Described by her children as ruthlessly protective, a true matriarch and the perfect mother, Nill is one resilient woman.

Just a few hours after she put her youngest son, tennis champion Nick (or Nicholas to her), on a plane to Spain for his next tournament, she missed him.

"It still feels really weird to sit in the lounge room and watch Nick on TV and you've got the sign down the bottom saying Tokyo or Madrid."

But his career wasn't what the family expected, after years of travelling to competitions, sleeping in caravan parks and youth hostels.

"We never had money really," she says.

"We used to stay in backpackers, that was our favourite. It was good for Nick to grow up like that, not expecting much. Then when you get a lot, you appreciate it more. And you don't complain, you know things are good."

Nill is her son's bookkeeper - "he doesn't really know anything about money" - and she's his greatest supporter. Well, aside from his big brother.

"Christos is his protector," Nill says of her eldest.

"He's really protective, sometimes to the extent that I have to tell him not to react. He really doesn't like it when Nick's under fire."

She says as a global figure, she expected Nick to cop some flack, but the key was not to react.

"I want people to understand that mothers are people, and we do try our best. Sometimes, we make the wrong decision. Sometimes, that is the reaction. My take now is to breathe. Don't react, just move on."

While Nick is the most televised child in the family, his siblings have strong talents of their own.

Christos, 29, spent five years at university getting a law degree before deciding that wasn't his passion.

Nill says when he came home one day and asked her to sit down with him for a coffee, she knew he didn't like what he was doing.

"He said he didn't want me to be upset for wasting his life, but how could it be a waste? Everything you've learnt comes back and helps you in some way. I said, 'Christos, it's not my life'."

He went back to university to study nutrition and bodybuilding.

In the middle, there's 27-year-old sister Halimah. Nill says she would have loved her daughter to be a dentist or a doctor, but she chose a career as a performer instead.

"You can't make them do things they don't like, they would be so unhappy, " she reflects.

"You've got to encourage your children to do what they dream of doing, because they'll do well."

Mother's Day is a very special one for Nill's children, the boys say.

"It's a day about the one lady in our lives that is literally there through every twist and turn with a comforting hand."

They said it was the day they're given the opportunity to show Nill what she means to them, "how she makes our world a better place, and that every little thing she has done so far and continues to do, is appreciated".

Nill says after being uprooted plenty of times growing up, she didn't want that for her children. She marvels that the family have owned their Canberra home for almost 30 years.

One piece of advice she can pass on to other parents is to give children the time they deserve.

"I tell that to every mother that asks me. It's not money, it's time. Love comes with it.

"You have to actually watch them. I've never driven Nick to a tennis lesson and left him there. Even though I'm not interested half the time, honestly, you can't let them see that. One minute they will turn around and ask, 'Did you see that?' and I'll say, 'Yes! That's so good!'."

Unlike plenty of pregnancies, Sam Tyler's was meticulously planned right down to the international sperm donor.

Sam and her partner Sue Webeck both had stages of life when they believed a family wouldn't be possible because of their sexuality.

Sitting on the lounge in their family home with their six-year-old twin girls playing between them, the couple reflects on life as mothers, and the often understated privilege that is.

"One of the things about being in a same-sex relationship, when you talk about parenting it is a decision. It's a planned thing, it's not just an, 'oh, whoops!', or a 'we'll give it a try'. We made conscious decisions about the way in which we went about doing that, and the type of parents we wanted to be," Sam says.

It was on their second date the pair discussed having children for the first time. It was only then Sue really considered it a possibility.

"It was always something that was at the fore of what I wanted to do in my life, was to be a mum. That provides some challenges when you're young and you're thinking of who you are, your identity in the world and whether those things are achievable for you or not."

In her teens and early 20s, Sue recalls that parenting didn't seem like a possibility. Then she met Sam.

"Sam was willing and wanted to carry children, and I thought that was a really good thing to outsource," Sue laughs.

The couple has strong but compatible ideas about family and what they wanted theirs to be.

Despite having friends willing to help out, they chose to use donated sperm from a bank overseas.

"We wanted to be a two-parent family … We just wanted it to be us," Sue says.

Sam adds that it was from that first conversation that the pair discussed what was important to them, and what values they would pass on to their children. She sees motherhood as an opportunity and a privilege.

Their twins, Miya and Elliott, are vivacious youngsters. For them, having a mum and a mumma is the norm.

The family will spend Mother's Day watching their mumma, Sam, participate in a roller derby tournament.

Sue says the day is one of reflection.

"We take a little moment, because our family is not of the standard variety, sometimes it's nice to stop and think about all the great things that come with that. Which is primarily these two," she says of the children.

"When you think it may not be possible, it's such a privilege. Mother's Day is a moment to regroup, and remember exactly how much of a privilege it is. Sometimes it's hard to see that when you're juggling schedules and doing all the standard mum-based things, like trying to get dinner on the table in time, and trying to get everyone to their activities."

"Amy loved being a mum," Trevor recalls.

"She was a professional and good at her job, but when we had kids, she absolutely loved being a mum."

Sadly, Amy only got to celebrate seven Mother's Days before she died of breast cancer. While the sentiment of the day hasn't changed for Trevor and his children - it's still a celebration - the day, and every other one, is tinged with sadness.

It's a hard day for the threesome, and it doesn't gets any easier, he says.

"However happy it is, there will be a balance with sadness that Amy's not around. You end up learning to live with it rather than it going away."

Audrey and Elijah have fond memories of their mum - of going on holidays to the beach where they buried her up to her neck in sand, to the zoo where she cuddled Elijah while he watched the monkeys.

Trevor has made sure the pair have friends in similar situations, so they've never felt isolated, he says.

"It's hard particularly this time of year, but even not this time of year. Seeing mums pick their kids up from school, and their mum is obviously never going to be there. It's going to be hard for them."

But Trevor says he will never try to be both parents.

"I can never be a mum to the kids. I could never replace her."

His goal is to keep Amy's memory alive, but not making it too big that defines them or crushes them.

"Amy died of breast cancer. She was always making sure she wasn't defined by that disease. In the same way I don't want the kids to live their life, or for people to treat them differently, because their mum has died."

Trevor is determined to make Mother's Day about Amy's love for her children and her legacy, her commitment to awareness raising, particularly through the Mother's Day Classic.

"It's kind of a nice morning, we usually finish last and then go for something to eat," he says of the five-kilometre walk around Lake Burley Griffin.

"It's a pretty emotional thing. There's inherent memories of doing it with Amy there. It's something she believed in, and I guess we'll carry on doing it."

The thing about Mother's Day is, Trevor says, it that it comes around every year. The first year without their mum, he considered keeping Audrey and Elijah home from school on the day of the present stall.

"It's kind of like Valentine's Day when you're single. It's got a bit of an empty feel about it," he says.

But his decision was to make it a day of celebration for Amy, who "fundamentally loved being a mum".

"I want it to be a happy day, rather than a hating-the-world day," he says.

"It's an opportunity to honour what a lovely mum she was."