Nashua, New Hampshire

No Parent Should Have to Navigate This Alone

As soon as my pregnancy began, a wave of anxiety and isolation hit me that I never saw coming.

On paper, everything looked stable—my partner and I had a home, steady income, and careers we cared about. But this was my first child, and I needed someone to talk to.

I couldn’t find a single mental health resource in my community. No support groups. No parenting classes. No one to help me understand the fear and overwhelm settling into my chest. One night, just five weeks pregnant, I picked up the phone, called a pregnancy hotline, and sobbed to the stranger on the other end.

“It takes a village… but where was my village? ”

Nashua

Elevated maternal stress hormones during pregnancy can negatively affect fetal growth and birth outcomes.

Mental Health Care Shouldn’t Be a Luxury

I’ve lived with mental health challenges before, but pregnancy was the biggest test I’d ever faced. There were nights when I cried quietly on the bathroom floor, trying not to wake anyone, terrified that the stress I felt was somehow hurting my baby.

And when my son, Keanu, was born, the worry didn’t magically disappear. Some days I felt completely stuck inside my house. Even walking onto the patio with him felt overwhelming.

During those moments, the old saying rang in my ears: Put your own oxygen mask on first.
But how could I, when the support I needed simply didn’t exist?

Parents need support in order to provide support.

“I believed in my baby with everything I had; but belief alone couldn’t carry me through the hardest days. ”

Nashua

When We Support Parents, Babies Thrive

Keanu is a happy, thriving toddler now. He fills my world with laughter, and I’m endlessly grateful for that. But I also know how easily things could have gone differently.

My story isn’t rare. So many parents suffer in silence. It’s not because they don’t love their babies, but because the systems meant to catch them just aren’t there. Supporting mental health in pregnancy and early childhood shouldn’t depend on luck, location, or persistence. It should be a core part of how we care for families.

Believing in babies means standing with the people who love them the most.

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