Season 3, episode 33 transcript:

A mother for all seasons

Thursday, May 5, 2022

[Transcript]

Robyn: [00:00:00] We had Ellie in the dead of winter in Minnesota I just remember especially those first few days, just being like, what do I do with this being? I spent years and years nannying and babysitting and taking care of little children. I had been a licensed therapist for years. At this point,

and I still felt leveled by this experience. 

Laura: Before I became a mother myself, I didn't give much thought to mother's day. It was a hallmark holiday that often meant going out for lunch after church a day where my siblings and I attempted not to fight and tried to make my mom feel special only after I had children of my own. Did I begin to understand just how fraught that day could be for friends who had lost children or been unable to have them in the first place. It was a day to be dreaded in those years when my kids were babies, it was a day where I was consciously aware of all that I lacked. Even in the [00:01:00] good years, I've come to see. The day is a mixed bag some years there are flowers and handmade cards. Another years, the day is completely forgotten 

for the past couple of weeks, we've been featuring stories about mothers.

First. We heard stories from all over the globe and Katie Samara's podcast, mother, mother. One of the stories was mine. Then last week, writer and poet and Lee parish talked about writing the wrongs of her childhood. First through her writing and then through her own experience of motherhood. 

So in this week, leading up to mother's day, I'm speaking with someone who spends most of her waking hours, thinking about mothers.

Robyn: My name's Robin aligo Anna Cutler. I'm an MFT which stands for marriage and family therapist, working with the perinatal population, which basically means everything around birth.

So, everything from pre pregnancy through early parenthood

Laura: Robin said that growing up, she took it as a, given that she'd become a mother.

Robyn: I [00:02:00] always wanted to be a mom. I'd never even really questioned it. I had a very close relationship with my mom growing up. Because of how she was raised she really needed to portray motherhood as. this always wonderful and amazing experience 

It was like, well, if it's that great, of course I want to that. 

Laura: Robin says that she learned a lot from her mom about how to be a good mother. They're still close today She also raised children in a very different time when it was often taken as a given that mothers would sacrifice their own needs for the needs of their children. But even as a kid, Robin had the sense that there were things in her mother's life that she wasn't allowed to name

that maybe she didn't even fully recognize herself and a culture that celebrated mothers who put themselves last. 

Robyn: My parents had a very traditional marriage and relationship and I kind of saw early [00:03:00] on that she was, kind of trapped in a lot of the traditional gender norms. she didn't necessarily get to pursue the things that she really wanted to Even though, we were very connected I also just saw some suffering there and some pain not being able to really. Say like, wow, this is really hard. 

So I think I saw that very, very early on as a kid and, wanted to be part of doing something different. 

Laura: As a teenager, Robyn gravitated toward work that would allow her to support other mothers

Robyn: In high school I volunteered at a women's shelter. And it was basically like young mothers and their new babies.

Something just clicked for me. I sort of got hooked. I was like, this is where it's at. And I was only 17 or 18 years old. Women's health and women's mental health has always been a passion of mine. I just [00:04:00] followed that path sort of loosely at the beginning. I went to college and majored in women's studies. But it wasn't really until after that, you know, I decided to go to graduate school women's health, women's mental health, just kind of merged together. 

Laura: Around the same time that she decided to pursue a career in perinatal mental health Robin met her husband. 

Robyn: It was very clear from the beginning. Like he also wanted to be a dad. And so that was just kind of the path that we were going down. 

Laura: Robin got pregnant during a season of intense transition. 

Robyn: We got pregnant and we were also simultaneously moving across the country. to the Midwest you know, I was like eight or nine weeks pregnant and had left my work Even though I had been licensed for years at that point spent a good part of my pregnancy studying for licensing exams in Minnesota because they don't transfer from [00:05:00] California so it was summer and then quickly fall and then winter, winter, winter, 

We had Ellie in the dead of winter in Minnesota I had a traumatic and very difficult first birth And then It snowed every single day in February, right after she was born. 

Laura: Robin grew up in Florida and hadn't fully understood what it meant to be in a place where half of the year was winter. 

