Baby Blues : Postpartum Depression Triggered Mother's Descent
Into Suicide   NEWPORT BEACH — Late on a Friday afternoon in
September, Victoria Karter walked into the Four Seasons Hotel,
declined the offer of a fourth-floor room and took one instead
on the 19th floor.  A tall, dark-haired woman with an angular
face, Karter, 33, carried a garment bag as well as a purse. She
stayed in the room only about one hour, but it was long enough
to leave cigarettes snuffed out in ashtrays and to put a ring of
lipstick around the neck of the Jack Daniels liquor bottle she
brought with her. Long enough, too, to make a final telephone
call.  The call was intended for Kathy Boone, a woman who had
been Karter's friend for more than 20 years. But because Boone
wasn't there, Karter talked to Virginia Rivera, Boone's mother
and a woman who considered Karter a member of her own family.
Karter told Rivera what she had been telling Boone since soon
after the birth of her first child 4 1/2 months earlier: She
wanted to commit suici