I really do wish that Best Beginnings had been around for me when I was becoming a mother. I am a mother of three that has suffered from mental ill-health silently for about 13 years, which is hard to admit. I am the bubbly smiler but behind my smiles I have been frightened and hurting. My first two children were born in Portugal, but I do believe even though it is UK based, the FREE 'Baby Buddy' app created by Best Beginnings could have helped me immensely.

I felt so alone in Portugal and my husband was always working away. I had no family to confide in. The app could have told me how my baby was developing and all those big scary words that get thrown at me, I could have searched for them in the app and found their meaning without feeling embarrassed.

I needed an emergency caesarean for the birth which was frightening. I could have searched in the app to help ease these worries like; being induced, placenta previa, iron problems, protein in my wee etc. I could have even watched videos on there that could have helped me along the way and when I started to feel sad afterwards.

We moved to England and my husband was working away from home, which I hated. By this point we had been trying for another baby for 6 months. It was at this point that I started to feel different. I went to the doctors and he told me I had depression. I was too ashamed to tell anyone. I had changed and couldn't snap out of it. I didn't have many reasons to get dressed. I still couldn’t conceive.

After three more house moves, we decided to move back to Portugal. Tia kept getting pneumonia, so we thought her health would improve. In the Spring of 2008, I found out I was pregnant after trying for 4.5 years! I can only think that my mind was preoccupied with the move and this helped. In the months coming up, I was terribly ill. The pain, sickness and the 'excessive salivation' lasted into the second trimester.

We were now in Portugal. Stuart was working away from home in London and I only got to see him every 6-8 weeks. It was terrible. I did all my appointments alone. Tia was in school. It was very lonely. Tia's health was better though, and the sunshine felt good.

During my 32-week scan, this day was the day my life changed forever. There was something wrong with my baby boy. The ventricle in his brain was too large. I was put under state hospital care. After his birth, aged 9 months, we moved to England to find out the problem. He needed life saving surgery to reconstruct his skull. He had ‘scaphocephaly’ (premature fusion of the skull). He had his major surgery. My beautiful boy is now 9. That 9 years has had many hospital trips. Three ops and maybe more to come.

When baby 3 came, mentally, I was not ready for another child. I was not over what had happened and was still happening to my son. He needed more ops. She could have had the rare genetic condition that Wallace had been born with but luckily, she didn’t. She nearly died during birth and I got open wound infections that took months to heal. It was the darkest time of my life and here was me thinking that nothing could be as bad as Wallace's scare. However, my family was complete.

I was scared, tired and feeling like a bad mother. I couldn’t hold my child properly to breastfed and all round it was bad.

Baby Buddy can help to complement resources of all pregnancy, birth and early years services. I put my name and trust behind Best Beginnings because I, like the creator Alison Baum, hold its efforts close to my heart.

-Jill Fyfe

Jill Fyfe with her husband and three children.