Robyn: I remember the first time, it really snowed. It was like the beginning of December overnight it snowed like a foot.

you know, we woke up and it was like a bomb went off. Like everything was covered, nothing was recognized. 

And I panicked and I was like, when is it going to melt? And my husband was like, it's not going to melt. It's going to be here until like, it was totally shocking. 

Laura: But the biggest shock of all was one that she thought that she was prepared for motherhood.[00:06:00]

Robyn: The shock of moving to a new place and the shock of moving to a place that is so cold and snowy. And then the shock of having this baby. 

I just remember especially those first few days, bringing her home and just kind of being like, what do I do with this being?

Just being sort of terrified when she would cry being like, what do I do? How do I feed this person? 

Robyn: I spent years and years in high school and college nannying and babysitting and taking care of little children.

And I still felt leveled by this experience. like

, I had no clue what I was doing. 

Laura: I grew up in those Minnesota winters. I remember the way that winter felt relentless, how the snow could change the world overnight. And even though I had my babies in California, I remember too my own winter of the soul.

When I went through the [00:07:00] same transition that Robin experienced as a new mom, robin says that she thinks it's one of the biggest transitions a person can go through. One day, you're responsible only for yourself and then the next day, there's a tiny person whose whole existence depends on your ability to care for them.

Even as a professional, that transition was shocking.

Robyn: Being a professional that was what I did for work. I had been a licensed therapist for years. At this point, I had started specializing in perinatal mental health. I had gotten all this training and then there, I was in my own. Struggles and in my own pain. And with all of those questions of what is happening, this is not what I thought this was going to be, why is this so hard?

Why am I so terrified to like, take her out of the house? Why is this so, so, so, so much harder than I thought it was going to be. I was [00:08:00] reeling from that for a really long time. 

I was, not doing great. I definitely had postpartum anxiety Mixed in, with a little bit of postpartum depression. Those two things go, hand in hand, not all the time, but many people have, pieces of both. 

Laura: Looking back now, Robin can see indicators that would have been helpful to her. If she'd known to look for them, 

Robyn: Becoming a mom feeling how relentless parenting is this Experience is so much harder than I ever imagined. my own mother could never say any of that. I don't know if she had postpartum depression or anxiety, but I know that my mom struggled with depression and anxiety over the course of her life. 

No one ever was like, Hmm, okay. That's a risk factor for you. you have depression and anxiety and your family of origin. There are other [00:09:00]people in your extended family who have mental health issues. Like I never heard any of that before I had gotten my own education about it.

But even with that, you just don't always know how bad you feel until , you have somebody else saying like, Hmm, you don't seem like yourself, it seems like you're really struggling.

There aren't very many places , that women and moms can share their real and raw experiences and feelings because of so much shame and guilt and our culture just doesn't really support that.  

Laura: Even though decades had passed. Robyn saw that the women, she worked with faced many of the same challenges that her own mother had faced. Many of them found it next to impossible to figure out how to prioritize themselves. They assumed that putting their own needs last, even if it meant that their own mental health was suffering was just part of what it meant to be a mother. Robin had felt that herself, even though she knew better,

She came out of that experience, determined to find a way [00:10:00] to offer the support that she wished that she'd had that she wished for her mother too, but it took some time to figure out how to move out of that winter season of life.

Partly because just a year after they moved from San Francisco to Minneapolis, they decided to move back.

Robyn: What do I do? Do I reopen my private practice? Do I try to get a job at a clinic 

I did sort of a little bit of both starting around when she was like nine months old. 

I thought that, when we moved back, I was going to feel

different, better, happier, more solid and stable. And it was almost like moving back to the familiar place 

and realizing that everything was different. Because now I was a mom and I had this little baby that I was taking care of who was utterly dependent on me. 

Because of all the transition and the postpartum anxiety and [00:11:00] moving back and forth across the country a couple of times, and having to reestablish my career and do all these things you know, I felt.

pretty lost. It took me kind of a while to get back, or I felt like I was connected to my work and reconnected to the community. And then she was like a toddler and it was, challenging and like a whole different way. 

