The Unseen Nights of Motherhood
There are nights of laughter, cocktails, and freedom… and then there are nights like mine. Nights spent holding my breath beside my child, watching battles no one talks about, carrying bruises the world never sees. This is the motherhood few speak of… the unseen nights where love is both the heaviest weight and the only thing that keeps us standing. What does it mean to survive when survival itself is the lesson? Read more in The Unseen Nights of Motherhood.
Wendy Javier
10/3/20252 min read
The Unseen Nights of Motherhood
There are moms who dress up, head out for girls’ night, laugh over cocktails, and enjoy the music and freedom of an evening away.
And then there are moms like me.
The ones who spend their nights not at dinner tables but at bedside vigils. Watching seizures flicker across a child’s body like a movie no one ever asked to see. No popcorn, no laughter just the pounding sound of your own heart as you hold your breath, making sure your child takes theirs.
There are moms who show up to work with polished nails and rested smiles.
And then there are moms who hide bruises on their arms and legs the marks left behind by a child’s self-inflicted pain. Bruises that ache as much in the body as they do in the soul.
There are moms who plan vacations, brunches, and spa days.
And then there are moms who whisper desperate prayers in the shower, asking for strength, asking for peace, asking for just one day without fear, chaos, or exhaustion. Moms who cry silently into the towel so no one else hears. Moms who wonder if tomorrow will really be any different.
Motherhood has many faces, and some of them are beautiful and celebrated. But there’s another side the one society rarely speaks about. The side where love is so deep, it pushes you into places you never thought you could survive. The side where you fight invisible battles that leave no medals, only scars.
And yet love remains.
Love is the reason we sit through those long nights.
Love is the reason we bear the bruises and keep standing.
Love is the reason we pray even when we’re too tired to speak the words.
But here’s what I’ve learned along the way:
We cannot control everything. Not the seizures. Not the outbursts. Not the storms that hit without warning. But we can choose how we live inside of them. We can choose to pause. To breathe. To claim even the smallest moments of self-love.
Because the truth is we cannot pour from an empty cup. We cannot show our children what love looks like if we deny it to ourselves. When we rest, when we nourish our bodies, when we whisper kind words to our own souls we are teaching them. We are showing them that strength isn’t just surviving the battle, it’s choosing to care for the warrior too.
So to the moms walking this path: take your moment. Claim your breath. Choose your peace. Not because life suddenly becomes easy, but because you and your child deserve the version of you that remembers she is worthy of love her own love included.
Exhausted, bruised, but never broken because love is what keeps us alive.
