The Quiet Weight of Motherhood

I have been following the Lindsay Clancy case, and I keep coming back to the same feeling: I feel heartbroken for everyone.

For three children whose lives ended in a way no child's life ever should. For a father who lost his entire world in one night. And yes, I feel something for Lindsay too. I know that last sentence may make some people uncomfortable. 

There is an understandable desire, when something horrific happens, to place people into very clean categories: victim and perprator. good and evil. innocent and guilty.

And I get it, sometimes we need those categories because the alternative is much harder to sit with.

The Lindsay Clancy case is currently being argued from two profoundly different perspectives. Her defense maintains that she was experiencing severe mental illness, including postpartum psychosis, while prosecutors argue that her actions were deliberate and planned. I wasn't there. I am not a juror. But I am a mother. I am also a nurse and an educator. And I am a woman who experienced postpartum anxiety.

While my experience is different, watching this case has take me back to a version of myself I don't talk about very often.

THE PART OF MOTHERHOOD WE DON'T DISPLAY PUBLICLY

I love being Bodhi's mother. It is my favorite thing in the whole world. Motherhood has changed me in ways I don't think I could ever adequately put into words. It gave me a different understanding of love, purpose, fear, sacrifice, and faith. 

But there was another side of becoming a mother. An anxious one. After I had my son, there were nights when the rest of the house was quiet and my mind simply would not be. I researched. And researched. And researched some more. 

Was this safe?

Was that safe?

Was I doing this right?

Was there something I had missed?

The questions were endless, things that probably seemed small from the outside was enormous inside my head.

I wanted everything surrounding my baby to be safe, intentional, meaningful and right. Those late postpartum nights eventually became part of the story that led me toward creating Savedra James. Something beautiful grew from that season. But that doesn't mean the season itself was easy.

And this is something I think we get wrong about mothers. Sometimes a woman can appear incredibly functional while struggling internally. 

"BUT SHE HAD HELP" 

One part of the conversation around this case has stayed with me. People say: "she had a husband" "she had doctors" "she sought treatment" "she was a nurse"

And maybe that is precisely why this case should make us uncomfortable. Because the presence of healthcare is not always the same thing as receiving the care someone needs. I don't pretend to know what should have happened medically in her individual situation but as I put my educator hat on, I cannot help asking a broader question: How good are we at caring for the mother once the baby is here?

As nurses, we monitor bleeding, blood pressure, incisions, feeding, weight, sleep, milestones, diapers. We teach mothers what warning signs to watch for in everyone else. But are we creating enough space to ask: How are you really doing? Not the polite answer, not the "I'm tired, but we're good" answer, the real answer...

IT'S OK TO SAY NOT OK

Good mothers can struggle. I wish we would normalize saying this.

You can adore your child and struggle.

You can be incredibly grateful and still feel overwhelmed.

You can pray and still need therapy.

You can have a "village" and still struggle.

You can be a nurse and still need a nurse.

You can have a beautiful baby sleeping beside you and still feel anxiety racing through your body.

You can be a good mother and admit: I am not okay right now

Motherhood has an extraordinary way of convincing women that everyone else's needs should come before their own. We praise mothers for being selfess. For pushing through. For functioning on no sleep. For carrying everything. For somehow remembering diapers, appointments, bottles, laundry, work deadlines and everyone else's emotional needs while barely acknowledging their own. Then we're suprised when some women are drowning quietly. 

COMPASSION DOES NOT MEAN EXCUSING HARM

This may be the hardest part for me to articulate. Feeling compassion for Lindsey does not diminish my grief for her children. Talking about maternal illness does not minimize what happened to her her children. Recognizing an illness is not the same thing as making a legal judgment about criminal responsibility. I think more than one thing can be true in our hearts at the same time. We can grieve three innocent children. We can ache for their father. We can acknowledge that something catastrophic happened. And we can still ask difficult questions about what happens when a mother's mind becomes profoundly unwell. Compassion isn't always choosing a side. 

THE MOTHER I BECAME

My postpartum anxiety did not become my whole story. In some strange way, pieces of that season eventually shaped the woman I am now. 

A woman juggling different roles while still trying to figure out dinner. Someone building a business partly born from those late nights of motherhood and the desire to create something meaningful for other mothers and families. Someone whose faith has taught her that strength doesn't always look like having everything together. Sometimes strength looks like admitting you don't have it together.

When I look at Bodhi now, I wish I could go back and sit beside that exhausted new mother version of myself. I wouldn't tell her to stop worrying, that probably wouldn't have worked anyway. I think I would just tell her:

You don't have to carry motherhood perfectly to be a good mother. And maybe that is what I want another mother to hear today.

CHECK ON THE MOTHER

When a baby is born, everyone asks about the baby

How is he sleeping?

How much did he weigh?

Who does the baby look like?

But perhaps, we should also be asking: how is mom sleeping? does she seem like herself?is she scared? is she having thoughts she doesnt understand? does she need someone to stay with her?

And then we need to listen without immediately reassuring her that everything is fine or that it will be ok

Sometimes everything is not fine, sometimes a mother needs more than encouragement, sometimes she needs treatment and there should be no shame attached to that sentence.

FOR THE MOTHERS READING THIS

If you've ever sat awake beside your baby while everyone else slept, terrified that something might happen, if you've googled the same question fourteen different ways because your brain refused to believe the first thirteen answers, if motherhood has ever felt simultaneously like the greatest blessing of your life and the heaviest responsibility you've ever carried, I see you.

Please tell someone when it gets heavy. 

The Clancy case will ultimately be decided in a courtroom but perhaps the rest of us can allow it to change something outside of one. Maybe we check on mothers differently. Maybe healthcare gets better at seeing the woman standing behind the newborn. Maybe spouses learn that "I'm fine" deserves another question sometimes. Maybe mothers stop believing asking for help means they aren't strong enough.

And maybe we become a little slower to reduce human beings to the worst, scariest, or most vulnerable chapter of their lives.

For Cora, Dawson, and Callan, I hope we remember the children at the center of this tragedy. For Patrick, I hope there is grace for a grief I cannot begin to comprehend. For Lindsay, whatever the court ultimately determines, I hope this case forces us to have a more serious conversation about maternal mental health

And for every mother quietly struggling tonight:

You matter too.

Not just because somebody needs you. Not just because you're someone's mother. 

Because YOU ARE worth taking care of.

-Cici