‘My mum died when I was eight weeks pregnant with my first child – I couldn’t imagine becoming a mother without her’

A woman who was eight weeks pregnant with her first child when her mother died has said it “feels really cruel that she didn’t get to be a grandmother” as the opportunity to “share that motherhood journey together was ripped away”, but a community of motherless mothers has given her strength.

Seona Wells, 34, who lives in Aberdeen, welcomed her baby girl Mara into the world in June 2025, but the joy of parenthood has been overshadowed by the loss of her own mother Christina to cancer in November 2024.

Christina was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive sarcoma in March 2024, when she was 58. The family soon learned that the cancer was untreatable and Christina was given palliative care for the remaining months of her life.

“We were so close, we spoke every day, my mum and I – it just feels unbelievable that she has never met my daughter,” Seona told PA Real Life.

“It doesn’t seem possible.”

When Christina was diagnosed with cancer, Seona and her now-husband Scott were in the midst of planning their wedding for summer 2025. They were already thinking about having children after the wedding, but Christina’s diagnosis brought their plans into sharp perspective.

They brought the wedding forward to July 2024 so Christina could be there to celebrate with them, and soon afterwards began trying for a baby.

“I didn’t know how much time she was going to have or if she would ever get the chance to know that I would be a mum, let alone meet her grandchild,” Seona said.

“I couldn’t really imagine becoming a mother without her.”

Luckily, Seona fell pregnant in time to share the news with Christina, three weeks before she died.

“That was a very hard time, because I was going through the first trimester, with sickness and things, and then I was also trying to nurse my mum with my family,” she said.

“She was at home at that point, she wanted to die at home. We’re a very close family, I have two younger brothers, and we were all there with her.

“I shared with them that I was pregnant as well, even though it was quite early on, so it was just such a weird time, because it’s supposed to be really happy news.

“I think for them… it kind of gave a bit of hope… (Mum) was so happy to find out that I was pregnant.”

“When she was on quite a lot of pain medication, near the end, she was still kind of booping my tummy if I was standing next to her,” she added.

“She literally would smile and say aloud ‘I know what’s in there’ when she booped my tummy.”

While Seona is “so happy” she was able to share the news with her mum, she feels it will “just never be enough”.

“It just feels so cruel: could she not have lived long enough to have met my daughter, become a grandmother herself? She’d always wanted that,” she said.

“She was one of these women that just loved children. She was actually a neonatal nurse herself, so she’d had this career of looking after babies… It just feels really cruel that she didn’t get to be a grandmother and look after her own grandchild.

“I’d always looked forward so much to that point in our lives, where we could share that motherhood journey together, and it just was ripped away.”

After her mother’s death, Seona relied on her strong network for support: her brothers, her dad, her husband and her friends – and her mum’s close friends.

“She had a lot of female friends that were kind of almost like aunties to me, and that’s been so important,” she said.

“I feel like I’ve got all these aunties that are looking out for me, and that’s just because of who my mum was. She had these people that loved her so much that they are still looking out for me… that kind of feels like that’s still her looking out for me, in a way.”

While Seona feels lucky to have so much support, as well as being able to access grief counselling, she feels it’s important to share her feelings with people who have been through what she has.

She found The Motherless Mothers – a community of women experiencing similar loss or estrangement – and said “having that peer support has been immensely valuable”.

“It’s just full of women looking after each other, looking out for other women that have been through very similar things,” Seona added.

“And even though everyone’s got a unique motherless mother story… you’ll say something – if something’s been a bit triggering, or you’ve had a bad day – and there’s just instantly a bunch of women who know exactly how you feel, and are quick to respond.”

Seona is in near-constant contact with The Motherless Mothers through their WhatsApp groups, and the community also offers free, one-to-one counselling with a qualified British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy counsellor, as well as other resources and free drop-in sessions.

“Sometimes speaking to someone who’s in that exact, weirdly specific situation to understand how you’re feeling, I think is really helpful,” Seona said.

“It’s just that solidarity, it makes you feel less lonely – because it is a very lonely thing, having a child without your mum there, that’s how I felt. Everything is kind of bittersweet.”

Seona tries to remember to “let the joy in” and remember “it’s OK to be happy”, but said every milestone in her baby’s life is tinged with sadness.

She added that she also finds strength in knowing that her mum was a motherless mother herself. Christina’s mother died with cancer aged 60, when Christina was 33, and Seona said she “thinks about that so much now – my mum was going through the same thing, just with older children”.

“I remember having such a great childhood and such a loving mother, and I understand now, I think, exactly what she must have been going through,” she said.

“She managed to do it, she was strong, she managed to show up and be this incredible mother to us.

“One of the ways of trying to honour my mum is just to try and be as good a mum to my daughter as she was to me.”

The Motherless Mothers is a UK charity supporting women raising children without their own mothers, offering online and in-person community spaces. Learn more or access support through their website: www.themotherlessmothers.com.