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Shakopee, Minn. (AP) ― It's a question Naomi Gaines has grown used to: How could she do it?

Gaines threw her 14-month-old twin sons and herself off St. Paul's Wabasha Street Bridge into the Mississippi River in July 2003. She and one son were rescued; the other drowned.

Now serving a 33-year prison sentence at the women's state prison in Shakopee, Gaines says the answer is a complex one that in no small part includes her long struggle with severe bipolar disorder.

"It's very complicated," Gaines, 26, said in her first media interview, with the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "Mostly, people ask me what went wrong that day, and I say it wasn't just that day. It was an accumulation of things over time. That day was just the straw that broke the camel's back ... I think, I know, that was the worst day of my life."

Not far away, 3-year-old Supreme Knowledge Allah awakes from nightmares as often as three times a week. He hasn't yet asked about what happened to him, said his father, Khalid Allah, who is raising the boy.

"He doesn't talk about his mom," Allah, 25, told the newspaper. "But he talks about moms. He talks about his friends' moms. And when we go to the zoo, he'll say: 'That's the mom giraffe, and that's the baby giraffe. That's the mommy ducky, and that's the baby ducky."'

The last two years have seen hard times for the father and his son. Allah lost his job during the 2004 bus strike, and the two were homeless for more than a year, moving between the homes of family and friends and ultimately into a shelter. More recently, Allah obtained a full-time job and the two recently settled into a small one-bedroom apartment.

"I want him to live a regular life," Allah said of his son. "Food, clothing, shelter, friends. A good school. Just be a kid. I'll do all the stressing and breaking my back, and he will get to smile and do whatever he wants to do."

Gaines, who will be eligible for supervised release in about 10 years, said she agreed to speak publicly because she wants to call attention to the issue of mental illness.

A psychiatrist who evaluated Gaines testified during her sentencing in 2004 that she suffered from severe bipolar disorder with psychotic overtones, and said she would always suffer from symptoms. Prosecutors acknowledged Gaines was mentally ill, but said she knew at the time of the crime that what she was doing was wrong.

Gaines said her mental state has stabilized. She takes Geodon, an anti-psychotic drug, and a sleep aid to calm her.

Gaines and Allah had ended their brief relationship before their sons, Supreme Knowledge and Sincere Understanding, were born. But Allah was in the delivery room when the boys were born, picked their unusual names and remained involved in their lives.

As the months went on, though, Gaines said she felt increasingly overwhelmed and worried. The mother of two older children, ages 4 and 9, Gaines' family said her illness worsened every time she had a child.

"I didn't really understand a lot about it because I wasn't told a lot about it," says Gaines. "I was told, 'Oh, it's just hormones, you've had so many kids, and you've depleted your body of hormones, just a case of the baby blues, you'll get better.' I never got the help that I needed."

On July 4, 2003, Gaines took the boys to a family picnic; her other children were with their father in Chicago. She recalls feeling "really hopeless and helpless" and "depressed and scared." She tried not to let it show, not wanting her family to worry.

That night, Gaines took the twins to Taste of Minnesota, the Independence Day festival along the Mississippi Riverfront in downtown St. Paul.

"I felt really overwhelmed with the thoughts I was having of the significance of that day, what I felt not just for me, but the rest of the world," she says. "I felt that the end had come, like it says in Revelations, when all the love will be taken out of the world ... to counteract my thoughts, I felt I needed to find a friendly face who would prove otherwise, who would prove it wasn't that day."

She said she couldn't find the friendly face.

She would later tell police she pushed the boys' stroller onto the bridge and threw each of them the 75 feet into the water, then jumped in herself. Bystanders were able to save Gaines and Supreme, but Sincere was swept away.

Allah was also at the Taste of Minnesota that night, with friends. He'd heard a woman had jumped from a bridge into the river, but it wasn't until several hours later that his uncle reached him with the terrible news.

"I don't even know what words to use," Allah said. "I was blank, dead, a zombie. I couldn't get up. I couldn't do anything. I had no breath."

But he had his son. The boy spent several days in the hospital but was physically fine.

Allah has not spoken to Gaines since their son died.

"If Supreme wants to talk to her someday, he can," Allah said. "But I don't have nothing to say. In a way, I feel sorry for her. But I think she knew what she was doing. I honestly don't think she got enough time ... She should serve life."

Allah, the son of a Lutheran minister and a federal government employee, said he and Supreme got through a tough year of being homeless with help from friends, family and a caring social worker. He's trying to get a car so the two don't have to rely on public transportation, and hopes to finish technical school and find a union job, perhaps as a plumber. In his current job as a chef at a chain restaurant, he earns $8.75 an hour and has no health benefits.

Since his brother's death, Supreme has taken on some of Sincere's qualities, Allah said, becoming more outgoing and displaying a bigger appetite.

"My uncle, he was real close to the twins," Allah said. "He says twins are one spirit in two bodies. He thinks they're combined now in Supreme."

In prison, Gaines stays busy with a housekeeping job. She reads, writes and takes classes, and talks daily to her older children, who are being raised by her sister in the Twin Cities.

Gaines hears about Supreme from her sister, who maintains contact with Allah and the boy. Gaines said she hopes to see Supreme again one day, but will remain respectful of Allah's feelings.

In the meantime, she is writing letters to Supreme that she sends to her mother for safekeeping, should he ever want to read them.

"I'll let him know that I love him and that I was very sick that day and before that day; otherwise, I would have never tried to hurt him or his brother, and I hope someday he can forgive me."

(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)