Perinatal Mental Health
Support through pregnancy, postpartum, fertility, loss, and the transition to motherhood.
The journey into motherhood can hold joy, grief, anxiety, uncertainty, and enormous change - sometimes all at once.
Whether you're trying to conceive, navigating pregnancy, recovering from a difficult birth, adjusting to life postpartum, or finding yourself changed by motherhood, therapy can provide a space to process what you're experiencing and reconnect with yourself.
You don't have to wait until things feel unbearable to ask for support.
The transition to motherhood changes more than you might expect.
Becoming a mother can shift your identity, relationships, body, priorities, and sense of self. Even when motherhood is deeply wanted, the transition can feel complicated.
You may love your baby and still miss parts of your old life. You may feel grateful and overwhelmed. You may wonder why something you wanted so badly doesn't feel the way you expected it to.
Therapy offers space for all of those experiences to coexist—without judgment or pressure to feel a certain way.
Perinatal Therapy Can Support You Through
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Trying to grow your family can bring uncertainty, disappointment, grief, and a feeling that so much is outside of your control. Therapy can offer support as you navigate fertility challenges, treatment decisions, waiting, loss, and the emotional impact the process can have on your identity and relationships.
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Pregnancy can bring excitement alongside anxiety, fear, physical changes, relationship shifts, and uncertainty about what lies ahead. For some women, pregnancy can also bring previous experiences or anxieties to the surface. Therapy can provide space to prepare emotionally for this transition while supporting you through what you're experiencing now.
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Miscarriage, pregnancy loss, and reproductive grief can be deeply painful and isolating. There is no single way to experience or grieve a loss. Therapy can provide space to process your experience, honor your grief, navigate relationships, and make room for the complicated emotions that may accompany decisions about trying again.
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Sometimes birth doesn't unfold the way you hoped or expected. A difficult, frightening, or medically complicated birth can leave you feeling disconnected, anxious, angry, grieving, or unable to stop replaying what happened.
When appropriate, EMDR therapy can be incorporated into our work to help process distressing birth or reproductive experiences.
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The postpartum period can bring enormous physical, emotional, relational, and identity changes. You may be experiencing anxiety, intrusive thoughts, depression, overwhelm, perfectionism, guilt, difficulty trusting yourself, changes in your relationships, or simply wondering where you fit into your new life. Therapy can help you make sense of this transition while creating space for your needs alongside the needs of your family.
You Can Love Motherhood and Still Find It Hard
Motherhood doesn't have to be either wonderful or difficult.
You can be grateful for your family and miss your independence. You can love your child and feel overwhelmed by caregiving. You can be a deeply engaged mother and still need time, space, identity, relationships, and interests that belong to you.
Part of our work may involve exploring the expectations you've carried about motherhood, the pressure you place on yourself, and how to make room for you as a person - not only you as a mother.
Perinatal Anxiety & Depression
Anxiety and depression during pregnancy and postpartum can look different for everyone.
You might notice persistent worry, racing thoughts, irritability, sadness, difficulty relaxing, feeling disconnected, intrusive thoughts, guilt, perfectionism, or a sense that you're not quite yourself.
You don't need to determine whether what you're experiencing is “normal” or whether it meets a particular diagnosis before reaching out. We can start with what you're experiencing and what you need.
My Approach to Perinatal Therapy
My approach is warm, collaborative, and individualized. Therapy isn't about telling you how you should parent, feel, or move through this season.
Instead, we'll make space for your experience and explore the patterns, relationships, expectations, and past experiences that may be influencing how you feel today.
Depending on your needs, I integrate traditional talk therapy with EMDR, mindfulness, and body-based approaches to support both emotional processing and greater nervous-system awareness.
Your Postpartum Support Plan
Prepare for life after baby with a free, practical guide to planning for rest, emotional wellbeing, everyday help, and support from the people around you.
Free fillable PDF • Print or complete digitally
Perinatal Therapy in Cleveland & Throughout Ohio
I am a Cleveland-based psychotherapist with specialized training in perinatal mental health, offering virtual therapy to women throughout Ohio.
I support clients through fertility, pregnancy, pregnancy loss, birth trauma, postpartum mental health concerns, motherhood, and the many identity and relationship transitions that can accompany growing a family.
Ready to Get Started?
You don't need to have everything figured out before reaching out.
I offer a complimentary 15-minute consultation where we can talk briefly about what you're experiencing, what you're looking for in therapy, and whether working together feels like a good fit.
Virtual therapy available throughout Ohio.