I remember feeling alone. Waiting for a maternal instinct to kick in so I could be joyful.

I had postpartum depression with my first baby. I wasn’t making enough milk so I couldn’t feed her. She was starving, literally wasting away and I felt so much pressure to not give her formula. Nobody was sleeping. I cried pretty consistently whenever I was alone with the baby. I was suicidal but didn’t want my husband to have to step in and fix things or have to take care of everything if I was dead. I daydreamed about walking into traffic or in front of a Go-train. I would spend every moment with my baby because I knew I didn’t want anything to happen to her. Protecting her kept me alive. And the whole time I had to pretend to be happy as a new mother. We had no family or friends around. We were alone.

My husband told me to get help. I was broken hearted because I thought I was hiding my sadness so well. Also my nurse practitioner told me to stop going to my lactation consultant and just primarily feed my baby formula. She could see the stress was just too much. I felt I finally had permission to talk and to not exclusively breastfeed.

I wish I had put less pressure on myself to exclusively breastfeed. I wish I would’ve known to talk to someone about how I was feeling and not to try to hide it so much. There’s a real expectation for new parents to be buoyant with joy. It’s hard to share when actually things can feel pretty lonely or sad.

If I could talk to someone going through something similar right now, I would say: You’re a great mom, and you’re going to feel better if you get help. It won’t always feel this scary or dark. The world is better with you in it.

When I look back, I see that I had people around me but I didn’t want to share what I was feeling. Not being able to feed my baby made me feel like I was broken. I’m so glad I got help.

—Nancy Baroni