“I could tell that I was struggling, but I really kind of kept it silent — I wasn’t talking about it,” the Fort Dodge mother of three said.

But a family member had taken notice and told her that when she went to her follow-up appointments after the births, she needed to be honest and “completely raw” with her doctor during the depression screening. So she told the “scary truth.”

“‘I told them I don’t want to live, I don’t want to be here,'” Thies said. “‘I don’t think I’m a good mom. I don’t want my kids. I hate my kids.'”

After she left the appointment, a nurse from the doctor’s office called to tell her about the Family Foundations program at the Webster County Health Department and asked if she could send her referral over.

“She said that they come to your house and the minute that she said that … I got nervous because in my mind when I think that someone’s coming to my house, I think DHS and I didn’t want someone to come in and take my babies,” Thies said.

Amanda Trice, a family support worker from the Family Foundations program, reached out to the struggling mom soon after to introduce her to the program.

“I will say it’s definitely what saved my life,” Thies said.

The Family Foundations program is an affiliate of the Parents as Teachers programming, according to Program Coordinator Brooke Kammerer. They work with families that are prenatal, all the way up to kindergarten with weekly home visits from family support workers.

The program has three main components, Kammerer said — parent and child interaction; child development and working on child-centered parenting; and family wellbeing.

The WCHD has had a Family Foundations program for more than a decade, but this is the second year it’s been an affiliate of Parents as Teachers.

“We’ve had several families be in the program for many years and we’ve had some families only need like a year or so and maybe request to discharge because they’ve met their goals,” Kammerer said.

Thies recalled the dark place she was in mentally when she began working with Family Foundations.

“When Amanda and Brooke came to my house for the first time and sat down, I don’t even think we introduced each other, I just looked right at them and broke down bawling and asked them if they’re going to take my babies away, asked them if that was their game,” Thies said. “They said no, we’re here to help you. We’re going to get you better.”

Part of that was coming up with a green-yellow-red action plan for depression. If she was in the “green zone” she’d know she was her normal self and to keep doing the things that kept her in the green zone. If she moved into the “yellow zone,” she’d have a plan to have her children stay with family members so she could focus on herself and seek help to get back into that green zone.

“Then, if we got to the red zone, that’s when we knew that it was very bad,” Thies said. Her action plan for the red zone is to get help right away by calling 911 or going to the emergency room. “And we did get there a couple of times.”

One day last spring, Thies experienced an episode of postpartum psychosis.

“I had picked up the twins and was going to try to have them for the day,” she said. “When I went to go get them, they were crying, and that just set me off. I got them in my truck and we started driving and they stopped crying, so I just drove and before I knew it, I woke up and I was in Algona in front of a cemetery. I don’t remember driving there. I don’t remember getting there and I was really scared.

”Thank goodness for this plan. I knew at that moment, I was in the red zone and I needed to ask for help and I needed to get help.”

Recognizing that, Thies headed home and called her family on the way to come get the babies so they would be safe. She also called Trice, who encouraged her to advocate and fight for herself and directed her to the walk-in emergency clinic at the BerryHill Center.

“I did and I fought for myself and I made sure that I had support that would also make me fight for myself because there was a reason for all of this, there was an end game,” Thies said. “The end game was to be the mom that I knew I was going to be.”

From the BerryHill Center, Thies then went to the emergency room at UnityPoint Health – Trinity Regional Medical Center to be admitted.

“I will say that this is 100% a lifesaver,” Thies said of the tools she’s gained from the Family Foundations program.

Part of the depression action plan is also including Thies’ family and friends. When they noticed one of the indicators that she’s slipped into the yellow or red zone, they’d reach out to Trice to set up a meeting.

“I will say, seeing Amanda made my day better because I knew that this was someone coming into my house that wanted me to get better and wanted to help with the bond with my kids and get me to where I could be,” Thies said.

This kind of support is “so needed” for parents, she said.

“Moms need to know that there’s support out there,” Thies said. “Moms need to know how to ask for support, but then their support system needs to know what to watch for and this shows them what to watch for, it shows them the red flags.”

Postpartum mental illness can affect any mother and there’s no “cookie-cutter” way it can affect a mother, Thies said.

“Postpartum depression, psychosis and anxiety is such a real thing, but people don’t want to talk about it until after the mother does something,” she said. “Then it’s a big deal. Then everybody’s so sad and everybody’s so broken and ‘What could we have done?’ Well, it’s right here.”

Thies wants to use her story to show other moms that are struggling that they’re not alone and that it’s OK to reach out for help.

“Momming is hard,” she said. “Even with support, it’s hard. So don’t feel ashamed, don’t feel embarrassed, don’t feel like you’re a bad person because of all those thoughts that go through your head.”

In an effort to help other moms, Thies is working toward becoming a certified medical assistant, and then plans to pursue certification to become a postpartum doula.

“So I can make sure that no moms ever take their lives or their baby’s life,” she said. “So they know that there is an end game.”

The department has families from a variety of backgrounds who have enrolled in the program. It is a free and voluntary program, Kammerer said.

The WHCD recently was able to increase the number of families it can help through this program because of an increase in funding from the state, adding 14 more families. In total, the program can help 54 families at a time. The funding for the program comes from the state’s Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visitation (MIECHV) program.

Families can contact the WCHD directly to enroll in the program, or they can be referred by their pediatrician, OB/GYN, WIC or other maternal health programs.

For more information on the Family Foundations program, call the WCHD at 515-573-4107.

The WCHD Family Foundations and Maternal Health programs have also recently launched a Postpartum Support Parent Cafe for mothers to connect with other moms and learn about resources available to them. Upcoming dates include Nov. 7, Nov. 21 and Dec. 12 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. and Dec. 28 from 4:30-5:30 p.m. All of the events are at the Fort Dodge Public Library, 424 Central Ave.

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