Waiting, Hoping, and Holding onto the Dream of Motherhood

This conversation was aired in the lead-up to Mother’s Day this year.

On air, it was a conversation between two friends. But for many listening, it felt like something deeper – an honest glimpse into a quiet, often unspoken longing.

Hope Breakfast’s Brendan gently pulled back the curtain, not to probe, but to honour something tender in his cohost Danniebelle’s life: her dream of becoming a mum.

It’s a dream she’s carried since she was a little girl.

Not a vague idea, but a clear picture – a family, built on love, partnership, and the kind of care she watched her own parents model so beautifully. It’s still there, still strong, unchanged in its essence.

Only now, it sits alongside another reality… It hasn’t happened yet.

“My biggest dream from when I was a little kid was that I would be a mum… and it still is.”

There’s something disorienting about dreams without timelines. We get used to milestones in life – school, work, relationships – often mapped out in neat succession. But some of the deepest desires don’t come with a calendar date. They unfold in their own time, or sometimes, feel like they’re taking longer than expected.

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For Danniebelle, that uncertainty can feel like a mystery she’s learning to live with.

Not solve. Not rush. Just live with.

“I don’t know the date, I don’t know the time… it all feels like a bit of a mystery.”

There are moments, she admits, where the questions get loud. Nights where she turns it over in her mind, “Why hasn’t this happened for me?” Moments sparked by something as simple as a film or a fleeting love story on screen, highlighting the absence of something she longs for deeply.

And yet, alongside the questioning sits a quiet resolve.

A choice not to get lost in the “what ifs”.

Instead, she’s learning to place that dream gently into God’s hands; to trust that a desire so deeply rooted isn’t there by accident, or as some kind of cruel tease.

It’s a trust that isn’t always easy.

There are times when God feels silent on the subject. Times when the gap between hope and reality feels wide. Times when comparison sneaks in – when it’s tempting to look at others and think the grass might be greener somewhere else.

But almost as quickly as those thoughts come, they’re challenged.

Because with age has come perspective. A growing awareness that comparison rarely brings peace, and that even the paths that look ideal from the outside can hold their own complexity and pain.

Life, after all, rarely turns out exactly as imagined.

“I’ll immediately go, ‘oh yeah, the grass is greener over there’ but then straight away go, ‘no, I can’t think like that.’”

Danniebelle and Brendan both acknowledged that reality: the relationships they’ve seen break down, the families reshaped by loss or hardship, the unpredictability of life. It’s enough to make anyone pause and wonder what the future might hold.

Even, at times, to question the dream itself.

There are moments when Danniebelle has looked at the state of the world – the chaos, the uncertainty – and quietly wondered what it would mean to bring children into it. It’s not a loss of hope, but a reflection of how deeply she cares about the kind of world future generations will inherit.

And yet, through all of it, one anchor remains. A verse she returns to again and again: “For I know the plans I have for you…” (Jeremiah 29:11).

It’s not a quick fix or a neat answer. But it is a reminder that even when she can’t see the full picture, she’s not forgotten. That her life isn’t defined by what hasn’t happened yet, but by what’s already been given.

And that list, she realises, is full.

Family. Friends. Meaningful work. A community of listeners. A life rich with connection and purpose.

It doesn’t replace the dream but reframes it.

Rather than becoming consumed by what she doesn’t have, she’s choosing to invest in what she does. To pour her love, energy and attention into the people and opportunities already in front of her.

And to trust that the rest will come in the right time. Or in the right way. Or in a way that may look different from what she imagined.

“I don’t want to be distracted by what I don’t have when I have everything right now.”

What made the moment on air so powerful wasn’t just the honesty, it was the reminder that so many people are walking similar paths, carrying similar hopes, often quietly.

Dreams that feel delayed.

Questions without answers.

A tension between trust and longing.

And in sharing her story, Danniebelle gave language to that space, not as something to fix, but something to gently hold.

Because sometimes, the bravest thing we can do is keep trusting… even while we wait.

Hope Breakfast with Brendan and Danniebelle, weekdays 6am-9am live here, on the Hope 103.2 app or on catch-up wherever you get your podcasts.

Feature image: Supplied