In July 1990, all Mary's dreams came true when she found she was pregnant. She is a teacher, and looking back she says things began to go wrong around halfway through her pregnancy.
"My husband David would often come home to find me lying on the couch in floods of tears over an incident that happened at school. Nothing seemed to relax me and I became more and more unhappy. My positive attitude to my pregnancy slowly began to change. I became uneasy and very self-conscious."
Mary's baby was premature and had to spend time in the hospital baby unit for treatment. "The way this information was relayed tipped me over the edge. I was sure my baby was going to die. I told no-one of my fears. Outwardly I smiled, but inside I was in total despair. One present was a lovely outfit for the baby at eighteen 18 months, and I remember thinking `he'll be dead long before then'.".
Back home she was fearful and jaded: "I was unable to make the simplest of decisions. If the baby even dribbled a tiny bit of milk, I panicked. I stopped eating, and coping with the house was beyond me," she says. Mary was obviously in crisis. Her GP diagnosed post-natal depression, prescribed medication and everyone thought she would recover quickly: "David was left to look after the baby at night while I slept full of tablets. I felt so useless. The two of us were exhausted, and he had to go to work every day with all this worry on his mind. What was supposed to be such a happy time was turning into a nightmare."
The family limped through summer 1991 somehow, and in September Mary finally committed herself to hospital where she was to remain for two months. "The bed would be a rock to crawl under, but I felt a failure as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a teacher, a woman," she says.
"In hospital I slept and cried, cried and slept. Eventually my psychiatrist found a tablet that agreed with me but my path to recovery was slow. "On discharge I was nervous and apprehensive. I was still on a lot of medication and my legs were like jelly."
By June 1992, 15 months after her baby's birth, Mary was fully recovered. She says despite her illness, her relationship with her son was and is strong and positive. When she became pregnant three years later, she took action. She avoided work stress, took iron tablets and ate very healthily. In hospital with her second son she had family visitors only and plenty of rest. Back home she accepted all offers of help, and when the baby slept, she took the 'phone off the hook and slept as well. "I remember one night picking him out of his carrycot for his feed and a wave of very strong emotion engulfed me. I cuddled him close to me and it was as if we melted into one. The smell of him entered my heart and I knew I'd made it. This time I could enjoy it".