First-time mom Mary Lynch-Lent was expecting blockbuster love, big enough to outweigh the sleepless nights and time away from her hard-earned career.
Instead, she describes a crushing introduction to motherhood, so powerful that she and her husband decided against having a second child.
Now with five years of hindsight, she’s opening up about her experience with postpartum depression.
Recent headlines out of Duxbury, Massachusetts, played a role, stirring up a chilling deja vu of her own darkest days. Thirty-two-year-old mother Lindsay Clancy was arrested after attempting suicide and is charged with the murder of her three children, ages 5, 3 and 8 months.
Defense attorneys are arguing a psychotic break and improperly treated mental illness.
At the same time, national attention has sparked a conversation about postpartum psychosis and more common postpartum depression.
Lynch-Lent, a 41-year-old paralegal who attended Presentation of Mary Academy in Methuen, is among millions of moms taking to public platforms to share their stories.
Her daughter is five now, and the more-confident mother points to a lack of information shared between doctors and patients about postpartum depression on top of a stigma that hinders new moms from asking for help.
“At no time during any of my pregnancy visits was postpartum ever discussed,” she told The Eagle-Tribune. “We talked about ways to keep myself healthy — eat the right foods, take the right vitamins and keep stress down. There was never any mention of mental health, mental well-being.”
She emphasized, “The word ‘postpartum’ never came out of my doctor’s mouth, or anyone on her staff.”
But within a day of giving birth on Dec. 19, 2017, she was reeling with anxiety and dread, both foreign at the time.
“I didn’t want anyone touching her,” she said of her daughter, Catherine Jean, nicknamed C.J. “When you’re in the hospital, they take the baby for hearing tests and other tests. I didn’t want her out of my sight. I remember saying to my husband that I was so afraid something was going to happen to her.”
A counselor who visited the hospital room asked how mom was doing a few days after delivery and whether she needed anything.
Lynch-Lent admits that she lied.
“I didn’t know what I was feeling, but I lied to her,” she said. “It was supposed to be the happiest time of my life. Why would I be so frightened and anxious about this?”
It didn’t stop there.
The needs of a newborn were a shock to both Lynch-Lent and her husband, Jonathan Lent.
Christmas was a few days after the family’s homecoming, and attention was elsewhere while mom winced from a raw Cesarean scar and nightmarish thoughts.
She remembers her husband following her far-off gaze out the window to the snow covered patio.
“He asked me what I was thinking about,” she said. “I told him to put her outside — in the snow bank. That was my thought at the moment. I was looking out the window and I wanted her out.”
Her confidence took a blow when she was no longer trusted to be alone with her baby girl.
It didn’t stop there.
By mid-January Lynch-Lent recognized that everything got darker when the sun started to sink at 4 p.m.
“I’d know that nighttime was coming. I wasn’t getting any sleep,” she said. “I knew I’d be up three to four times a night, and the panic, the anxiety, the anger over that just grew. It wasn’t what I signed up for, and it made me want nothing to do with my baby.”
Lent watched as his wife sank.
“Over time, the four, six, eight weeks after bringing C.J. home, you could tell she was in a dark place,” he said. “Her emotions changed. It wasn’t only that she didn’t want to do these things that our baby needed, but she had a fear that she couldn’t.”
It didn’t stop there.
During the first check-in with her daughter’s pediatrician, a notice on postpartum depression caught her attention. It was only the second time she’d ever heard the term.
“There was this sign on the wall that listed 10 or so symptoms,” she said. “My husband and I just looked at each other and thought ‘Oh, that’s what it is.’ I had 80% of them.”
The acknowledgement helped, the couple agreed. But it was barely step one.
A nurse sent by insurance to check on how Lynch-Lent was recovering at home a short time after her C-section walked in on a meltdown. Lynch-Lent doesn’t recall what happened that day, but the memory of being overwhelmed is forceful.
The visitor flagged Lynch-Lent’s medical file for postpartum concerns and set up an appointment with an obstetrician-gynecologist within 24 hours.
“His first reaction was, ‘We can help you,’” Lynch-Lent said. “He wanted to get me on medication, Zoloft.”
The only pills she had ever swallowed at that point were aspirin and prenatal vitamins.
“He explained to me how it would work, and he was honest. He said in addition to helping the symptoms that I was worried about, these medications can also make symptoms worse,” she said.
She headed home without a prescription.
The doctor never followed up.
It didn’t stop there.
Despite having attended a weekly support group for roughly two months, there were moments in between that Lynch-Lent still found herself unable to silence her frustration.
“(The baby) was getting worse. She couldn’t keep anything down while we were switching formulas,” she remembers. “There was one day when I couldn’t get her to stop crying for an hour and a half.”
She put her girl down and walked out of the house. She called her mother for help, admitting, “if you don’t come right now, I’m afraid about what I’m going to do,” she said.
“I waited outside for my parents to come rescue me,” Lynch-Lent said. “It took them about 10 minutes.”
Her father’s quick questions will always stick in her mind: Why would you say that? How could you say that? Don’t you love her?
“Deep down, normal me — now — I adore this child,” she said. “But I was so ill. I was in such a deep, dark postpartum place.”
Her husband’s background is in law enforcement, and he’d been through intensive training in dealing with mental crises.
“It was invaluable, and I was in a better place to deal with this than other people,” Lent said. “But no one mentally prepares you for needing to use this type of training in your own home.”
He emphasizes the crucial role of partners when a new mom is experiencing any signs of unease postpartum.
“It’s up to the dads and the family to reiterate to the moms how courageous it is for them to speak up even in the moment, when these scary thoughts are happening,” he said. “We have to get rid of the whole stigma that ‘people are going to think I’m evil and sick.’”
The American Psychiatric Association reports that up to 70% of all new mothers experience the “baby blues,” a short-lasting condition that doesn’t interfere with daily activities or require medical attention. Symptoms range from crying for seemingly no reason, irritability, restlessness and anxiety. They last a week or two and generally resolve on their own without treatment.
Postpartum depression is different in that it is emotionally and physically debilitating, the association reports, and continues for months or more.
Diagnosis is subjective because there’s no physical test.
“There always has to be a starting point,” Lent said. “My personal opinion with the medical field is that they have to get away from just pushing the drugs. Medication helps, but there are other avenues that go with it. At what point is enough, enough?”
C.J.’s parents are thankful for how their story continues — with a happy, healthy toddler and a united marriage. Time and reliance on talk therapy led the way.
“With every tragedy, things come to light,” Lynch-Lent said. “There are probably a ton of women who are suffering from this right now. They deserve to know that they’re not alone.”
The National Maternal Mental Health Hotline is available 24/7 for free, confidential support before, during and after pregnancy. Call or text 833-943-5746 (833-9-HELP4MOMS).
If you are in suicidal crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.