Emotional Support for Infertility & Miscarriage

Seeking mental health treatment with me is an important step in taking care of yourself through this strenuous process. There are many tools I will teach you to help better manage anxiety, fear and depression in this phase of your life. In weekly therapy, you can count on receiving the care and collaboration you’re craving when coping with the psychological toll of infertility and/or miscarriage.

My journey with infertility

I struggled with unexplained infertility for about 4 years, as well as a miscarriage. It was exhausting. It was scary. It was beyond frustrating. The mental and physical stamina involved with incessant medical appointments, myriad of medications, tracking your cycle, and trying to stay hopeful and open-minded is grueling. Managing disappointment after disappointment. Dealing with apathetic medical staff. Enduring physical discomfort and pain. Spending so much time, energy, and money, and often with no results. It is a massive feat and frequently doesn’t feel worth it.

How Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) Can Help

We will use Acceptance & Commitment Therapy to help you manage the painful emotions and unwelcome reality of infertility. Teaching you new skills to manage these difficult feelings and learning how to accept things out of your control will be a key part of the counseling I provide. Additionally, pulling on my own experience, I can provide real compassion, empathy, and validation to emotionally support you through this process.

A large number of my clients in therapy are going through egg freezing, IVF & other fertility procedures, recovering from miscarriage, or dealing with some version of infertility. They have found the perspective and skills offered in ACT to be very helpful in grappling with uncertainty, hopelessness, and feeling alone or “broken”.

Get the support and care you deserve through psychotherapy with me as you confront the challenges of infertility.

Coping with IVF & Fertility Procedures

IVF & fertility procedures take a massive toll on our body and minds (and wallets). Many times rounds of treatment are unsuccessful and the emotional roller coaster can be excruciating. Because our cycles are typically around 30 days, there is a lot of waiting involved with fertility procedures. Constantly wondering if our treatment is working takes up a lot of brain capacity. Sitting with this kind of uncertainty and stress for days and weeks is insanely tough.

The Timeline

Timing ovulation, tracking your period, scheduling sex, taking pregnancy tests, going in for blood draws, medical appointments several times a week, following complex medication regimens, and then of course the daily injections. Your normal life gets put on hold. Vacation plans altered. Lifestyle completely adjusted.

There are lots of time sensitive decisions as well: repeat a treatment cycle? try for another embryo? experiment with a new medication? postpone a procedure? consider surrogacy? adoption? give up? It’s enough to make you want to crawl into bed and hide.

Aging & Fertility

And then there’s the topic of aging and deciding when to start fertility treatments. Because our childbearing years are limited, this naturally creates pressure to get pregnant by a certain age. But a lot of the time we are not in a place in life where we’re ready to have kids yet. And the longer we wait, the more the pressure builds, and the uncertainty of getting pregnant naturally looms over us.

Psychotherapy to help you cope

Therapy provides a space to discuss how incredibly hard all of this can be and talk through options for your future. Find new ways to maneuver your way through the emotional pain. Get support for the ups and downs of fertility treatment. I create an environment for you to be open and honest about how annoying and devastating all this can be. We will discuss the ambivalence you might feel about continuing these fatiguing procedures. I’m also here for those who discover that having their own children is no longer an option for them.