2026 | Microchimerism, About Mothers and the Children We Carry

2026. I am taking this break in my journal and memories of earlier years to tell my children a story about love that echoes through generations. It is called microchimerism.

Microchimerism. Poetry recited.

You can read about microchimerism on the internet; long before I had ever heard the word, I knew what it felt like.

I experienced it in my body and emotions, and it has lived in my relationships with each of my three children since I was pregnant with them. I also believe that it lived in my own mother's relationship with me since before my birth.

Scientists discovered something remarkable just over a century ago. During pregnancy, a few of the baby’s cells cross the placenta and take up residence in the mother’s body. Years later, even decades later, those tiny cells can still be found in her heart, her lungs, her brain, and even in healed scars. Likewise, some of the mother’s cells remain within her child. Researchers frequently track male-specific Y-chromosome DNA (from male fetuses) in maternal blood to chart exactly where those fetal cells travel and how they behave. They can do this because some of the fetal DNA remains in the mother's body.

A mother never really lets go of her children because, in the smallest physical sense, they never completely leave her. I carried my children beneath my heart before I carried them through life. Their every scraped knee, every tear, every kiss, every hug, every worry, every dream, became part of me, a shared experience, long before science found a name for it.

Scientists call this microchimerism.

It sounds like a medical curiosity, but to me it feels more like poetry.

My body understood and recited this poetry long before my life unravelled.

A life unraveled

My marriage fell apart under the weight of alcoholism, anger, neglect, and words that left wounds no one else could see. After the divorce, the struggle became even harder. Financially and emotionally, I found myself cornered until I made the most painful decision of my life—I had to allow my two sons to leave my house to live with their father.

It was never the future I imagined for us.

The years that followed left holes that have never quite closed. Lies convinced my boys that I had chosen this separation. For five long years, I fought to remain part of their lives while watching the distance between us grow wider. Some losses cannot be measured in birthdays missed or holidays spent apart. They are measured in conversations that never happened and memories that were never made.

Even now, decades later, those missing years still ache. I doubt that your father even had an inkling that he not only took my children away from me, but that he also robbed me of part of my body cells and DNA, the parts that we shared, you and I. I have never known such hurt. No wonder that I had those horrible dreams in which I woke up as an amputee, missing a few vital body parts. I still have those dreams sometimes, and I still wake up in tears.

Forgiveness

People sometimes speak about forgiveness as though it is simply a decision, a switch that can be flicked when enough time has passed.

For me, it has never been that simple. I am still battling to flick that switch.

I have never forgiven the actions that tore my family apart. Even death could not erase what happened. But I did not carry this bitterness because I hated the man who caused it. I want my children to know this in their heart of hearts, in their deepest being. I didn’t hate your father. Not then and not afterwards. I never did. Yes, I admit I no longer loved him, and I no longer really wanted him in my life, but I never hated him. This is why I could allow him to live in my house, and with my daughter's help, we looked after him till the day of his death. I hope my two boys understand and remember this.

I hated what alcoholism did to him, and I hated the choices it produced. I hated the fear, the neglect, the manipulation, the rejection and the damage left behind. Those things stole years of the love and closeness that were there from before the time of your birth, and which I always tried to cultivate between you and me, and also between the three of you. I wanted the siblings to remain close, whatever happened. Unfortunately, that negative time can never be returned. This is what I cannot forgive.

There is a difference between hating the man and hating the damage caused. Please remember this and know the difference.

The right to love

Perhaps what I want most for my children, especially my two sons, is to understand this: In my books, you were, and still are, allowed to love your father. I never expected you to favour your feelings for me above the love you had then and still have for your father. It was never a competition. You don’t have to choose between us. I never expected you to.

I always understood that your loyalty to him was not a betrayal of me. It was simply the loyalty of children trying to make sense of an impossible situation. I understand that now even better than I did then.

And maybe that is where microchimerism speaks most deeply to me.

If your cells still live within me after all these years, then perhaps love leaves traces that cannot be removed either. Not by divorce. Not by distance. Not by misunderstanding. Not by grief. Not even by death.

Perhaps we carry one another in ways we cannot see. Perhaps the missing years never erased the bond between us. Perhaps they only hid it beneath layers of hurt. I hoped this to be true. In my heart, I know this to be true.

Microchimerism echoes

Scientists may explain microchimerism with microscopes and DNA. Mothers understand this bond and this love without knowledge of either. This is how we know that our children never really leave us.

Some people remain in our hearts because we remember them. Others remain because, quite literally, they became part of who we are. And maybe that is one of life’s gentlest truths. The people we love leave echoes within us, echoes which can be heard through many generations.

Some echoes are made of memories.

Some are made of cells.

All of them become part of our life story.

A special message to my daughter

To my daughter, I want to leave this special message: I know that you always found it difficult to form a bond with your father, especially because he so openly questioned your parentage at an early age. Partly also because you had only limited contact. I can assure you that this is not what he really felt in his heart of hearts; this was just one of the ways he tried to hurt me, to break through the indifference of my feelings for him, and I have a suspicion that this was under the influence of family and friends who blamed me for the divorce.

All of my children can safely and without fear request DNA reports. There will be no surprises. All three siblings have the same biological mother and father.

And Karen, I am just sorry that you were the victim of those vicious lies. Despite all this, you never hesitated to assist your father when he fell upon hard times, and I thank you for helping the family out in this way. You carry within you a great capacity for love. Although we don’t always say this, all of us know that you are the one who, since the early days of my first cancer diagnosis, has been keeping this family together and the household running on oiled wheels.

We made a new home

To my children who made a home for me in my old age and who look after me with so much love and patience: THANK YOU. Thank you for having a home where we are not afraid to love, to admit our faults, where scolding and swearing are not tolerated.

I feel safe with you, and I love you. I want to be a good memory, a part of your cells and of your stories that, one day, you may want to tell. And I hope you will hear this echo for a long time, even after I am gone.

Your mother.

To the one who went before

PS. And a last message to my mother, in case you find yourself in a place where you can hear my heartbeat; I can still hear the echo of yours.

Your daughter.

Featured image: An AI-assisted illustration which serves as a symbol of microchimerism woven into a family tree.