Laura: It was in the midst of that transition when Robin was seeking support for herself and trying to reestablish her life, that she began to connect her lifelong passion for maternal mental health to her own story in a new way. She saw the gaps in the medical system and the needs of the women that she was serving, not just through their experiences, but through her own.

Robyn: It just became, even more clear that I wanted to really devote my practice to this. I think so many people suffer and struggle because of the expectation and the reality, just not meeting, it's sort of within the [00:12:00]space between our expectations and fantasies and the reality of how it actually feels to parent somebody that a lot of anxiety and depression can pop up.

That experience that I went through becoming a first-time mom and going through all of that really just took something that I felt really passionately about and just like catapulted me. And it just kind of became something that I was like, this is what I have to do now that I have experienced this myself.

I see the lack of resources and the lack of education that very well meaning providers who themselves have never been educated around perinatal mood and anxiety they're not asking the questions, they're not doing the follow-up. I saw that and witnessed that myself and That solidified it even more. This was just something that was really my calling.

Laura: A few years later when she was feeling more grounded in both her career and her home, Robin [00:13:00] and her husband started talking about having a second child, but this time around the decision, wasn't quite so straightforward

Robyn: We kind of went back and forth for a little while about whether or not we were going to have another baby because the transition had been so intense.

And then we decided to go, which again goes back to this question of if you know something so hard, why would you do it again? And again, But there we were doing it again. I was 35 when I had Ellie and I was 39 when I had Luca. So, you know, that's also really hard to have babies later in terms of what it requires of you physically. But I think I was like, we're in California, I had reestablished my career, I had, been parenting for three and a half years. And then we had Luca and then six weeks after we had Luke, I broke my.

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Robyn: I just slipped on our [00:14:00] driveway 

will never forget this. The day before it happened was like the first time I had taken both of the kids out of the house by myself.

And I had taken led to a dance class with Luca who was a newborn. 

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Robyn: And I was like, oh, I have so got this. I can totally do the mom of two thing. Like I have got this. And then the next day I broke my ankle. 

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Robyn: Even after that experience of having a newborn and a toddler and a broken ankle and not being able to walk, that whole experience, as hard as that was, was still not as hard as becoming a mom for the first

Laura: Over the years. One of the things that's fascinated me most as a parent is the way that it happens differently for everybody. How it seems like for all of us, there's a season of parenting that breaks us. Some people experienced the shock of becoming a new parent with that first child for others.

It's the surprise baby. When they thought that they were done having kids for me, it was the transition from one kid to [00:15:00] two. I went into parenting with my eyes. So wide open that I had very little imagination for the joy of it. I'd never had the baby bug. And I was so worried that I wouldn't be a good mom, that I came into the experience ready for the worst. I relied heavily on the advice of friends who were a little further down the road, who could look back on those newborn years with a little more perspective. I got lucky and having a first child who made it easy to implement that advice. Gabe was a great sleeper and a natural introvert who was along for the ride, whether I was running with him and the jogging stroller, or had him strapped to my back of the grocery store. But by the time we had grace, Gabe had just turned two and my easy baby had become a toddler who wasn't exactly thrilled to have a sibling those years coincided with Nate's work at apple and Sony.

Two places with long commutes. I remember days where he'd leave before the rest of us woke up and not come home again until the kids were in bed.

I felt [00:16:00] guilty a lot during those years. I loved my kids and wanting to do right by them. But mostly what I felt was trapped. The only time I took a break from being a mom was to write usually in the early mornings or while they were napping, which meant that there wasn't much time left over for me to just take care of myself or relax. 

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Robyn: our society and our culture does not really promote mothers prioritizing themselves let alone, speaking the truth about how we actually feel about motherhood or at least the whole picture of motherhood.

Our culture wants us to be positive and happy all the time and, find the silver linings and be grateful and, focus on the positive. And no experience we have is holy one thing, right?

It's always a mix of all of the [00:17:00] things. 

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Robyn: I think that's a big part of where mom, guilt and shame come from. 

