Mother's Day: My Reflections, Emotions and Decisions
On deciding what I want out of my life and coming to terms with it
Welcome to On the Other Side by Robin Allison Davis! This newsletter features anecdotes, resources, musings, and more from Robin, a two-time breast cancer survivor and an American expat living in Paris. Robin is navigating life not only on the other side of her cancer journey but also on the other side of the Atlantic. You can preorder Robin’s memoir, Surviving Paris: A Memoir of Healing in the City of Light, here.
Trigger warning: Mother’s Day content
One of the most aggressively pushed holidays is approaching. It’s in our emails, on TV, and on social media…
It’s Mother’s Day.
My email inbox has been inundated for weeks with flower companies sending me promo codes. My friends are posting photos cradling their stomachs, thanks to the Instagram prompt, “show us your baby bump for Mother’s Day”. Mother’s Day is arguably one of the most promoted holidays in the Western world, just behind Christmas.
I know that the holiday can be a difficult day for some, conjuring up feelings of grief, whether about one’s mother or one’s own motherhood journey. I don’t have a problem with Mother’s Day - I never have. But with the holiday rolling around this year, it does make me reflect on my relationship with motherhood.
I’m 41 and I have no children and have never been pregnant.
In 2020, before I started chemo for my second bout with breast cancer treatment, I knew I wanted to freeze my eggs first. I would be undergoing chemo, and my research told me that it could ruin my fertility. I couldn’t live with the idea that something that happened at 36, after already beating breast cancer once, could take away indefinitely the idea of having biological children. I fought with my oncologist about it. I wasn’t certain if I wanted children, but I also didn’t want the option snatched away during a fight to save my life.
So in France, in the middle of a pandemic, with breast cancer still in my body, I froze my eggs. My experience differed from that of my many friends who have undergone IVF or egg freezing. I didn’t take hormone injections - it would expedite my cancer - and I did it solo. Prior to starting the process, the fertility specialists told me that my eggs would be “disposed of” by the time I turned 43 - and I was 36 at the time. Thirty-six and as single as a dollar bill. Not only did I have to go through cancer treatment for a second time, but I had to emerge victorious and find a partner before the looming deadline of 43 to be able to use the eggs.
I felt like I was being punished in a way, especially when a colleague mentioned to me that being childless raises your risk for breast cancer.
I’m 41 now and haven’t used the eggs yet. Two years left before those frozen eggs hit the wastebasket.
My relationship with motherhood has changed a lot since that day. I cycled through various stages of emotions, sometimes experiencing them more than once or restarting the loop.
Enthusiasm: I need to date as much as possible because I can’t let my frozen eggs go to waste.
Nonchalance: Everything happens when you least expect it, so don’t worry about it.
Denial: Do they even still have my eggs? It was 2020, and they froze in a pandemic. Do they know where they are?
Panic: My deadline is approaching, WHAT WILL I DO?
Calm: I will pay to move my eggs to a different country that can hold them past age 43. No big deal, no pressure, no timelines.
But at the end of the day, I always settle on one thing: my body has gone through and overcome so much. Should I put it through more with a pregnancy? And if I decided to try to become pregnant, I don’t think I would have the ability to without assistance. And even if I did use assistance, the fear of pregnancy hormones prompting a third bout with cancer is terrifying. Thankfully, options are plentiful these days, but surrogacy is illegal in France.
So, where does that leave me?
It seems like biological children won’t be in the cards for me. I didn’t make this decision easily, which I’m not always comfortable with. To come from such a close, wonderful family and not have one of my own is incredibly difficult. My emotional stages were like the stages of grief, and I cycled through them often. And in a way, I am grieving. The life I’m building, the life I’m currently living, doesn’t look at all like I imagined. I consider it to be one more thing cancer stole from me. The life I envision for myself now looks completely different (no potty training in my future, thank God), and I plan to sow into the lives of the children around me. I still want a family, but for me, family will look a little different from what I expected. Hopefully, one day, I will be seen as a mother figure.
Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers—biological or not. I’m sending my love to those who are having a tough time - those who have lost a mother, are struggling or want to become a mother, have lost a child, or have a strained or nonexistent relationship with their mother.
As for me? The only thing I’ll be birthing anytime soon is my book Surviving Paris, which you can preorder here.
This Month’s Need to Know:
Black Womxn Writers in Europe is now accepting applications for their 2025 Retreat! You can apply here - the deadline is June 1st: https://www.blackwomenwritersineurope.com/retreat
It’s Asian Heritage Month! If you want to read books by more Asian authors, I highly recommend Rachel Phan’s debut memoir, Restaurant Kid.
Nuit des Musées 2025 is May 17th - if you’re in Paris, check it out for a Saturday evening of culture.
Surviving Paris is now available to read on NetGalley if you’re a book reviewer. Also add it to your GoodReads “To Be Read” list!
Beautifully written Robin. I had the same issue but I hadn't even been warned that I would lose my eggs in radiation! So the news came as a whopping huge shock.
I went through a deep process of grief when I understood I would not be able to be a biological mother. How did I reconcile this? I came to understand the motherhood is not only a biological experience. Being a mother is a way of being. My spiritual teacher told me years ago, that I am mother to the world... I was a little taken aback by that... what did that actually mean? Bit by bit, I began to understand... to be a mother of the world is to hold love in my heart for all: every child/ person I meet. I see all the trees I help plant in South India as my children... they too need love and protection. Today I understand we are all mothers, whether we have the organs or not to have children. Mothering is the act of loving, caring, listening to, protecting, turning up for our friends, loved ones and those we come into contact throughout our day.
These words are so powerful. Thank you so much for sharing your story with the world