Last week I was lying in bed enjoying the two-hour snow delay we had, a smirk on my face as I thought of all the fuss made over such a pitiful excuse for a storm, at least by the standards I am used to.

I initially thought I would write a column about the wintery weather from a practiced snowstorm trooper from Rochester (a multiple-year contender for the snowiest city in the Northeast) who has maneuvered the car safely through her fair share of unplowed roads. I would offer tips on how to deal with the white stuff while throwing in a few gentle jabs at Pennsylvania's panic-stricken approach to the storm, certain to guarantee me many angry letters from proud locals.

Then I flipped on the television, where CNN was displaying for the hundredth time a photograph of four grinning little boys, their sandy blond hair closely cropped. They, along with their baby sister, are now dead, and their mother is accused of murder.

I remember first hearing about Texas mother Andrea Yates last June as a breaking news report detailed the drowning of her five children. How could someone kill one child, let alone five, I thought.

Soon reports circulated of Yates' bout with postpartum depression, some experts even labeling her case "psychosis." I began to make some sense out of puzzle pieces. To put it bluntly, Yates was crazy when she drowned her children, which could allow her to offer an insanity plea at her trial, avoiding prison or death row.

So what is postpartum depression? Before I wrote this column, I thought I would tap my resources to try to get a better insight on the subject. I would send out a mass e-mail to my mom, grandma, aunts and every mother I have listed in my address book, asking them to describe any "baby blues" they might have faced after the births of their children — the step before actual depression that most new mothers are said to experience.

Not having dabbled with motherhood myself, I thought their testimony would be valuable. When it came down to it, however, I chickened out. I never sent the e-mail. I was embarrassed to ask them to share such personal information, and I had a feeling they would be embarrassed as well.

As a society, women's disorders continue to be misunderstood. Conditions like Yates' are made light of, or, my personal favorite, chalked up to PMS. Whatever was going on in Yates' head, a chain of people including her doctors, friends and family, although acknowledging something was wrong, didn't think she could be so desperate as to kill. Yates didn't get the help that she needed, help that could have prevented the deaths of her children.

Yates has a disorder society knows very little about and is embarrassed to speak of. Until we know more, she should be given treatment instead of prison or the death penalty, though not because she is some special breed called Mommy.

It's easy to elevate mothers to a higher status and argue that moms simply don't kill their own babies, but history tells us that's not true. The Yates case initially reminded me of South Carolina mother Susan Smith, who in 1994 rolled her car into a lake with her two sons strapped inside. However, soon I realized that Yates is no Susan Smith. Smith lied repeatedly about her boys' disappearance, sending the country on a wild goose chase with the composite of an imaginary black man as a guide. Waves of utter disbelief coursed through minority and white communities alike. Smith eventually confessed. Her motive apparently was a new boyfriend who didn't want children.

Yates, on the other hand, has been up front with the truth from the beginning, immediately calling her husband and police to report the incident. She had no motive, unless you accept that the woman who systematically drowned four boys and a girl was not Andrea Yates but a desperate version of herself.

Victims' rights activists ask us to imagine what it must have been like for the five Yates children during their final moments. While I can't comprehend the horror they must have faced, we should also think about what it must have been like for Andrea. She was exhausted, caring for an infant and four young boys and dealing with a severe form of depression, making her feel like an incompetent, unworthy, horrible mother who just couldn't do it anymore.

The snow melted and classes are now good to go, but Yates still faces the possibility that she could be put to death for her actions. This is not a question of whether the death penalty should be used or not — that's a topic for a whole other column. It's about when to punish, period. Punishing Yates would be a slap in the face to all women. No one, not even Yates, has yet to fully understand what was going on inside her head. Not wanting to take the time to do so is no excuse to simply get rid of her.