Last month, we lost our baby boy. It has been one of the most painful experiences of our lives. In the midst of grief, my wife wrote a letter to mothers who have experienced the same unimaginable loss. She asked me to share it with all of you.

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Dear Bereaved Mother,

There will always be someone missing in your life—a child who would have been a sibling, nephew or niece, cousin, godchild, or grandchild. Yet, life continues on without them, often leaving us behind in a world that now feels achingly different.

Birthdays, holidays, and certain reminders will always hurt. I often feel guilty laughing at jokes, thinking I shouldn’t be laughing when our child is gone. While cousins who would have been close in age celebrate their first birthdays, you find yourself visiting a cemetery to honor your baby’s birthday, grappling with emotions that engulf you.

Mothers who are blissfully unaware of what it’s like to lose a child, those who watched us lose ours yet still get to go home and hold their children close, will never truly understand the horrific devastation we experienced. People will try to help and offer platitudes to comfort you, but how can one really comfort someone who has had to bury their child?

The doctor at the hospital tells you, “I’m so sorry – there’s no heartbeat.” You spend days in labor trying to accept that your baby is gone. You wake up that first night in the hospital thinking, “Oh, that must have been a terrible dream,” only to realize this is your new reality. You have lost your baby. And now you must endure the long process of giving birth to a child who has already died.

You walk the halls of labor and delivery, hearing the cries of newborns, knowing you won’t get to hear your baby’s first cries.

Then, after days of labor, your baby arrives, and for a fleeting moment, you feel relief—only to notice the deafening silence of the room.

Going home after childbirth is surreal. You’ve given birth like every other mother, except you go home empty-handed. Your body just gave birth, but you have nothing to show for it except a memory box. Your milk suddenly comes, serving as a painful reminder that your body doesn’t know there is no baby to feed.

Even going to your postpartum check-up—at the same practice where your baby was alive at your last visit—is excruciatingly painful. You spend the car ride and the time in the waiting room crying, unable to shake the weight of loss.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are now strange. We don’t feel like parents, yet we are—just to a child who is no longer here. Everything is uncharted, and every day I wish I could hold my baby.

Questions flood your mind as soon as you find out your sweet baby is gone. Why did this happen? Why did God take my child? Why is this His plan? What if we can’t have more children? What if we do? I'm terrified of this happening again. Was this something I did? Could I have prevented it?

Every day, I wish this hadn’t been God’s plan for us. Though I know we’ll never fully understand His ways, I often return to the story of Job. God tested Job’s faith by taking everything from him. Job grieved deeply. He cried out in anger and questioned God. Yet in the end, he came to see that our understanding is limited, and God’s purpose is greater than we can comprehend. Like Job, I’m learning to trust—however imperfectly—and to pray for a future filled with hope.

Reading the devotional Grieving the Child I Never Knew helped me navigate this grief. The author sought guidance from God and shared the same emotions I experienced. In those pages, I found a reflection of my own heartache—a reminder that we are not alone in this dark journey.

This journey is hard. It’s truly one of the hardest things you’ll ever endure, alongside giving birth to your deceased child. Every morning, I wake up thinking about my son and the life we could have had together—picturing him graduating, growing into a handsome man, getting married. All those life events were shattered the moment he died.

I'm scared about having more children. The trauma, the PTSD, the constant fear of this happening again—it’s overwhelming. What if something goes wrong again? For the first time in my life, I feel jealous—jealous of those mothers who have never experienced loss. Those who have all their children, and those who don’t fully appreciate what a blessing children are from God. I want to yell at them: “You have no idea how truly blessed you are.” I think of normal complaints parents have, and I think to myself, “I would happily change a million dirty diapers if it meant I never had to bury my son.”

Losing your child is one of the most horrific experiences one can endure. It changes you on a cellular level. Your grief is always there. You mature rapidly and learn what is truly meaningful in life. You stop taking things for granted. And you see how trivial most of the things are that people complain or worry about.

Though this journey is painful and filled with uncertainty, know that you are not alone. With time and prayer, the grief gets lighter, but the hole in your heart never goes away. You will carry it with you for the rest of your life. So take your time. Be gentle with yourself. Embrace each moment as it comes, approach each day as it arrives, and talk about your child to others so that they are not forgotten.

With all my love,

A mother who lost her baby boy at 28 weeks