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Robyn: Like, what's wrong with me that I feel this way, what's wrong with me, that I don't want to be with my children every second of every day. 

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Robyn: Why does it seem like that mom over there can do it and loves it and is doing all the things and I don't want to, or that doesn't feel good to me or I don't have the energy for that 

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Robyn: the, pressure that our culture puts on us to look a certain way and be a certain way and feel a certain way. But also, the comparison culture that we live in, where we're always comparing to what it appears like another mom is doing with her kids or feeling about motherhood.

Laura: When I was a new mom. I was fortunate to have a lot of fellow moms who I looked up to but that also often left me feeling like compared to them, I was lacking. This was never more true than when my kids were one and three. I remember feeling overwhelmed all the time. By my [00:18:00] son's hour long temper tantrums by the never ending cycle of laundry and cleaning and dishes by my inability to keep it all together, the way that other moms seem to do naturally,

it wasn't until much later that I learned about postpartum depression and had the vocabulary to understand what I was going through at the time. 

Robyn: So many people have that experience where you don't really know how bad you felt until you're out of it or until you're in a different state. And you're like, wow, I was not myself. That was not good. I was in a dark place. I was spiraling.

Laura: There was one point in parenting when I had spiraled so far down that I didn't know how to get out of it.

Right in the middle of that season of parenting a toddler and a newborn, I got pregnant. It's hard for me to adequately. Describe how excited I was for that third baby. The way it gave me hope, even though one more kid would most certainly mean that I was more, not less overwhelmed because [00:19:00] that's the funny thing about parenting often our feelings about it. Aren't logical. I had a boy and a girl, clearly I had my hands full. Maybe it was that I was a third child myself.

I've tried to articulate over the years why I wanted that third child so bad. Why it felt like the missing piece that would complete our family. And finally make me whole,

all I know is that after three years of feeling worn down by parenting, I felt hopeful in a way that I hadn't realized I'd missed. That is until I went in for my nine week ultrasound and learned that my baby had died.

I knew that miscarriage has happened, but I wasn't prepared for the way that the loss unraveled me, how the ripple effects lasted for months, both physiologically and emotionally. I was in my late thirties by then. And so hearing from the doctor that we should wait at least a few months before trying again, felt devastating.

Instead of [00:20:00] slowly getting better month after month, I got more and more depressed.

I remember how much it stung when well-meaning friends would say things like, well, at least you already have two kids.

The loss hollowed me out in a way that I wasn't prepared for even Nate didn't fully understand. I remember the intense loneliness of that season, despite the fact that I almost never had a moment to myself with two kids at home.

Robyn: Pregnancy loss is one of the many, many things in the. Realm of parenting and motherhood and pregnancy, that just doesn't get talked about, right?

Like we have a culture where you're not supposed to even tell people you're pregnant until you're in your second trimester. And so when there's pregnancy loss it's such an isolating lonely experience because our culture does not really support people sharing about that, or even acknowledged that as a loss [00:21:00] or acknowledge that as grief.

it's also really complicated when someone has experienced loss and then has a child, or has children and struggles emotionally. It's like, I wanted this so badly. I tried, I had, loss and tragedy and trauma and now I have this beautiful child. Why do I feel so terrible? we don't have spaces where we really get to talk about those feelings.

Grief is such an integral part of the human experience, but certainly the experience of, parenting and mothering. so much of the work that I do with people is Creating the space for them to feel that, 

And certainly therapy is not the only place to do that. there are other places in friendships and relationships and through creative means, but that's huge part of what I do with people is, cultivating that [00:22:00] trust and the space for them to share all of that. 

Laura: In the years since then I've come to understand just how much more complicated that loss was than I even understood at the time. It wasn't just the death of the physical being, but of the hopes and dreams that we'd had for the way that our life could be.

It's a loss that I sometimes still feel all of these years later. Even though we got pregnant with Matea at the very moment. When we given up hope of ever having another baby,

Having walked with friends through everything from miscarriages to losing teenage children. I still don't understand all of the complexities of grief. 

I only know that it hits each of us differently in different seasons of life. And that sometimes you can't explain why.

