Please help me find this book I borrowed from the library in 1990!

[FantasticButtocks]

Not much to go on, sorry...
It had a brightish blue cover.
No idea of author or title, but either the husband or the baby was called Stephen/Steven, think it might actually have been the baby. Don't think the marriage was great. The mother suffers with intense loneliness and depression pnd after the birth, husband not very supportive or maybe doesn't understand... but eventually she finds something that interests her, can't remember what, maybe she starts to study, and starts to feel more human again. She starts going out and about with the pram, and also getting into her subject, she sometimes reads on a bench in the park. One day when she's doing this, very absorbed, the unthinkable happens and her child drowns in the pond.
She blames herself. Her husband blames her.

Very grim and sad, I read it when I'd just given birth to my first child
I've looked for it often, without success and I'd be so grateful if anyone recognises it.
Thanks

@Featheryboa no nota short story, definitely a whole novel

Really appreciate you all trying to help me, thank you

If the library has held on to it etc etc you may be able to find it, perhaps searching for fiction narrowed by date eg: llc.ent.sirsidynix.net.uk/client/en_GB/hackney/search/results?qu=fiction&qf=PUBDATE%09Publication+Date%091991%091991+%7C%7C+1989%091989+%7C%7C+1988%091988+%7C%7C+1990%091990&rw=168&lm=HACKNEY&rt=false%7C%7C%7CSUBJECT%7C%7C%7CSubject&isd=true

Thank you for that, I've just had a good trawl through, went down various rabbit holes... couldn't find it.

@FantasticButtocks This was the film video cover photo attached. It was called I want me dad. About a boy growing up with an alcoholic father. I was roughly 12 years old when I saw this film but Ive always remembered it as it resonated with me so much as I also had an alcoholic father. Dad would promise me things and always disappoint and let me down just as the boys father did in the film. it was quite a tearjerker of a film from what I remember.

@theblackradiator oh yes, that does sound sad. Must have been a relief to find out what it was, and maybe doesn't need watching again, it served its purpose at the time, to make you feel less alone in that situation.

I wish you luck in the search for your book. Don't forget to check in the charity shops, second hand book shops/stalls etc you never know you might just come across it one day. shame about the decline of local libraries there used to be a fantastic one near me where I used to borrow fantastic local history books written by local residents who grew up in the area in the late victorian/Edwardian era I'd love to re-read some of these books but they are not available anywhere unfortunately.

OP as it was so long ago, do you think you might be mixing up books a bit?

Yes and memory can play strange tricks. I read Rachel Kelly’s book Black Rainbow about her nervous breakdown when it came out 2014 and then reread it very recently.
I clearly remembered that her second episode of depression happened at her Christmas party, and also that she went to a different psychiatrist to the one she’d been treated by during her first breakdown. I could’ve sworn that’s what happened.
However, she was in Paris when she became ill for the second time, and she did go back to the same psychiatrist.
Anyway, I hope you find the book - I’m now invested in it!

It doesn't fit exactly but your description made me think of A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore.
It includes PND and a baby close to water.

Thanks, but that was published later than the book I'm after

Could it be August is a Wicked Month by Edna OBrien? Can't remember much about it but a child dies in it.

It's not that one, but thanks 😊

Sounds a bit like Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson.

A map of the world by Jane hamilton?

Thanks for the suggestions, but it's none of these. 🙏