Brooke Shields frankly tells of baby blues

In December 2001, as Brooke Shields waited backstage to perform a musical number for “MuppetFest,” a Jim Henson tribute and charity event at a Hollywood theater, her cellphone rang. Shields, who was pregnant at the time, already had signs that all was not well. Her doctor was calling with bad news: Further blood work confirmed that her pregnancy was “no longer viable.” She would have to wait for her body to expel the embryo or reabsorb it naturally.

Shields’ memoir “Down Came the Rain” opens with her receiving this news as she stood in the wings next to Mr. Snuffleupagus, clad in a Miss Piggy costume. Ever the professional, she wiped away her tears and stepped onstage, performing her duet with Kermit the Frog on cue.

Clearly, Shields regards self-control and self-reliance as crucial. She was a household face at 11 months of age (as the Ivory Snow baby), a stunningly beautiful film actress at 12 (as a child prostitute in “Pretty Baby”) and a Calvin Klein model as a teenager. Shields went on to graduate from Princeton with a degree in French literature and marry tennis superstar Andre Agassi. Their relationship didn’t last, but she found love again with comedy writer Chris Henchy, whom she married in May 2001. They were eager to have children; Shields “just assumed it would happen when the time was right.”

Not quite. After extensive fertility treatments, Shields eventually had daughter Rowan in May 2003. She had figured that giving birth (and politely managing the paparazzi frenzy) would be the hard part. That didn’t begin to compare with her postpartum depression. She writes that she was in denial at first, attributing her numbness to exhaustion. She found herself frustrated, feeling unable to bond with Rowan, so she put more pressure on herself to be a good and blissful mother. “In the past, I never had trouble doing something once I set my mind to it. So it didn’t occur to me that I might not be able to care for a newborn as well as my postpartum self.”

With an utter lack of vanity and a surfeit of clinical detail, Shields, 39, recalls the frightening, self-destructive effects of her illness, including bouts of panic, irrational fear and suicidal thoughts. “After only a couple of days of being home,” she writes, “my crying had increased and no longer occurred only in between feedings but during them as well.... Why was I crying more than my baby?” She was afraid to be left alone with her daughter.

The perfectionist Shields acknowledges that it was difficult to ask for help or acknowledge her suffering. She resisted medication -- having come from a family of alcoholics, she feared addiction and felt that taking drugs would be shameful -- but finally consented to taking the antidepressant Paxil. Add to that her celebrity, which made privacy for herself and her child an intense concern. “[W]hen you consider that details about my orthodontist appointments, my first period, and my virginity have all been publicized, you can understand my continual need to be prepared.”

Shields’ experience proves that postpartum depression can happen to anyone, no matter how well-educated or affluent. At first she believed it was not something that could touch “someone like me,” that it was a “crazy person’s affliction,” the kind of thing you read about in the news. She had suffered personal loss and great sadness in her life, “but I had never before faced such acute fear or had such a strong desire to die.... It was as if I’d been in an awful, freak car accident, one where I flew headfirst into the windshield through which I had viewed my life for the past thirty-seven years.”

Shields shares the books, websites and hotline resources that helped her recover and writes that she is considering having another baby.

“Down Came the Rain” is a personal story told with candor and grace that may help reduce the stigma of postpartum depression and the helplessness of those afflicted by it.

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Carmela Ciuraru is a regular contributor to Book Review.