I wish I'd known Robin. During those years of my life, it would have been a great comfort to talk to someone who could understand during our conversation. I asked Robin what I wish I'd known to ask back then. How do you know [00:23:00] if you're experiencing postpartum depression or anxiety, and how do you get out of it?

Robyn: I think a good way to filter that and to think about that is do you feel like yourself, And that a complicated question, right?

Cause we're all dynamic and always changing and growing, but do you feel connected to who you are and your relationships? I think though that the other barometer that's really important is how you're feeling. So let's say that you're anxious is that interfering with your daily functioning?

And that can look so many different ways, but you know, I think that people often don't say like, I'm depressed. I'm anxious. People describe other things that are going on. Like, I don't feel like myself or I'm getting angry a lot more than I used to, or, I'm worried all the time or I'm fearful of this [00:24:00] most people who are not professionals are not necessarily gonna label how they feel as depression or anxiety, but often are talking about other things going on.

Other ways that their lives are being impacted and their functioning is being impacted. you can kind of ask yourself some of those questions therapy is not the only way to get support and to feel more connected to yourself. But I think that in terms of certainly of postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety or perinatal mood and anxiety issues all of the research points to therapy as one of the main components to helping people recover and people do. These are not things that people struggle with forever. 

Laura: Eventually I did get help through counseling. Nate. And I went to marriage counseling too, since the loss wasn't just affecting me, but our entire family. And eventually I did get better there. We didn't fix the loss, 

but it did give me the tools to [00:25:00] face another day and feel a little more hopeful. So much of enduring loss and learning how to take care of our mental health is understanding what it is we're dealing with in the first place. So that we can get the appropriate tools to cope.

So I asked Robin to break down the particular challenges that she sees with new mothers and to give us the vocabulary, to learn how to talk about these challenges better starting with what's commonly referred to as baby blues.

.

Robyn: Baby blues is basically like zero to about two to three weeks. And it is a confluence of hormones and adjustment and stress and sleep deprivation and all of the things sort of swirling around.

If you're breastfeeding, you know, milk coming in, all of that stuff, that's happening. Physically and emotionally that basically is just a, kind of a rollercoaster ride of emotions, right? Like you can be fine one minute and then crying the next and have [00:26:00] really no idea why. It's a lot of feelings.

But that is a short, lived experience. 

pre pandemic, about 80% of postpartum people would experience baby boomers. So that's almost everybody 

if you continue to have those feelings and those experiences beyond two or three weeks, and it's often something more than that. And so that's when an experienced provider would be really walking you through questions about how you're doing to determine if you are depressed, if you're anxious.

Laura: But Robin said that these numbers have also changed a lot with the pandemic.

Robyn: Pre pandemic, around 20%. Of women would develop some kind of perinatal mood or anxiety disorder. 

There's more and more research coming out about how birthing people and postpartum people are doing in the pandemic, which is not, great. I [00:27:00]just saw a number recently that said, now it's looking like 70 or more percent of women, which is, really difficult to hear, but also I'm not surprised in the least isolation and the fear 

you know, there was a long period of time where there was a question if like partners would be allowed in hospital rooms and like, do you have to wear a mask when you're laboring? Just like all of these pieces that. Impact somebody has experienced that are very real. it's not surprising to me that it's so high, but it's a mental health crisis, for sure. 

I read something in the New York times. . It was an article interviewing therapists about what it's been like to do this work in the pandemic.

And one of them said that, you know, she thinks that she's going to be dealing with this for the rest of her career like that this is something that people are going to be talking about and [00:28:00] processing and referring to and grieving for The rest of their lives. Right. And as a therapist, that, that is now part of what people are bringing.

that's just a reality. And these conversations and the things that people are grappling with because it's been so, so difficult. 

Laura: robin says that she's felt this in her own practice to 

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Robyn: I have a number of people in my practice. I've never met him. And I also have a number of people who I've seen all the way through their pregnancy, but have never seen their pregnant bodies, like their bellies because of zoom

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Robyn: One of the things that people do in therapy is kind of talk about something over and over and over and over again.

