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By Daniella Gray
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For Steven D'Achille and his wife Alexis, life was a fairytale. Meeting at a mutual friend's birthday party in 2011, the pair hit it off immediately.
"We had a lot in common. We liked all the same things; we thought the same way. It was just really easy and natural," Steven told Newsweek.
During the early stages, the pair had to make it work long distance. Steven was in Pittsburgh while Alexis lived in New Jersey with her parents. However, after a few trips back and forth, Alexis gave him an ultimatum.
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"She said, 'What's wrong with you, are you an idiot?'. She gave me this list of all the amazing qualities she had and what she brought to the table, and she was like, 'You can never do better than me'. In the back of my mind, I'm like, 'she's right. I can't ever get better than her,'" Steven recalled.
Once they had made it official, Steven moved to New Jersey and proposed Alexis. After deciding that life in the state wasn't for them, the couple moved back to Steven's hometown and began a life together.
They had a rich social life with plenty of friends, but they grew out of getting dressed up and going to clubs. Aware of this shift in their life, the couple decided they were ready to start a family.
"Right now, we look terrible because we just turned down all our invitations. At least if we had a kid, we could say that gets the kid, you know, we got to stay home," Steven joked.
Alexis got pregnant quicker than expected in November 2012 and Steven told Newsweek that her pregnancy was flawless. It was an exciting time for the couple, filled with seeing family and friends at various baby showers organized for Alexis.
Steven explained that his wife had never had any struggles with bad mental health. "She was the voice of reason; the girl that myself, friends and family confided in. You would take your problems to her because she'd have the right answer," he said.
Alexis gave birth to their daughter, Adriana, in August 2013, but what occurred in the delivery room would impact both of them for weeks afterward.
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After being in labor for some time, Alexis finally had the urge to push. Steven remembered the doctor in her care telling Alexis that the baby wasn't coming for another two hours and that they had to deliver a high-risk pregnancy before Alexis'.
Alexis told Steven that she couldn't wait, and she felt like she needed to push at that moment. "Both of us were screaming at the top of our lungs, but no one is coming," Steven said.
Suddenly, Alexis was classed as a code blue delivery—where either the mom's or baby's life is at risk. Unbeknown to doctors, the umbilical cord was wrapped around Adriana's neck, and she wasn't breathing when she came out.
After an agonizing wait, Adriana started to cry, bringing relief to the new parents.
"When I looked at my wife in the bed, she was so terrified by what just happened. Her eyes were completely glazed over and it was like something had changed in that moment, and she would never be the same again," Steven said.
From the day of Adriana's birth, making decisions became impossible for Alexis. First, she questioned whether she'd chosen the best name for her daughter, and then the design of the nursery at home or whether they had the correct car seat.
"She was second-guessing herself and her ability to take care of our daughter, and this downward spiral started," Steven said.
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"She was completely detached from Adriana and then she slowly detached from everything she loved and cared about, including our puppy—who was our world before Adriana," he told Newsweek.
Steven explained how Alexis thought that she couldn't do anything right, when in reality, it was her dream to become a mother. "She really believed that her first act of motherhood was harming our daughter," he added.
Two weeks after Adriana was born, Steven and Alexis visited the doctor for Alexis' anxiety, where she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from the traumatic birth.
As time went on, with no improvements to Alexis' mental health, doctors would give her coping mechanisms to try and calm her anxiety, such as counting backward from 100 to zero or distracting her mind from the cause.
Steven didn't realize how bad things really were until they were in the car on the way back from an appointment and Alexis suggested they find adoptive parents for Adriana. "That's when I knew that it was much more severe than I could ever imagine. She was just a shell of the person that I knew and loved," he added.
Steven told Newsweek that her mental health got worse as the days passed. The couple went to seven different hospitals as well as "any crisis center that would see us." It got to the point where Alexis couldn't be left alone on her own.
After months of seeing various doctors and mental health specialists, Steven was at a loss, despite telling them that Alexis was making threats to harm herself. Steven recalled one saying: "Women like her would never commit suicide the floppy way. Women like her would never want anyone to remember them not looking their best."
"I can't believe I was stupid enough to believe him. Sure enough, I was married to the one woman like her," Steven said.
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Alexis took her life in October 2013, just six weeks after she gave birth to Adriana. Steven tried to resuscitate her and was told by doctors that there was "no way" she was going to make it.
In the weeks after her death, Steven resolved to make it his mission to prevent anything like this from happening again, determined to build a legacy for Adriana to carry forward in her mother's name.
The Alexis Joy Foundation helps women and families suffering from and affected by perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. As president of the foundation, Steven has made it his goal to reduce the number of suicides of pregnant women or up to a year after delivering their baby in the U.S.
Adriana, now 11, is his biggest purpose. "I want access to care for moms everywhere," he said.
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text "988" to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org.
Correction on 11/11/24 at 04:14 a.m. ET: This story was corrected to clarify that Alexis was not prescribed Zurzuvae.
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