KEY POINTS:
An IVF baby is a struggle for life, a celebration of life. But Nicole Yvette Alexander was only six months in this world when this might-not-have-been baby endured the surely-can't-happen - the death of both her parents, by suicide, one after the other.
As is the case with most suicides, no one knows what Leanne Foster or Brendon Alexander were thinking in those last few moments - or why they would go to such lengths to have Nicole, only to then abandon her.
For Jimmy and Helen Foster there are the inevitable feelings of guilt, sadness and anger.
"Our daughter came to us for help and we couldn't get it. We were powerless to do anything," Jimmy says. "There are lots of what-ifs. A day doesn't go by when we don't ask ourselves questions over this."
Most of their anger is directed at mental health services in Christchurch and Greymouth, who dealt with Leanne last March.
After an initial assessment by telephone in Christchurch, she was referred to Greymouth where she was prescribed sleeping tablets and told to go home.
At 8.45am the following day, Leanne was found dead at her Reefton home. She was just 26.
Six weeks later, Brendon, 32 - overwhelmed by conflicting feelings of guilt, loss and blame - would also end his own life.
"He just wanted to be with Leanne," says Jimmy. "He couldn't live without her. If we had marched her [Leanne] inside Christchurch Hospital and demanded action, she and Brendon would be here today. That's a certainty."
In the past month, Westport coroner Peter Roseli has ruled the official cause of death in both cases was suicide.
He described the deaths as "particularly sad" and "a harrowing experience for the families".
For Nicole, now 21 months old, the death of her parents has left her a virtual orphan. She is being cared for by both sets of grandparents, but as Jimmy and Helen admit, they can never fill the void left by her parents.
They wish they had a simple explanation why Leanne and Brendon chose to walk out on their daughter.
Jimmy thinks back to the elation on Leanne's face the day Nicole finally made her entrance into the world. For the couple it had been a long, hard road to parenthood, with initial feelings of sadness over not being able to naturally conceive a child - and then misgivings about the cost, uncertainty and potential disappointment of having IVF treatment.
But the memory of those difficult years melted away on the day Leanne and Brendon bundled their miracle baby up and took her home from hospital to begin what everyone thought would be a happy new life together.
As a couple, Leanne and Brendon were inseparable. She met him when she was 15 and 18 months later they were living together. "They were childhood sweethearts and spent 24 hours of every day together," Jimmy says.
"It was hugely pleasing to see my daughter with someone like Brendon. He was a fantastic guy and he idolised Leanne, as she did him."
Small-town at heart, both were also happy with life in Reefton, despite its isolation and limited opportunities.
They worked with Helen harvesting sphagnum moss for export, and as a sideline the couple renovated and sold several old houses.
Life was good, but they still hankered for a child.
After trying, and failing, for several years to conceive naturally, they decided to pin their hopes on in vitro fertilisation - an expensive and often time-consuming fertility process. Results aren't guaranteed. In fact, far from it. Despite the major medical advances of the past few years, the pregnancy success rate with IVF is still less than 50 per cent.
But Leanne and Brendon got lucky first time around.
Jimmy recalls: "We didn't even know they had been trying for kids. But when we heard the news, we thought it was wonderful. We knew they'd make great parents. Brendon, especially, was over the moon about the idea of fatherhood."
Leanne, meanwhile, began planning for her daughter's arrival by stocking up on baby clothes and decking out a nursery in their home.
Jimmy says there were no signs during that time of the mental health problems that were to come.
"She blossomed during the pregnancy, and did everything by the book. She was very methodical."
The birth of a newborn is usually a joyful event, but the arrival of Nicole Yvette Alexander in August 2005 was an extra special occasion.
After contemplating the prospect of never being able to have children, there were smiles all round as Brendon and Leanne celebrated their "happy healthy new girl".
The feelings, though, were shortlived. While most women feel unusually emotional in the days immediately after giving birth, in Leanne's case these feelings continued for months - and then progressively worsened.