That's part of how we process things is by going over things trying to make meaning and integrate these things. 

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Robyn: And so for me as a therapist, it's been really 

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Robyn: intense to support people through the deep loss and trauma that people have [00:29:00] experienced due to the pandemic the sort of relentlessness of that. While also I'm having my own. Experiences in the pandemic and homeschooling and raising children 

the last two years have been simultaneously some of the most rewarding for me as a therapist and the hardest. 

Laura: The experience has been a lot like motherhood.

Even in the midst of the grief. There've been reasons to feel hopeful.

Robyn: I feel hopeful because I think that one of the things that it has done is nudged people into therapy. If you didn't have a therapist before, you've either seriously, thought about going to therapy or you found a therapist.

I mean, people really are struggling, not just parents, but everybody. And everyone has needed support in all of the ways through this thing. And so yes, it's coming out of crisis and coming out of trauma, but do feel [00:30:00]hopeful that people have been pushing. To take care of themselves more and to get support and seek, support.

That feels hopeful. 

Laura: I asked Robin what advice should give to her younger self. If she could go back to that Minnesota winter, when she felt so lost and alone, what advice you would give to her own mother? If she could go back in time, what advice she gives to herself now and to the women she sees in her practice.

Robyn: Stop trying to be perfect. You're human. You're going to make mistakes and you're going to not always show up the way you want to as a mom or as a partner or as a therapist. 

You have to take time and space for yourself to do the things that fill your cup for. Before you can show up for any of those other relationships.

We're not taught to do this. We [00:31:00] were not taught to put ourselves first or to put ourselves maybe anywhere on the list priorities.  

Children learn by watching us way more than by what we say. They learn by seeing how we live. When a child sees a mother. Saying, I love you and I need a break right now.

I'm going to go for a run or I'm going to go in my room and close the door for a little while, or I'm gonna, take a night away from myself or go out with my friends or go to Zumba class or whatever it is. That child sees it like, oh, mom is human mom has needs. And she is going to meet those needs.

And then they internalize that actually that's what human beings do. Mothers are human and everybody has needs and you have to go and meet them. No one is going to do that for you. And you want your kids to grow up and be people who.

take care of themselves acknowledging that [00:32:00] as a mother I'm human and I'm not perfect and I never will be. , that, compassion for myself in all of the ways that I'm flawed as a human and a mother and still feeling, kind of intact and safe 

our children learn how to be. People by watching us. And if they can see that we feel safe in ourselves. Then that's kind of the goal. 

Laura: As we approach another mother's day. I wonder what it would look like to approach this day, not just as another chance to have brunch or buy flowers, but as a day to acknowledge the complexity of our experiences on this planet, the ways that whether or not we are mothers, ourselves, all of us are who we are, at least in part because of the mothers around us.

My encouragement to you today, and to myself, is to see if you can find space to celebrate a mother in your life and also space to care for someone who's grief. If that someone is you maybe think about what it would look like to [00:33:00]care for yourself today to extend compassion, to let yourself admit that you're not doing okay.

Maybe even reach out to Robin. 

Robyn: People can find me on Instagram at the postpartum therapist. And my website is www dot Algona, M F t.com. you can find information about my practice and I offer postpartum moms groups, and hope to keep supporting them.

Laura: robin said that one of the most important things that she's learned in her work with mothers. Is that caring for ourselves? Doesn't just mean not putting ourselves last all the time.

It means having at least one thing in our lives that has nothing to do with caregiving or pleasing others, something that's ours alone. 

That we do, just because it's joyful for Robin, that one thing has been dancing. It's been one of those things for me too. And so we met and the Zuma class at making wave studios when we were both there dancing, simply [00:34:00]because it brought us joy. If you've heard our episodes dancing, saved my life and finding the , then you've already met the founders two mothers who found in dance, their own source of.

Robin is celebrating this mother's day by dancing in the San Francisco carnival Samba, Shea. It'll be the first time she's done it since before the.

She said, it's just for me, it's my thing. It's an utter joy.