Lindsay Clancy: Moms Need A Village

Lindsay Clancy. I can’t stop thinking about her. I hold so much space for this woman.

I close my eyes and feel my heart actually ache when I think of her and how she must feel right now. I feel her heaviness, loss, and despair in my bones.

For anyone who truly suffered from postpartum issues, you know, you lose yourself.

I never came even close to wanting to un alive my children, but I certainly got to the point where I didn’t recognize myself.

So much so that I am scared to get pregnant again despite wanting a third child.

I remember writing so many blogs during my pregnancy with Ben (my second child) and for a solid year and a half after, that never got posted because the next day, I’d feel entirely different.

I wasn’t sure who I was anymore or which version of me was the real me.

Not to say that it is entirely a bad thing. With each child you bring into this world, you change.

A part of you dies and something new is born as you adjust to becoming a mom to the new individual you created and went very close to death to bring earth-side.

You leave a part of yourself behind the minute your exhausted self scoops up that sweet, innocent, child who depends on you for literally everything, for the first time.

Regardless, a year postpartum, I remember being so tired from sleep deprivation, that I wasn’t sure I could survive anymore. I sobbed to my mom on the phone that I was so tired I thought I would die. She came that night and took the baby for me, despite my protests that he couldn’t be away from me.

I desperately needed that.

I still didn’t sleep great because I worried about him, but I got some sleep that night. Every other Friday after that she took him for me.

New moms need more of this.

I had become a shell of myself, and I desperately needed support which my parents did their best to provide us.

I was draining my resources though. My husband was working his butt off trying to provide for our family while picking up as many of the pieces that I simply couldn’t hold anymore. My parents were giving everything they could while already stretched thin from all angles, and my very small circle of sweet friends gave me encouragement in the midst of their own exhaustion and struggles.

I reached out for help to doctors and shared my struggles with people, but no one really has answers. You’re basically told to, keep on keeping on.

Postpartum care is essentially nonexistent.

No one warns women and their partners about what to expect. After the first couple weeks, everyone just thinks you’re good and moves on with their lives.

However, the reality is that postpartum issues can be actively experienced even 2 years after the child is born.

There needs to be more education.

There needs to be more support.

There needs to be community.

Postpartum mamas need a village.

Where is the village?!

I think everyone is so isolated and guarded from the rest of the world that people are afraid to over step.

We moms with young children and growing families need older women with teenagers or grown children in our lives. So many of us need our village.

We need nosey maybe slightly pushy people checking in on us, playing with our kids while we nap, and dropping off a meal now and then.

American healthcare in general needs to figure out how to support women emotionally and their bodies nutritionally and physically postpartum.

After I stopped breast feeding Eli at 19 months and realized how not myself I had been all that time, and that postpartum was a walk in the park compared to Ben’s, my eyes began to be opened to such a great need.

We need community. We moms need to surround and take care of pregnant and postpartum mothers.

We need other women. We need our bubbles to be invaded. We need friends to help us figure out what we need when we are completely consumed with caring for children and adjusting to being a new mom.

We need the village.

Lindsay needed the village.

I will do my damnedest be the village.