Jimmy began to worry. To him it seemed more than just your typical baby blues.
"She was going through post-natal depression, but something else was definitely going on."
He put some of the problem down to the panic attacks Leanne was prone to having, but what he couldn't explain was the feelings of extreme paranoia she was experiencing.
"She would go to bed and wake up and think everyone had deserted her and stolen her baby," says Jimmy.
"She had started losing weight, her sleep patterns were getting mucked up and soon it was hard to turn things around. Brendon came and told us he was worried about her. He said Leanne was in a bit of bother."
Jimmy spoke with his daughter and told her "don't worry we'll get you through this, this is no big drama".
"She just said if she could have some sleep she'd be fine. But every time she'd lie down she'd have an anxiety attack."
With the situation now at crisis point, Leanne and Brendon drove to Christchurch Hospital where Jimmy was recovering from spinal surgery.
"Leanne thought I could fix anything, but I was out of my league with this. She wasn't well."
Jimmy, now "gravely concerned" for Leanne's welfare, decided to take up his concerns with the hospital's mental health team.
Their response was to refer him to their emergency psychiatric team, who in turn recommended that he and Leanne should see someone in Greymouth. Going along with that was, in hindsight, a fatal mistake, he says.
"We were in Christchurch. I should have insisted we be seen in Christchurch, not Greymouth, simply because it's closer to where we live.
"I believe by the time we left Christchurch, Leanne had made up her mind about what she was going to do. Had she be seen in Christchurch, she'd be here today."
Helen agrees: "They should have admitted her and assessed her properly there."
Leanne was assessed at Greymouth Hospital the following day, and Jimmy was told she was not considered a suicide risk. She was then given sleeping tablets and told to make an appointment for a full medical assessment at the Reefton Medical Centre the next day.
That night Leanne dropped Nicole off at Brendon's parents' place. It would be the last time she would ever see her daughter.
Her mind made up, she ended it the following morning while Brendon was taking a shower. The suicide note gave clues to her state of mind.
"She was apologising, saying sorry for the fact she could not it make better for Brendon and Nicole. She thought she was hurting them. She thought she was destroying them," Jimmy remembers.
His first reaction was anger. "I was full of hate at the time. I was looking for someone to blame, anyone."
Brendon, he says, was "devastated, just a mess".
"When he lost Leanne he went downhill fast," says Jimmy. "We all tried to keep him on track, keep him focused on other things but the time without her - and the realisation she was never coming back - eventually took its toll."
Six weeks after Leanne died, on April 23, Brendon dropped Nicole off with his mother and just vanished. He was found five days later on an isolated track overlooking the Reefton Cemetery where Leanne was buried.
Says Jimmy: "Brendon had lots of support, but none of us were Leanne. He just wanted to be with her. That is all he would have been thinking.
"We will never get over what has happened. It has come close to destroying us all. Sometimes we think we don't have any strength left.
"But saying that we have a remarkably strong family and that's been a huge help. We're a family that looks after one another."
Jimmy says Nicole will be told what happened to her mum and dad when she gets older. And it will be the truth, he says.
"I'll tell her it's not that they didn't love her. It was just that Leanne was very ill. And Brendon, well, he, just couldn't cope without her."
The baby blues - what to look for
* Post-natal depression is a common illness affecting more than one-in-10 women after childbirth.
* It usually develops within the first month after childbirth. Symptoms include feeling low, miserable and tearful for no apparent reason. These feelings can be worse at certain times of day, particularly the morning.
* Post-natal depression often leads to strong feelings of anxiety. New mums may also experience panic attacks when they feel as if something catastrophic is about to happen.
* Depression is often accompanied by feelings of being worthless and hopeless.
* There is no easy cure for post-natal depression but in some cases doctors prescribe anti-depression drugs such as Prozac. Experts suggest sufferers also undergo counselling.
