When No One Sees You: The Unwitnessed Pregnancy & Postpartum
By Jen Kost, MSW, LCSW, PMH-C
As a perinatal mental health therapist, I often hear this quiet ache woven into the stories clients share: “I don’t think anyone really saw me.”
Not just saw them in a literal sense—but witnessed them. The full, messy, sacred, exhausting, life-altering truth of their pregnancy or postpartum experience. And without that witnessing, something strange can happen. A kind of emotional disorientation. A surreal disconnect. It’s as if this monumental thing—the growing of a human, the transformation of identity, the everyday tending of a tiny life—somehow didn’t fully happen.
This is especially common among people who had less social support during their perinatal period. Maybe they were pregnant during a pandemic. Maybe they had a partner who was emotionally distant, or family members who didn’t show up in the way they hoped. Maybe friends disappeared, not out of cruelty, but because they didn’t know how to stay. And so, when the baby is finally here—or even months after—the parent is left holding their child, and their story, alone.
The truth is: being seen during pregnancy and postpartum matters more than we often realize.
It’s not vanity. It’s not performative. It’s not “asking for too much.” It’s biological, psychological, relational. We are wired for connection. We make meaning through reflection. When someone looks at us—really looks—and says, “I see what you’re carrying,” it helps us metabolize the enormity of the experience. It makes it real. It allows us to say: Yes, this happened to me. I was changed. I matter. My body matters. My story matters.
For many clients, the lack of that witnessing creates a kind of haunting. They look back on the early days of motherhood and feel like they’re staring at a ghost. “It’s like I was there, but no one else was,” they say. “I have pictures, but I don’t remember feeling seen in them.”
This is not just poetic language—it’s psychological fragmentation. Without reflection, our identity formation as parents can feel incomplete. Integrating the perinatal experience means someone helped hold it with us. Someone marked it. Noticed it. Named it.
So what can we do with this?
If you are someone who feels unwitnessed—know that your story still counts. You are not invisible to yourself. Your experience is valid, even if it wasn’t named by others. Therapy can be a place where that story is re-told, re-claimed, and gently honored. Sometimes, we even speak it aloud for the first time.
If you are supporting someone through pregnancy or postpartum, show up. Notice the details. Bring a meal, yes, but also bring your presence. Say things like:
“I see how hard you’re working.”
“You’re doing something enormous right now.”
“Your baby is lucky to have you.”
“What’s this really been like for you?”
Simple witnessing can be powerful medicine.
In this culture that often rushes people through birth and back into productivity, it’s radical to pause and look someone in the eye and say: I see you. I remember this with you. You are not alone.
And maybe, just maybe, in that moment, something begins to integrate. Something begins to heal.
