Marcelle Cooper experienced an unsettling moment when she gazed at her joyful, laughing baby and felt an unexpected emptiness.

In the years leading up to that moment, Cooper had faced the heartbreak of six miscarriages. Alongside her husband, Steve, she underwent IVF treatments and explored various alternative therapies in their determined quest to become parents.

Then, unexpectedly, a year after the North Sydney couple had given up trying, their “beautiful miracle girl,” Skye, was born.

The Gidget Foundation, named in memory of a young mother who tragically took her own life due to postnatal depression, serves as a poignant reminder of the condition’s reach.

“Gidget had the perfect marriage, a lovely home, a great job, and wonderful friends,” Cooper reflected. “Yet, postnatal depression spares no one.”

“It doesn’t discriminate.

“Asking for help isn’t a weakness, that’s the strength, and that was definitely the scariest and most courageous thing I did.

“But it wasn’t until I did reach out that everything changed.”

Baby Skye is now about to turn five, and will start school next year.

“She’s so caring and she’s super sensitive to everyone else’s feelings,” Cooper said.

”We look at each other sometimes and we’re like, wow, this little human is so lovely.”

Gidget Foundation Australia is not a crisis support service.